The Balanced Budget Amendment
House Committee on the Budget
Congressional Record—U.S. House of Representatives
February 4, 1997
The social, corporate, and monetary interventionists have come
forth with balanced budget language allowing them to retain
power and control while, at the same time, increasing their likeli-
hood of re-election at the hands of their constituents who, by more
than 80 percent, favor passage of a balanced budget amendment.
One must wonder why anyone would take such an amendment
by Congress seriously. There can be no reasonable expectation that
a Congress, which flagrantly circumvents the existing limitations
on governmental power contained in the first ten amendments to
the very same Constitution, would adhere to provisions of any
amendment purporting to balance the federal budget. In its first
meeting this session, this very Congress voted to suspend the
fourth amendment as it enacted a House Rule to allow drug test-
ing of Congressional personnel.
However, even if Congress would adhere to the plain language
of such an amendment, no language has yet been put forth which
would genuinely prohibit various interventionist factions from
moving the nation further down its current path of fiscal demise.
The monetary interventionists offer amendment language
which allows circumvention of the deficit restrictions by Congress
“in case of recession.” This policy, based in the now-discredited
Keynesian paradigm under which governments borrow and
spend their way out of their own prior inflation-induced reces-
sions, serves as no real justification for amendment circumvention.
Similarly, the social interventionists propose language which
“herds” socially-sacred cows to the off-budget “pasture.” Rather
than acknowledge the irrefutable notion that subsidization of non-
productivity begets more nonproductivity, new “social experi-
ments” changing only a minor variable or two, are implemented
which do little more than increase the number of recipients ever
more dependent upon programs ultimately destined to fail.
Lastly, the corporate interventionists proffer language to
excuse Congress from a balanced budget not only during periods
of “declared war” but even during periods when the United States
is engaged in “military conflicts.” The taxpayers’ realization of the
true cost of war is one of the soundest checks on government’s pol-
icy to police the world. Instead, governments have historically
resorted to use of the monetary printing presses and excessive bor-
rowing to sidestep this vital form of political pressure.
Conspicuously absent from all proposed language are words
necessary to address the real issue. The real issue is excessive
growth, spending, and taxation by a Congress which has long
ignored the already-existing, Constitutionally-imposed limits con-
tained in the Bill of Rights.
Rather than adding yet another of what have become meaning-
less amendments to a Congressionally-diluted Constitution; an
amendment which is only remotely prudent because protective
provisions of the Bill of Rights have been ignored over time when
politically convenient; let us instead acknowledge the limitations
already placed on the federal government’s power, and conse-
quently, government’s level of spending and borrowing.
