The amendment the Republicans are pushing would still leave tax increases theoretically possible, but anything that requires a 2/3 supermajority is, realistically, politically impossible. Cutting spending, meanwhile, is already politically impossible, since the party most in favor of spending cuts is also intransigently opposed to any actual spending cuts.
And yet, both versions (so far as I am aware) require a supermajority to increase the debt limit. Seriously? After bringing the country to the brink of economic collapse, who the hell can defend such an insane provision?
Some interesting thoughts in the FirstRead column at MS-DNC
This one especially hit home
(emphasis mine)
But we would have to so as to not violate the Constitution. That’s the whole reason the GOP wants to pass it. They agree with your assessment of the political impossibility of restoring fiscal sanity without a BBA.
Nobody, save for the loony goons of the TP. Which may be the whole point. They are being offered a sop, an aspirational device which cannot actually happen. Are they dumb enough to buy it? Maybe, maybe not, but it doesn’t hurt to offer it to them.
Sure. But what does that matter. I was under the impression that they were to be scouring the budget for cuts, not rehashing the same argument for tax increases v. spending cuts. That will almost ensure a 6-6 split or start some of the same horsetrading that we have now.
This has been one of the most disgusting political displays I have ever seen. Holding the debt limit, and our economic security, hostage was tantamount to treason in my book.
For everybody that’s finding fault; are you just ignoring the fact that tomorrow is August 2nd?
Even without tax increases, they could roll the GOP caucus by proposing revenue-neutral tax reform that shifts the middle-class burden upward (e.g. changing the Social Security “all income up to $X” ceiling to an “all income above $Y” floor).
Me. Someday the crack addict, in order to recover, has to get to the point where he buys no more crack. In the same way the government has shown that it can’t run itself on what it takes in. It needs to be forced to balance the books (not this year or next year, but years into the future).
And if you had a balanced budget amendment where a simply majority of Congress could vote to increase the debt limit, what exactly did the amendment do? It would be illusory at best. It would say, “You must balanced the budget unless Congress votes not to do so.” You may as well say we have that now.
Well, yeah, but you were talking about how Boehner is “selling the deal to the GOP caucus as ‘no tax increases’ when there very well could be some coming from the commission.” So long as he confines himself to true statements about how there will be no tax increases unless a Republican agrees to 'em, he’s correct, right?
Why must we balance the books? Please tell me.
I don’t want to hijack the thread, but in other threads people have pointed out how grossly unfair that is. You pay tax on the first 90+k of income and you get benefits on your first 90+k of income.
To be fair, when Bill Gates pays SS tax on all of his income, can he count on a pension check in the hundreds of thousands per month when he retires?
If not, then you’ve just turned social security into another government teat suckling, wealth redistribution program.
There’s no mention of a tax increase (i.e. legislation that would cause taxes to be higher than they would otherwise be) in that story.
There already is a “tax increase”, its the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. All the Dems have to do is unpack it. Offer tax cuts to the middle and lower economic strata, which has the advantage of be stimulatory.
Then let the Republicans run on lowering taxes for the rich and cutting SS and Medicare.
Another, less plausible scenario: offer to totally gut Medicare and replace it with a single-payer plan. Save a ton of money. That’s what they want, right, save a ton of money?
When the right hands you lemons, get your engineers to make them incendiary lemons.
When do they expire? End of 2012, maybe? I think the GOP has plenty of time to find another issue they can get the Dems to blink first on before that. Heck, look at all the posts here on the SDMB about how nobody ever used a raise-the-debt-ceiling vote as leverage before; why not figure they’ll find another new and unprecedented way to play chicken for the win? Isn’t that what they do?
How well do you think that has worked for them? If this is such a great victory for them, why aren’t they gloating? That is definitely what they do!
Mandatory balanced budgets aren’t fiscal sanity. They’re fiscal insanity. They require governments to cut spending or raise taxes during recessions, which is the worst time to do either.
Now, if you could figure out some way to make it mandatory to balance the budget against some sort of baseline revenue predicated on current tax rates and a long term average for economic activity weighted for inflation, then you might have something. That would force the government to cut spending during boom years and allow them some slack in down years. Good luck finding a formula that would be acceptable to the blind and deaf chimpanzees in the Tea Party, though.
At a minimum, gloating before the bill passes could be a mistake.
That said, remember their predicament: they’re going to need cover with the unsatisfied Tea Party types. Some of 'em will probably vote against it to claim they were unsatisfied and holding out for more; some of 'em will sell it as a reluctant vote for the best they could get – as soon as you gloatingly spell out that you got everything you wanted, you become vulnerable to a challenge from someone who can play to the base by claiming he would’ve held out for more.
Budgeting and the issuance of debt are separate matters. You can have a budget that is completely balanced in terms of revenue and outlays, and still need to issue debt.
Case in point: the Social Security Trust Fund. The government has to issue debt in order for there to be a trust fund. Congress can approve a budget that has a surplus, but the need to issue debt to insure that surpluses from FICA taxes actually get invested in a safe place will require the issuance of debt.
So, whether you mean it or not, what you’re proposing is that Social Security be dismantled and its solvency eliminated unless a supermajority of Congress agrees to continue the system that’s been in place and a massive success for the better part of a century.