Balanced-Budget Amendment Fails in House

[Ausm]

The GOP-controlled House failed by 23 votes on Friday to muster the required two-thirds majority to pass a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, a legislative exercise agreed upon by both parties this summer in the deal that raised the nation’s debt ceiling and created the deficit super committee.


http://www.nationaljournal.com/supercommittee/balanced-budget-amendment-fails-in-house-20111118

 

[Lanyap]

Looks like the dems backed out.

In this highly charged partisan atmosphere, achieving the 284 votes needed for passage was a difficult road. The House has 242 Republicans and 192 Democrats, with one vacancy -- but eight members did not vote. Even if all 240 House Republicans who did vote had supported the measure, passage would have required 46 Democratic votes. In the end, only 25 Democrats backed the measure, and four Republicans voted against it.

 

[IronWing]

"Backed out" isn't accurate. They never supported it.

 

[PokerGuy]

Typical democratic stupidity:

Democratic leaders actively opposed it, arguing it could lead to sharp cuts in domestic spending

Gasp. Cuts... in spending? When we have a massive and growing deficit with no end in sight? Why would we want cuts in spending?

Of course those idiots would oppose anything that would make them actually apply sanity to their spending levels. Can't reward cronies if you can't keep spending into oblivion.

 

[Anarchist420]

Goodlatte is wrong when he says that there were 16 balanced budgets in the past 50 years. There have been zero balanced budgets in the past 50 years. I don't know why he thinks the 16 of the most recent 50 Federal budgets have been balanced.

It's not big loss though, the Amendment being proposed couldn't ever balance the budget. It wasn't worth the paper is was written on.

 

[IronWing]

Giggle, Republicans hyperventiliating over spending. If you flip the federal deficit over you will find -R stamped on its butt.

 

[hal2kilo]

It's not big loss though, the Amendment being proposed couldn't ever balance the budget. It wasn't worth the paper is was written on.

Pretty much like the Paul Ryan Budget Bill.

 

[PokerGuy]

Giggle, Republicans hyperventiliating over spending. If you flip the federal deficit over you will find -R stamped on its butt.

Even if we were to believe that the R's caused the deficit (yeah, right), it still doesn't matter. It needs to be fixed, no matter who caused it, and one party is intent on not fixing it.

 

[Ausm]

Typical democratic stupidity:

Gasp. Cuts... in spending? When we have a massive and growing deficit with no end in sight? Why would we want cuts in spending?

Of course those idiots would oppose anything that would make them actually apply sanity to their spending levels. Can't reward cronies if you can't keep spending into oblivion.

Most likely because the spending cuts they opposed would kill jobs which your side would love to see.

 

[hal2kilo]

Most likely because the spending cuts they opposed would kill jobs which your side would love to see.

What ever they can do to make Obama be a one term president. Country be damned!

 

[Ausm]

Even if we were to believe that the R's caused the deficit (yeah, right), it still doesn't matter. It needs to be fixed, no matter who caused it, and one party is intent on not fixing it.

pst Come here for a history lesson here are the causes of the deficit:

1)Bush Tax Cuts

2) 2 Unfunded wars

3)Medicare Part D

4)Massive Recession due to legislator incompetence and Wall Street/Banks abusing lax regulation.

 

[Anarchist420]

Even if we were to believe that the R's caused the deficit (yeah, right), it still doesn't matter. It needs to be fixed, no matter who caused it, and one party is intent on not fixing it.

I think both parties are intent on not fixing it.

 

[theeedude]

Do nothing GOP wastes time to get nothing done. FAIL.

 

[PokerGuy]

Most likely because the spending cuts they opposed would kill jobs which your side would love to see.

Huh? This was not a proposal of spending cuts, just an amendment saying congress had to come up with a plan to balance income and spending. It didn't say how, that's up to Congress. Democrats simply don't believe in balancing the budget, they're like a family who refuses to curb spending as they rack up more and more credit card debt.

