The Right Scoop- Stevendufresne
20% of GDP? That’s too high! Revenues are always around 17% to 19% at most. We need spending to be reduced to below revenues in order to pay off our national debt. We need to develop a savings mentality to replace our deficit mentality. With that change in thinking, we can begin to prefund programs, especially long-term spending programs like the entitlements for seniors. So I would want spending capped at 16%-18% of GDP. With that said, there is no evident restriction on reducing government in this amendment and it seems that this merely sets an upper bound. Nonetheless we need a long-term sustainable balance by setting spending at an appropriate level to fund our nation’s priorities without borrowing from future generations.
- http://twitter.com/ozziecastillo Ozzie Castillo
I can understand the point that the Senator is making and I can see where they feel limited in what they can pass in the Senate-
I will give them the benefit of the doubt because baby steps are necessary to get things to the desk of the POTUS, considering the Senate is controlled by the Dems.
However, I will add that the Hatch does not sounds trustworthy and it seemed like Levin was taking it a little easy for the same reason others [on either side] do.
- Rich
Guys, this isn’t a baby step. It’s a constitutional ammendment. It’s as large of a step as one can take.
- Rich
Guys, this isn’t a baby step. It’s a constitutional ammendment. It’s as large of a step as one can take.
- Rich
Guys, this isn’t a baby step. It’s a constitutional ammendment. It’s as large of a step as one can take.
- Kevin
Whoever told you on HotAir that a 3/4 majority in the U.S. House is required for amendments is wrong. It is 2/3, just like the Senate.
- http://www.therightscoop.com/ therightscoop
I doubled checked. Check this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Five_of_the_United_States_Constitution
- KeninMontana
While an amendment to the US Constitution requires passage by a two thirds majority in congress as well as in each of the state legislatures to pass it also requires that three quarters of the states pass it. That is where the three quarters comes in.
- Anonymous
“It prohibits revenue raising measures (like increasing taxes) that are not approved by two thirds of both the House and Senate.”
This is an idiotic thing to include in a balanced budget amendment and it seems to amount to little more than a backdoor introduction of what the Republicans have been trying to do since 1994 (although it was 3/5 then. I guess they’ve felt emboldened since then?). If you want to propose a balanced budget amendment, that’s fine, lay it out and see how it goes, but to slip something like this into it – at least as far as I’m concerned – seriously undermines the whole “tireless watchdogs of fiscal responsibility” banner under which they’re making this proposition.
As to why it’s idiotic…
Note that it comes along with this…
“Provisions can be waived if there is a formal declaration of war or if the US is engaged in a military conflict constituting a threat to national security *or if two thirds of both the House and the Senate approve.*”
1) If you want to balance a budget, particularly ours, you have to find the appropriate balance of spending cuts and revenue generation, and given the makeup of our legislature, what this provision does is effectively remove one half of that equation from the table. It’s like handing a 12 year old a copy of King Lear and telling him to summarize it while simultaneously forbidding him from using a dictionary.
2) Given that we’re pretty much never going to be able to get 2/3 of the legislature on board with raising any taxes on anyone for the foreseeable future, and it’s pretty much a certainty that, given rising healthcare costs + the aging of the baby boomers and our seemingly perpetual wars – not to mention the fact that the US has, by international standards, *extremely* low taxes, we’re not going to be able to balance the budget only by cutting spending, the legislature will opt to allow for deficits over tax increases. So then what problem are we solving?A balanced budget amendment, in theory, is actually something I’d be willing to support if executed properly. This proposed amendment, however, caps federal spending at an unrealistically low level (we all realize that it’s been over 20% pretty much since the 70s, right?) and institutes a permanent-tax-rate-freeze-by-default at a point when we seriously need to examine our tax structure.
If we’re going to put something into our constitution, we should at least try to make it an objective measure created in a bipartisan manner rather than a clearly partisan attempt to institute changes that have been thus far unsuccessful in the legislature.
On the bright side, the chances of this amendment passing are somewhere between 0% and 0%.
Mark Levin had Orrin Hatch on his radio show to talk about the newly proposed Balanced Budget Amendment by himself and John Cornyn. Levin fully supports it and says that it is fundamental to putting us on the right fiscal path. Hatch describes what this newly proposed amendment will actually do:
- Its mandates that total budgetary outlays for any fiscal year not exceed total revenues unless you have a two thirds vote to overturn it.
- It caps federal spending at 20% of GDP.
- It requires the President to submit a balanced budget to Congress every fiscal year.
- It prohibits revenue raising measures (like increasing taxes) that are not approved by two thirds of both the House and Senate.
- Provisions can be waived if there is a formal declaration of war or if the US is engaged in a military conflict constituting a threat to national security or if two thirds of both the House and the Senate approve.
There are Republican Senators who want to cap spending at around 17% or 18% but Hatch argues that it likely won’t pass if it’s that low. He believes 20% is a reasonable number that will appeal to the 20 or so Democrats needed to get this through the Senate and into the House. Once it passes there it will go to the states where it will need a two thirds majority, but Hatch is very optimistic that now is the time for this amendment to pass. He’s been working on getting it passed for over three decades.
Noting the spending cap in the amendment, Mark Levin added this via email:
I would prefer the GDP level set at 17%. But 20% is better than 25% and the other provisions of the amendment are very important as well. I believe we really need to get behind this.
Note: Despite the stated length of the video, the audio stops around 6:15. Also this is an edited version of Levin’s interview with Hatch as the full interview went over 12 minutes.
- http://twitter.com/ozziecastillo
- http://www.therightscoop.com/
Comment Policy: Please read our new comment policy before making a comment. In short, please be respectful of others and do not engage in personal attacks. Otherwise we will revoke your comment privileges.