Is it about time for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the constitution?

Simply declaring that the budget must be balanced is useless. The question is -how-. And notice how when politicians blather about balancing the budget, they never SAY how.

Reagan and the Bushes took the coward's way out. They insisted we could balance the budget by spending -more- and taxing -less-. Nobody had to give up anything, and everyone got a big tax break, and the budget would be balanced. This idea was a spectacular failure under Reagan but apparently it was just such an attractive idea that Republicans aren't ready to give it up! Well into the Iraq War, Bush's people were talking about another big tax cut to stimulate the economy to reduce budget deficits!

And we had a law--Gramm Ruddman Hollings--that mandated a balanced budget unless Congress passed a bill declaring an 'emergency'. Congress passed that bill easily for every single year the law was in effect.

Ironically, Bill Clinton was the only president in 50 years who actually worked to make govt. smaller and cut spending. And if you make less than about $250,000, Clinton was the only president who cut YOUR taxes. He had us well on the way to a balanced budget when GW Bush came into office and wasted no time undoing his good work.

I'm a Democrat with commonsense and while it would be nice it's flawed. Sometimes it's necessary to spend a little beyond our means emergencies do happen but what's

going on now is just plain ridiculous.

Tax cuts and outrageous spending? Makes no sense.

Fine have a military budget $550 billion and let the folks who cheerfully voted for it foot the bill there's no such thing as a free lunch but in essence that's what they were looking for.

They may want to question the price tag and necessity of some of those toys also. For instance a $1.2 billion airplane? You now the one that crashed in Guam a few weeks back.

That 1 plane could have built a lot of schools or gotten $200 eyeglasses for 6 million people and the miitary would still be left with $549 billion. Why not 5-10 bombers at $50 to $200 million apiece?

The magnitude is staggering and no one questions what this money is buying. I'm sure if people knew the price tag of some of this stuff they might have something to say about it.

Instead they attack a social program that pales in comparison. Even if they reduced the military by $50 billion that still leaves $500 billion. That's still a lot of money but a lot of schools could have been built, roads maintained music and science programs reinstated.

Again the military has a $550 billion budget and no one asked what they bought.

World history shows, that debt and devaluation of currency is a HUGE THREAT TO A SUPERPOWER.

We defeated the Russians by not fighting them in one battle. Getting them to devour themselves through purchasing millions of arms for war that was never going to be fought was the most effective way of defeating them.

Now, al-qaeda, Russia, China and others have us at it. What is the breaking point. What happens in a couple of years when the American nation owes more money to national debt, than the sum of all the goods and services it produces in one year.

..... No. we don't desire a balanced budget exchange, using fact then we'd now no longer have treasury bonds, which many human beings want. we've not got a spending concern; we've a revenues concern. we ought to enhance taxes on the appropriate a million%, provide up the wars, and placed human beings to paintings rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. The "deficit disaster" is truly synthetic propaganda with the aid of the GOP who had no concern in any respect elevating the debt ceiling 18 circumstances under Reagan and7 circumstances under Bush. @ ---------- No. study something of what I pronounced please. the money we spend could desire to be spent turning out to be real fee (bridges, airports, highways) and greater jobs, which might usher in greater tax revenues -- no longer for blowing stuff up, which does no longer create fee.

nope. Why? I'll explain by starting with something on which I presume we can agree unanimously:

War prevention should be one of our nation's top priorities.

[We unanimously agree on that, correct? ]

We can and should have a lively debate about how to prevent war; for example, should we...

(1) ...achieve peace through strong intelligence, skilled diplomacy, and state-of-the-art military capability?

Or, should we instead...

(2) ...hope for peace by cutting military spending to the bone, while being extra nice to everybody in the hope they'll like us in return, and therefore decide not to hurt us?

In short, how to prevent war is a healthy, worthwhile debate. What should not be up for debate is whether investing in war prevention is more important than deficit reduction or surplus worship.

Borrowing money for the necessary investments (in intelligence, diplomacy, and military capability) to prevent a global thermonuclear war was a good investment; borrowing money for the necessary investments to prevent a crippling terrorist attack and two subsequent wars would have been a good investment, too. [Anyone who thinks war in Iraq, or even Afghanistan, would have happened if 9-11 had been prevented is invited to explain that. Also: Would 9-11 have been prevented if we had just spent more money on national security? Not necessarily, because it would also have required effective strategy, coordination, and leadership; but at least one variable would have been eliminated: the diversion of money out of national security into surplus-enhancement.]

Rejecting war-prevention investments in favor of deficit reduction (or surplus worship) is not just foolhardy, green-eyeshade, myopic, politically-motivated, grandchildren-impoverishing mismanagement; it also costs many, many lives, as well as the big deficits that always accompany wars.

Focusing successfully on war prevention instead of deficit reduction yields the benefit of eliminating the big-deficit effect of wars. In other words, focusing mainly on what we get for the money (war prevention) ends up costing less than foolishly focusing mainly on the money. Ironic, isn't it?

It would be a good thing but impossible now with the way Bush has screwed up the budget. First you would need to get out of Iraq. Second cut off all foreign aid then it would be easy to balance the budget.

Yes, i totally agree. But those who would vote-for or allow an 'audit' would be the same people being audited... sadly i doubt it would happen.

California has had one for years. Our budget still comes in late and we are billions in debt.

So it really does not matter.

Simple answer, Yes.

but, then how will the richest 2% of americans profit from the national debt?