Tex Talk: the Balanced Budget Amendment
Posted: Tuesday, October 05, 2010
by Tex Norman
http://cowboys-and-tea-parties.blogspot.com/2010/09/balanced-budget-amendment-movement.html
The Cowboys and Tea Parties are pushing a BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT. The site contains the following sentence:
Please take a minute to learn why we are undertaking the BBA campaign.
America faces a threat from within that endangers our way of life - the government's excessive spending deficits and debt.
The problem is that I did not find a single tab that spoke to the pros of having a balanced budget amendment.
The Balanced Budget Amendment is not a new idea. Actually there was a Balanced Budget Amendment that passed the House in 1995 at a vote of 300 to 132. The BBA failed in the Senate with a vote of 65 to 35.
Sometimes we hear that the Congress and White House support a "pay as you go," method of legislation. This would mean that new spending would only be approved if it could be paid for without running up additional debt. The talk is there, but it isn 't being followed.
The rationale I hear most about a Balanced Budget is that we (the people) can't run our home budgets that way, and the government should spend in a manner similar to the way families spend. The implication is that we the people LIVE WITHIN OUR INCOME and so should the government.
If a Balanced Budget Amendment was law, then it would be a violation of the law to approve a budget that was not balanced.
The second part of this movement wants to push taxation back to the levels of taxation that existed before Teddy Roosevelt's administration. But just think of the things we spend money on now that did not exist them: air conditioning of government buildings, copy machines, computers. Do tax haters really want us to conduct the people's business with pencils and carbon paper in buildings with no climate control? Do they really want to equip our military with the Pre -Roosevelt weapons. Do we want to limit the size it was in 1899? Ridiculous.
It does sound logical to expect the government to do what we the people do, live within our budget. It sounds logical, but there are two problems with this logic.
1. Very, very few of us live within our budget.
About 43% of American families spend more than they earn each year.
Average households carry some $8,000 in credit card debt.
Personal bankruptcies have doubled in the past decade.
Most of us don't live within our incomes, and there are situations that arise that are so bad that most of us would support going into debt rather than living within our income. What if you have $30 in the bank and your child has a broken arm and needs medical attention. Even if you have insurance there are co-pays. Mine is $50 per doctor visit. What should I do? Put the co-pay on my credit card, or wait until pay day which is 9 days away? I could go to the ER sure, but then I become one of the reasons the hospital has to transfer my debt to everyone else.
If children don't move you, let's say you have a job where you use your car, but the transmission goes out. Without using your credit card you don't have the money to fix it and you don't have the money to rent a car, but without the car you can't work, could be fired, and now you can't pay anything.
When we have household emergencies most of us will bit the bullet, and agree to take on enough debt to get us past this rough spot and then, when times get better, we hope to pay down that debt.
Families live outside their incomes all the time.
2. The second problem with this logic is that the government is not a family. The income of the government comes from taxation. If you want the government to live within it's budget then they have to either cut spending or increase the tax dollars they take from the citizenry. If you had the power to just force your boss to pay you more, then you could always live within your budget. If you were willing to let a child die, then you could live within your budget. Living within the budget is a goal, but it has to be a flexible goal.
Some of you may remember that during the last 4 years of the Clinton's Administration we had a balanced budget. Bush chose to cut the taxes of our richest citizenry and this ate up the balance budget and then invited in enormous debt. The rich folk tax cut that Obama wanted to let expire, would raise the richest American's tax burden back to their 1998 levels.
If we go to war, are we going to cut funding to the troops just so we can "live within the budget?" If we have another terrorist attack that costs billions to address, are we going to leave the debris where it lands because living in our budget means we just can't afford to clean up.
For me, it need not be that dramatic. I want plenty of police on the streets. I want streets where the pot holes are repaired quickly. I want schools to be free and the salaries of teacher high enough to entice the very best possible educators. I want our military to have armored vehicles and state of the art weapons. I want a system in place to protect children from abuse and neglect, I want a safety net in place to protect old people from abuse and neglect.
PS: I want these things MORE than I want a balanced budget. I'm willing to work toward a balanced budget, but I can't accept a rule that would require us to cut services that are essential to a safe healthy citizenry.
This Article has been viewed 871 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)I think the problem is Tex that our government has bought so much into the idea of living on credit that it's never going to bottom out, but it does. Having to re-assess what is needed and what is not in order to pay for what is necessary isn't a bad idea. As individuals we end up declaring bankruptcy which makes others pay for our living outside our means by higher prices and interest. When a country goes bankrupt what happens then? Who is going to bail them out of it?Comparing a family budget to the United States budget is a lot like comparing amoeba anatomy to human anatomy. There are so many differences that it just becomes a useless exercise. The US is still the richest and most powerful nation on earth. We are a long way from bankrupt.
I don't understand enough about the American budget, but I think what you say makes good sense, Tex.U wiykd gyess a oersib ciykd get a PHD on the US Budget and still not really understand it all.
Forget about a balanced budget...how about the unnecessary spending...
To use your analogy above....instead of taking the child to the doctor...they buy a garden hose instead...it is the irresponsible spending...that angers me.
Like this new law that all cities now need to comply with by the end of 2011 regarding universal road signs be put in place..just because some street names have all capital letters. In our city it will cost 1.4 million to comply...while our school system just went bankrupt....the City can not afford this burden but now needs to comply to this new piece of legislation....and on the other hand...the city just shut down 4 more schools due to lack of funding...
To use your analogy above again....a family does not provide themselves with an emergency fund because they have to buy the latest gadgets..or the best name brand shoes or designer cloths...to keep up with the "Jones" when what they do have can be sufficient....it is wasteful spending in the day to day lives that makes us reach for the credit card way too often....
Just as with the government....it is the unnecessary spending and wastefulness that creates a deficit. You read the headlines in the papers all the time...a bunch of lawmakers are flown in a private jet and put up at a fancy resort and are served lobster, steak and champagne...on the tax payers dollar...
What needs to be addressed is the wasteful spending...not balancing the budget...fix the hole in the bucket first before you ever think about putting water in the pail again....
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.