 

[PokerGuy]

I think both parties are intent on not fixing it.

Yet one party was willing to take a significant step toward fixing it: mandating a balanced budget.

 

[IronWing]

Do nothing GOP wastes time to get nothing done. FAIL.

In this case they promised to bring an amendment to a vote and they did. I give the Reps credit for that. The amendment brought forward for this vote wasn't even horribly flawed like the dog the Reps floated last summer. Still not worth passing due to the free ride for wars, but still a better balanced budget amendment than we've seen in awhile.

 

[PokerGuy]

pst Come here for a history lesson here are the causes of the deficit:

1)Bush Tax Cuts

2) 2 Unfunded wars

3)Medicare Part D

4)Massive Recession due to legislator incompetence and Wall Street/Banks abusing lax regulation.

Again, for the slow among us, even if you assume this is all true and it's all the evil R's fault -- it doesn't matter, you still have to fix it, no matter who created the problem.

 

[IronWing]

Yet one party was willing to take a significant step toward fixing it: mandating a balanced budget.

No, they weren't. It's easy to vote "yes" when you know the Senate is going to kill the bill anyway.

 

[MiniDoom]

Most likely because the spending cuts they opposed would kill jobs which your side would love to see.

Massive spending is doing wonders for the economy in Europe.

 

[monovillage]

Do nothing GOP wastes time to get nothing done. FAIL.

Not fail, by putting the Democrat members in the house on record as voting against a balanced budget any (R) running against them will use it in upcoming elections.

 

[IronWing]

Not fail, by putting the Democrat members in the house on record as voting against a balanced budget any (R) running against them will use it in upcoming elections.

Yep, Republican grandstanding while the Republicans' own budget grows the deficit.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

Democrats = The new improved party of No

 

[PokerGuy]

Yep, Republican grandstanding while the Republicans' own budget grows the deficit.

How is it grandstanding to put forth a perfectly good amendment that is sorely needed to balance the budget? Get everyone on the record so the voting public knows who favors spending us into oblivion and who doesn't.

 

[IronWing]

How is it grandstanding to put forth a perfectly good amendment that is sorely needed to balance the budget? Get everyone on the record so the voting public knows who favors spending us into oblivion and who doesn't.

It's grandstanding when the Reps knew the amendment wouldn't pass and when the Reps simultaneously vote for deficit spending. Also, the amendment is not perfectly good on three fronts. The first is the exemption for times of war which is an enormous loophole in the era of the "long war". Second is the handling of interest on the existing debt. If borrowing costs go up from the very low current rates, under this amendment, future interest (from ongoing rolling of outstanding bonds which would continue for some time even with a balanced budget) would be treated as current spending, sqeezing out other priorities. The third flaw is the maintenance of a "debt ceiling" which is a fiscal fiction which serves no purpose.

Come back with a clean amendment with these flaws corrected and I'll support it. The Dems won't, but I will.

 

[PokerGuy]

The first is the exemption for times of war which is an enormous loophole in the era of the "long war".

You MUST have that exception because the nation can't be prevented from going to war if the need exists. It's up to Congress to determine if such a need exists.

Second is the handling of interest on the existing debt. If borrowing costs go up from the very low current rates, under this amendment, future interest (from ongoing rolling of outstanding bonds which would continue for some time even with a balanced budget) would be treated as current spending, sqeezing out other priorities.

Again, you just don't seem to understand the concept: it doesn't matter why you're spending more or less on interest, and whether it squeezes out other things or not. It's a simple realization that you can not continuously spend more than you bring in, no matter how you rationalize it. This amendment would ensure that.

If your credit card interest rate goes up, do you just keep spending more, or are you forced to cut your spending to account for the higher cost of credit?

The third flaw is the maintenance of a "debt ceiling" which is a fiscal fiction which serves no purpose.

It's a critical tool as we recently saw, it might be the only viable way to force spending cuts.