Even as House speaker John Boehner signals a desperate desire to take whatever crumbs the Dems will throw him to avoid a government shutdown, the Senate GOP, despite its slight minority status, is doing much of the heavy ideological lifting for fiscal conservatism. And this new BBA — which would limit government spending to 18% of GDP and call for supermajority votes to raise both taxes and the debt ceiling — is the latest example:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.-Ky.) announced Thursday afternoon that all 47 Republican Senators have co-sponsored a “consensus Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” HUMAN EVENTS learned exclusively. This year’s budget deficit is projected to be $1.6 trillion, and the national debt is currently $14.1 trillion.
The key provisions of the new balanced budget amendment (BBA) are: Congress must pass a balanced budget; the President has to submit a balanced budget; spending is capped at 18% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP); “supermajority” vote (two-thirds of House and Senate) to raise taxes; and “new supermajority” vote (three-fifths of House and Senate) to raise the debt ceiling.
“We’ve been fighting to cut spending in the near-term and that’s why we’ll soon be proposing a balanced budget amendment. American families have to balance their budgets. So should their elected representatives in Washington. It’s not too much to expect that lawmakers spend no more than they take in,” McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday morning.
Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, amendments require passage by two-thirds of the House and the Senate and ratification by three-quarters (34) of the states. The House passed a BBA in 1995. In 1997, a Senate BBA failed to pass by only one vote. The 1997 BBA was supported by 11 Democrats, four of whom are still in the Senate: Max Baucus (Mont.), Tom Harkin (Iowa), Herb Kohl (Wisc.), and Mary Landrieu (La.).
[…]
The Republicans need 20 Democrats to reach the 67 vote threshold for passage. But, McConnell said Thursday morning on the Senate floor that, “Democrats are already lining up against it.” The Senate voted on a non-binding amendment for a BBA, sponsored by Lee that got a vote of 58-40, picking up 11 Democrat votes. If that test vote would be an accurate measure for vote counting, then only nine more Democrats are needed to pass a BBA this year.
Outside the U.S. Captiol on Thursday, members of the Tea Party protested against excessive government spending by Congress. Leader McConnell went to the Senate floor to defend against attacks on the Tea Party this week by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-N.V.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.).
“At a time when the national debt has reached crisis levels, members of the Tea Party are asking that we stop spending more than we take in. In other words, they’re asking that lawmakers in Washington do what any household in America already does: they want us to balance our budget,” said McConnell. “And they do this because they know their history, and that the road to decline is paved with debt.”
We’re all extremists now.
Republicans want to starve children and seniors, breath dirty air, and make the rich richer on the backs of the poor.
This amendment is their wish list toward those ends. /Democrats
Well, Lee. You pretty much nailed the democrats’ response. My question then is this: How do we reconcile such irreconcilable differences? They’re either very stupid or very disingenuous. I can’t think of another option.
Shut the gubmint down and make passing the BBA a precondition for coming to the table to negotiate reopening it.
If they won’t pass the ammendment, then let’s just have a shut-down government for the next 2 years. Go home.
Balanced Budget? That’s crazy talk. Only extemists balance their budgets. Why are you so bitterly clinging to a balanced budget?
OI, I don’t have an answer, I’ve lost hope reconciliation is possible. The Democrats in Washington now have no more common ground with my Constitutional, limited government beliefs than the old USSR.
It was economics that took down the USSR, right?
[…] “All 47 GOP Senators Co-Sponsor New Balanced Budget Amendment” (proteinwisdom.com) […]