Senate passes balanced budget requirement!

[PLC1]

It's called "Reid Amdt. No. 3305"

Official Summary
1/4/2007--Introduced.
Constitutional Amendment - Prohibits outlays for a fiscal year (except those for repayment of debt principal) from exceeding total receipts for that fiscal year (except those derived from borrowing) unless Congress, by a three-fifths rollcall vote of each chamber, authorizes a specific excess of outlays over receipts. Requires a three-fifths rollcall vote of each chamber to increase the public debt limit. Directs the President to submit a balanced budget to Congress annually. Prohibits any bill to increase revenue from becoming law unless approved by a majority of each chamber by rollcall vote. Authorizes waivers of these provisions when a declaration of war is in effect or under other specified circumstances involving military conflict.

It passed 60-40. Here's a summary, and a tally of votes.

.S. Senate Roll Call Votes 111th Congress - 2nd Session

as compiled through Senate LIS by the Senate Bill Clerk under the direction of the Secretary of the Senate

Vote Summary

Question: On the Amendment (Reid Amdt. No. 3305 )
Vote Number: 12 Vote Date: January 28, 2010, 11:41 AM
Required For Majority: 3/5 Vote Result: Amendment Agreed to
Amendment Number: S.Amdt. 3305 to S.Amdt. 3299 to H.J.Res. 45 (No short title on file)
Statement of Purpose: To reimpose statutory pay-as-you-go.
Vote Counts: YEAs 60
NAYs 40

Is this for real? You decide.

 

[GenSeneca]

Just seeing "Constitutional Amendment" is enough to scare me. It was a straight party line vote, there has to be something more to this, I hope the media does it's job for a change.

The last thing I want out of this administration is a Constitutional amendment... And Pay-Go was a scam. They didn't have to actually come up with the money, they only had to show it on paper. Proposing a new tax to fund some program can have projected revenues that far exceed actual revenues of the tax once enacted, so it's an Enron style game of cook the books in order to get a particular bill passed into law and deal with the consequences later.

 

[dogtowner]

there is an astonishing lack of reporting on this. very odd.

 

[Little-Acorn]

I saw no mention of a Constitutional amendment anywhere in the text. Maybe I missed it? Looks to me like it's an amendment to some existing bills on the budget. Such a thing can be repealed as easily as it was approved.

Speaking of Constitutional amendments from Democrats, though, all I can say is: BEWARE.

Some years ago, a Constitutional amendment WAS proposed by the Democrat majority at the time. It was called, in fact, a Balanced Budget amendment. It contained language saying, in effect, that budgets must be balanced except for emergencies and for Social Security funds.

This perpetrates a few obvious frauds, of course, and one not-so-obvious one. First, every unbalanced budget in the future would simply be called an Emergency Bill, or "Budget and Social Security Maintenance Bill" or some such. There are plenty of grounds for the fatuous "Emergency" claim - the United States has been under a declared State of Emergency since FDR's declaration on March 9, 1933, which has never been rescinded. Lots more such declarations have been piled on top of it since.

But the greatest impact of such an amendment, would be to insert the program called "Social Security" into the text of our Constitution for the first time in history, thus finally removing it from the long list of unconstitutional programs the Federal government has implemented. Any hope of its being stricken down or transferred to State governments due to its unconstitutional nature, would be forever lost.

BEWARE of greeks bearing gifts. If the Democrats offer you something, especially as significant as a Constitutional amendment, that sounds like a good thing... you can be sure the sting in the tail is much worse than any pretty packaging.

 

[GenSeneca]

I saw no mention of a Constitutional amendment anywhere in the text.

It's stated on the official summary that PLC posted and its also at the top of his first link to the bill.

 

[PLC1]

Consensus, then, is that no, it isn't for real.

It's just more partisan politics, isn't it?

Is it possible that we will ever actually have a balanced federal budget?

 

[dogtowner]

Consensus, then, is that no, it isn't for real.

It's just more partisan politics, isn't it?

Is it possible that we will ever actually have a balanced federal budget?

It certainly appears to be jive.

As to your question, only by complete and utter accident much like the near balanced ones under Clinton. But even then it was a joke as the entitlements were off the budget.

 

[top gun]

It's called "Reid Amdt. No. 3305"



It passed 60-40. Here's a summary, and a tally of votes.



Is this for real? You decide.

I know it was reported recently that the Dems are pushing to to go back to "Pay as you go" and the Republicans are against it.

Maybe this is some step toward that.

The President has also called for a 3 year budget freeze.

 

[Pidgey]

Well, whatever it seems to look like at first glance cannot be what it really is. From that language, you'd think that they (CONgress) would be constrained to cut back social security, welfare, medicaid, medicare and a few other things if receipts & revenues dropped like they have (dramatically) this last year. The folks in D.C. are NOT going to do that because there wouldn't be an incumbent left in office if they did that.

So... what's the "catch"?

 

[top gun]

The military, Social Security and Medicare are not included at this time with good reason.

But most everything else would be. You try to cut government spending where it has the least detrimental effect. There are places outside of the big three I've mentioned to do that.

Good for them for trying.

 

[dogtowner]

Considering the house only may initiate spending, what does the Senate hope to accomplish ? What this mainly does is to give the majority the tool to strip minority initiatives.

Could come back to bite them.

If its for real, and it passes.