# Alternate WWII History: The US Has a Balanced Budget Amendment **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 28, 2011, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029 "2011-10-28T00:55:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/21 "2011-10-28T20:50:24Z")
> [@saoirse](#): > > The main contribution the US made to the Soviet Union was Lend-Lease. As far as actual military operations go, I think it about 50 divisions that the western Allies tied up in North Africa, Italy and France. The real fighting was done by the Russians, but I think with out the money and equipment we gave them, it would have been a long, long ugly war. It would’ve taken a lot longer for the US to mobilize (no significant deficit-spending on the military until 1942), and all of the assistance given to other countries would’ve been too expensive until Pearl Harbor. And that’s a generous account. There weren’t fifty German divisions fighting the western allies until quite late in the war. There were, for example, only four German divisons in North Africa during the battle of El Alamein. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/22 "2011-10-28T22:11:37Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I agree with others in that every flavor of BBA that I have seen accounts for disaster provisions like war. What a BBA tries to prevent is running deficits during normal times. But when the actual fighting starts in a war, it’s too late! It takes years for production to be ramped up to needed levels, and in the meantime your troops are fighting (and probably losing) with short supplies. Note that for a year after Pearl Harbor, the surviving carriers were all ones that had been built years before. Even the first new carrier, Essex, arrived a year later, and had been started 4 years earlier, in 1938. (So you could say that the turning point of the war, at Midway island, had been won with ships built before the war started.) Had a balanced budget amendment been in force then, other programs would have had to be cut to build these ships – like relief & stimulus programs for the lingering Depression – which might not have happened. So it’s likely that many of these ships would have been delayed or not built at all. Thus the US Pacific Fleet would have been much less capable just after Pearl Harbor, and the war wouldn’t have reached a turning point in 200 days. ---
**Author:** ![RadicalPi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/radicalpi/32/9806_2.png) [@RadicalPi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadicalPi)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/23 "2011-10-28T22:57:31Z")
The government would have worked around a balanced-budget amendment. There’s no way that they wouldn’t. Either they’d do that coin thing they were talking about before, or some of the debt would be in the names of some of the states, or they’d set up dummy corporations that would be allowed to go into debt. The only way your question makes sense is “What if the United States did not have the wherewithal to fight in World War II?” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/24 "2011-10-28T23:01:25Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Star Trek treated this subject in one of the original series episodes, “The City on the Edge of Forever”. A depression-era operator of a rescue mission for the homeless rises to become a noted pacifist figure, who then convinces FDR to stay out of the war. The Nazis win; the whole course of history is changed; the United Federation of Planets never existed; and Kirk and a few others are stranded on a far-off planet of ruins with a smart-ass deranged time machine. 😛 > > (And, P.S.: I nominate that episode for the all-time best Star Trek show, at least of the original series.) And the actress who played the operator of the rescue mission? A very young Joan Collins. No Alexis, she! Of course, this is the type of MB where 90% of the posters already know that. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/25 "2011-10-28T23:17:34Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > (And, P.S.: I nominate that episode for the all-time best Star Trek show, at least of the original series.) Good choice. It won a 1968 Hugo award, and I believe the screenplay was written by Harlan Ellison (aka the little writer who sues everyone). ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/26 "2011-10-29T02:14:15Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I agree with others in that every flavor of BBA that I have seen accounts for disaster provisions like war. What a BBA tries to prevent is running deficits during normal times. I don’t think it is a very likely scenario either. But the question highlights what strong medicine a BBA really is. Usually the answer to these kinds of questions is more or less, “not much effect.” Not in this case. Sounds like a BBA can render a government pretty helpless, which makes me wonder if that is the point. What is included under ‘normal times’? What other kinds of disasters are commonly given a pass for deficit spending? Let me guess, a Medicare or Social Security shortfall doesn’t make the list. > [@](#): > > So, while I understand it is your OP and your alternate history, its such an outlandish one as to make speculation fruitless. Not for me. It is surprising how knowlegeable 'dopers can be. I’ve learned something from this. > [@](#): > > It would be almost like asking, “If, after Pearl Harbor, instead of declaring war on Japan, what if FDR firebombed Pittsburgh?” Except that if you swap Pittsburgh for Iraq we end up squarely back in historical reality. It sounds as if you believe all politicians act in the best interests of their respective nations. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2011, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/27 "2011-10-29T05:47:39Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Good choice. It won a 1968 Hugo award, and I believe the screenplay was written by Harlan Ellison (aka the little writer who sues everyone). Sort of. Ellison submitted a script but it was not accepted as written. It had a long subplot about an illegal drug ring on the Enterprise which was essentially unrelated to the main time travel story. The script was too long for an hour-long show so the regular writing staff eliminated the drug subplot. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/28 "2011-10-30T10:47:18Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I believe the screenplay was written by Harlan Ellison (aka the little writer who sues everyone). Oops. Shouldn’t have said THAT. Don’t open the door to any process servers this week… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/29 "2011-10-30T16:44:02Z")
> [@lawoot](#): > > Oops. Shouldn’t have said THAT. Don’t open the door to any process servers this week… Don’t worry. Ellison’s too busy editing _The Last Dangerous Visions_ to sue anyone. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2011, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029/30 "2011-10-30T17:04:10Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > But when the actual fighting starts in a war, it’s too late! > > It takes years for production to be ramped up to needed levels, and in the meantime your troops are fighting (and probably losing) with short supplies. > > Note that for a year after Pearl Harbor, the surviving carriers were all ones that had been built years before. Even the first new carrier, Essex, arrived a year later, and had been started 4 years earlier, in 1938. (So you could say that the turning point of the war, at Midway island, had been won with ships built before the war started.) > > Had a balanced budget amendment been in force then, other programs would have had to be cut to build these ships – like relief & stimulus programs for the lingering Depression – which might not have happened. So it’s likely that many of these ships would have been delayed or not built at all. Thus the US Pacific Fleet would have been much less capable just after Pearl Harbor, and the war wouldn’t have reached a turning point in 200 days. Fair enough, but anyone who wanted to deficit spend could always claim that. Look at those pesky North Koreans. We aren’t officially at war, but we better ramp up spending just in case! [QUOTE=Try2BComprehensive] Let me guess, a Medicare or Social Security shortfall doesn’t make the list. [/QUOTE] No. It doesn’t. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternate-wwii-history-the-us-has-a-balanced-budget-amendment/601029.md?page=1)