Jim DeMint was pushing this idea on Michael Medved was encouraging him on (Sorry, I don’t trust Medved, who is overtly pro illegal immigration). The pointless posturing coming from Washington is getting bizarre. I’m really thinking the only answer is to call for a Constitutional Convention, but that has as much chance as changing the National Anthem for many of the same reasons.
DeMint is a US Senator. He knows every step in the process in the Consttitutution without needing a pocket Constitution. He knows what he is proposing will never happen. He’s feeding meat to the angry dogs snarling at him, but not looking for an actual answer.
He is pushing the idea that the Debt Ceiling will be raised, but only with the contingency that Congress pass a Balanced Budget amendment. The Treasury will sell all the bonds, then nothing will pass. You can’t unraise the debt limit.
Just a quick review – there are two ways an Amendment can be proposed – by the states or by Congress. Congress can’t force States to call a Constitutional Convention, so DeMint is talking about Congress introducing the amendment.
That requires a 2/3 majority in both houses. Note that this is an exception where the President doesn’t have a say. There is not Presidential veto available, and he has no vote to stop an amendment from being adopted.
So DeMint is hoping to pressure an additional 16 Democratic Senators into agreeing to vote for something they are totally opposed to. If you let the Democrats control the language, it won’t come out anything like you wanted – it would probably have language requiring automatic tax increases without a vote of Congress to force a balanced budget.
Once proposed, the Balanced Budget Amendment would have to be approved by 3/4 of the States – or 38 States – that’s not possible without Democratic party support – or a wholesale purging of state Legislatures (we can hope!)
So what did the Balanced Budget Amendment say the last time this ploy was tried near an election? What were the “escape clauses” to make it meaningless if it did pass? You may remember that this was one of the items in Newt Gringrich’s “Contract with America” – to “have a vote” on an amendmnt. The result was 300-132 in favor in the house in favor, and then failed by “one vote” in the US Senate – 65-35 (Votes are usually staged so that some who would have voted No but were up for reelection vote Yes – but only because there were 35 solid No votes)
So what did that proposed amendment actually say?
- Actual Expenditures cannot exceed revenue for a fiscal year – unless 3/5 of both houses of Congress say they don’t want to enforce the limit
- The Debt limit could only be raised with a 3/5 vote of both houses
- The President’s proposed budget must be balanced [and immediately ignored by Congress]
- All bills to increase revenue must be done by a rolecall vote
- If there is a declaration of war in effect the restriction doesn’t apply, or there is a military conflict less than war and both houses have a majority vote
- The “balanced” budget can be based on estimates of future revenue and expenditures
- Money put into the Trust funds count as receipts for purposes of the “balanced budget”
- It wouldn’t take effect until 2002 at the earliest (the vote was in 1995)
So it was completely meaningless, even if the States had passed it. With the War in Iraq right now, a simple majority of Congress could vote to waive the requirement.
The most important thing to understand about contracts are they are worth no more than the integrity of the person writing them. If you enter into a contract with a person you know you can’t trust, you’re a fool if you think a court will save you from bad decisions.