Le sigh. The Democratic Party should be explaining to the American people that the BBA is a bogus waste of time and a bad idea, not lending validity to the Republican Party’s backdoor attempt to shred the social safety net.
Deficit spending is vital in a recession, and during good economic times deficit spending has helped America grow and stay secure economically, socially, and even militarily.
Even economist Bruce Bartlett, a Republican and former member of both the Reagan and Bush administrations, calls the BBA “[Q]uite possibly the stupidest constitutional amendment I think I have ever seen. It looks like it was drafted by a couple of interns on the back of a napkin. Every senator cosponsoring this POS should be ashamed of themselves.”
Steve Benen, with some biting words for Republicans. In their weekly address, the GOP called on President Obama to prioritize a Balanced Budget Amendment in his upcoming jobs address. (via pantslessprogressive)
vruz: how can an electorate of consumers (as opposed to citizens) tell the difference? it’s not in the job description.
(via vruz)(via vruz)
This bill is a piece of shit; I’d rather the U.S. default than see this abortion become law. Digby’s prediction was right on the nose. — Ryking
The White House on Friday urged lawmakers to begin immediate work on a compromise to lift the debt limit after passage of a bill by Republicans in the House of Representatives it said was “dead on arrival.”
As House Republicans coalesce around a new debt ceiling plan that is even more unlikely to pass the Senate than the previous indubitably dead-on-arrival version, it’s not hard to imagine that viewers of this travesty from outside the United States are even more distraught at the dire implications of this evil clown show than those of us who live here. Europe, after all, has its own big problems — all of which will be exacerbated if the largest economy in the world suddenly devolves into fiscal chaos. Americans have been accustomed to the sight of Tea Party extremism influencing the highest levels of government policy in directions that seem economically foolish, but from across the Atlantic, where they may not have been paying quite so close attention until recently, the notion that the U.S. might just unilaterally decide not to pay its bills must seem rather odd.
And if the Senate doesn’t kill it, the White House will veto it. This utter and irresponsible waste of time has been brought to you by the GOP. — Ryking
(Source: centerforinvestigativereporting)
John Boehner is just wasting time here, pushing a bill that has been moved so far right that it simply isn’t feasible economically, let alone politically, to those (read: the overwhelming majority if Americans) who oppose the evisceration of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education, and American infrastructure funding.
From “Progressive Visions of the Constitution,” the newsletter of the Constitutional Accountability Center.
That House Republicans are insistent that the only way to solve the debt crisis is to pass a Constitutional amendment that would cap federal spending at $500 billion less than what it is now. There seems to be this belief that deficit spending is the reason America might collapse. However…
- Eisenhower built the US highway system through deficit spending
- Johnson financed both Medicare and Medicaid through deficit spending
- Nixon gave out block grants to the states for education, transportation, etc. through deficit spending
- Reagan’s entire foreign policy, including “winning the Cold War,” was built on deficit spending
The Republicans of today are either 1) naive enough to overlook the spending of some of their Party’s heroes or the actual economic implications of spending or 2) reinventing their political mantra to simply destroy anything and everything Obama.
(Source: historyintheworks)
Republicans are proposing radical changes under the popular guise of a so-called balanced-budget amendment. However, their proposed amendment is “balanced” in name only. In reality, it is a cynical attempt to rig the Constitution to favor the Republican approach to reducing the deficit.
It would write into the Constitution two mechanisms that stack the deck in favor of reducing the deficit by slashing critical investments and shredding the social safety net, while protecting special interest tax loopholes.
(Source: sarahlee310)
A sagging economy requires what we call countercyclical policy, stimulus to counter a downturn and provide a boost. The need for countercyclical policy became apparent in the 1930s, after the opposite response to economic trouble caused a dizzying collapse; its application early in Franklin Roosevelt’s presidency succeeded in pulling the United States out of the Depression (until a premature tightening in 1937-38 pulled us back down into it).
Countercyclical policy is what every industrialized country in the world employed when the credit shock hit in late 2008, to avoid a global disaster far more serious than the one we faced. Under a balanced-budget amendment, however, no countercyclical policy could emanate from Washington. Spending could not grow to combat the slump. And while the Obama stimulus did not jump-start a robust economic recovery, any objective analysis would find that absent the $800 billion stimulus, the economy would have spiraled down much further…
Even balanced-budget amendments that have a waiver for recessions are a risk because there is often a lag between a recession itself and when it is recognized. That lag could produce more inopportune bleeding.
The [Republican] amendment under consideration has its own deep flaws.
Obama officially threatens to veto GOP’s ‘cut, cap and balance’ bill
Once again the GOP is wasting time on something that doesn’t create jobs and that won’t even come to pass, and linking it to the debt ceiling. Not only is this extortion, it’s unnecessary to pass a balanced budget amendment (or BBA) to balance the budget (just ask Bill Clinton); it won’t garner the 38 states needed to ratify it, but years will be wasted in trying; if it miraculously does get 38 states to ratify it, its opponents on both sides of the aisle can easily railroad it Congress; if it doesn’t get derailed in Congress, it would require huge tax hikes that the GOP would have fits over but couldn’t avoid (which is why the same idea got shot-down in the 1980s).
We need to be able to run deficits in times of war and recession and the BBA — while containing mechanisms for a war-time override — makes it very difficult to obtain a war-time override. The BBA is a pointless and bad idea… so of course a small group of Republicans from the Tea Party wing are pushing for it, to appease their ignorant, easily manipulated base. — Ryking
Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), the Democratic whip, announced Wednesday that he’ll marshal Democratic votes against the Republicans’ balanced budget amendment when GOP leaders bring it to the floor next week.
The announcement is bad news for Republican supporters of the bill, who will need at least 48 Democratic supporters to reach the two-thirds majority in the House required to pass the measure.
“I strongly oppose Republicans’ proposed balanced budget amendment, and I will be whipping against it,” Hoyer said in a statement.
“By enshrining Republican policy priorities in the Constitution — and by making it historically difficult to raise revenue or raise the debt ceiling in order to pay our bills — the Republican amendment would impose severe hardship on millions of Americans…”
Hundreds of labor organizations, human rights promoters and other advocacy groups said earlier Wednesday they are uniting to try and kill the balanced budget amendment.
Hoyer to whip Dems against balanced budget amendment
For more on why this amendment is a bad idea, read what economist Bruce Bartlett (a Republican and former member of both the Reagan and Bush administrations) has to say about it. Also remember this: Bill Clinton was able to balance the budget in the 1990’s without a constitutional amendment requiring him to do so. — Ryking
“Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear.”
