"We're four days away from July 22nd, the date that some believe should be our deadline for passing a debt-ceiling deal. We're less than two weeks away from August 2nd, which almost everyone believes is our deadline for passing a debt-ceiling deal. And yet we're wasting our time with this Cut, Cap and Balance nonsense? Really?"
"As policy, Cut, Cap and Balance is an effort to take the lessons of the past 10 years and then pass a constitutional amendment preventing us from learning them. For instance: if you're worried about deficits today, you're partly worried about them because we passed about $2 trillion in unpaid-for tax cuts over the past decade or so, and then we had a financial crisis that jammed revenues further. CC&B's answer? Editing the Constitution so it includes a brand-new, two-thirds supermajority in both houses of congress to raise taxes. It takes our problem and makes it worse. More specifically, it takes the United States Constitution and rewrites it to ape California's budget process. I'm a Californian. The state's got great weather, waves and food. But you don't want their budget process. Trust me." [Emphasis mine.]
"....Ultimately, though, the real sin here isn't that bad policy will pass. It's that we're wasting precious time on bad policy that won't. Everyone involved knows this will never pass the Senate or the White House. Perhaps that would be okay if we didn't have anything better to do. But we have two weeks before we crash the economy into the rocks of the debt ceiling. It's not a good sign that instead of moving towards compromises and tough choices, the House GOP is daydreaming and sloganeering."
Here's the link to Klein's complete post:
A balanced budget amendment certainly sounds like a good idea, but you know just how bad an idea it is when you see conservative economists writing columns calling it a terrible idea.
The American Enterprise Institute is a conservative thinktank. Norman J. Ornstein is a resident scholar at AEI. His column in today's Washington Post is titled "Why a balanced-budget amendment is too risky." According to Ornstein: "...a constitutional amendment to balance the federal budget would be disastrous." Here is the link to his complete column:
Robert J. Samuelson writes an economics column--with a definite conservative bent-- for Newsweek. Today's Washington Post carries his column titled "A balanced budget amendment: bad idea for many reasons." According to Samuelson:
"The BBA is another example of congressional evasion. “It’s showcasing. It plays to the public,” says political scientist Allen Schick of the University of Maryland. What it does not do is balance the budget, now or ever. Only unpopular decisions to cut spending, including Social Security and Medicare, and raise taxes can do that. The BBA distracts from this and, if ever adopted, would undermine the Constitution. Could this really be a “conservative” idea?"
Here's the link to Samuelson's column:
One final, scary item from Ezra Klein's blog this morning titled "The Scariest Debt-Ceiling Poll I've Seen:"
"So a third of Democrats, a plurality of independents and a majority of Republicans think everything will be just dandy if we blow through Aug. 2 without raising the debt ceiling. Terrific."
"Just as a reminder, here’s what will happen if we don't raise the debt ceiling and begin choosing which bills we do and don’t pay. If you don’t feel like clicking the link, the short version is “recession.” And here’s what will happen if we actually default on the debt. If you don’t feel like clicking that link, either, the short version is “global financial panic that makes 2008 look like a warm-up.”
Here's the link to his post:
Remember, your comments are always welcome. Feel free to add your opinions!
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