Georgia Rep. Paul Broun offers Human Events readers a case for his version of a federal balanced budget amendment.
While I would gladly support any of the balanced budget amendments that are brought up for a vote this Congress, mine has stricter thresholds for increasing taxes, upping our budget, and obligating debt to future Congresses. My bill requires a two-thirds majority vote to raise taxes, while other bills only require three-fifths or a simple majority vote. Additionally, it is the only bill to limit spending growth of the entire budget to no more than population growth plus inflation, and it is the only bill to force the next fiscal year to account for any imbalances in the previous year’s budget.
Furthermore, it would allow for waivers in increasing spending only during an actual declaration of war. Other bills allow for waivers during military conflicts as well. Lastly, my balanced budget amendment is the only bill that would require all excess revenue at the end of a fiscal year to be returned to the American taxpayers.
As decided in the debt-ceiling negotiations, both the House and Senate are required by law to vote on a balanced budget amendment before the end of this year. The bad news is that the amendment probably won’t pass the Senate, and it is unlikely to be signed by our President. Americans need to use every means possible to communicate their support of balancing the budget to their legislators in Washington. It is not too late to fix our broken fiscal house, but we have to act now, and we absolutely must get a balanced budget amendment signed into law.
Regular readers of this forum might recall previous entries about the benefits of a balanced budget amendment.
