Amidst concerns over the soaring national debt, some lawmakers are advocating for a constitutional amendment to mandate balanced budgets. The U.S. debt has surged to nearly $38 trillion, leading to higher borrowing costs and inflation. The last balanced budget was in 2001. A House subcommittee held a hearing to explore how a balanced budget amendment could help stabilize the nation's finances.
by AUSTIN DENEAN | The National News DeskFILE - The likeness of George Washington is seen on a U.S. one dollar bill, March 13, 2023, in Marple Township, Pa. Some lawmakers want the United States to adopt a new amendment to force Congress to come up with balanced budget s to keep the country’s ballooning deficit from continuing to spiral out of control and risk a debt crisis as an increasing share of federal spending goes to servicing interest payments.
Federal deficits have exploded since the early 2000s, when the U.S. debt was worth some $5 trillion, to nearly $38 trillion today and climbing at a record pace. The gross national deficit crossed the $38 trillion threshold in October, adding $1 trillion in just a few months that was the quickest accumulation of a 12-figure deficit on record. Higher deficits fuel higher borrowing costs for Americans for things like mortgages, vehicles and student loans. It also costs businesses opportunities to invest by making it more expensive to borrow money and puts upward pressure on inflation. The last time the United States had a balanced budget was during the Clinton administration in 2001 during a string of them starting in 1998 from a combination of tax increases, reductions in spending and economic growth. Some lawmakers would like that to change through passing a constitutional amendment requiring Congress to pass a balanced budget each year. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government held a hearing on Wednesday exploring whether mandating a balanced budget in the Constitution could help lawmakers get the nation’s finances back on track as concerns build about America’s debt trajectory that helped lead to “By any calculation, our nation's debt is staggering for generations. Politicians here in Washington have shunned hard conversations about spending, choosing to max out our national credit card and leaving the next generation to foot the bill. Families across our nation have to balance their budgets, and there's no reason their elected leaders shouldn't as well,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, the chair of the subcommittee. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle spent time during the hearing pointing fingers at each other for who is to blame for the country’s challenging fiscal outlook, though both parties have made their own contributions to the problem through tax cuts, new or more generous social assistance programs and an inability to find bipartisan compromise to minimize federal borrowing. Most states have some form of balanced budget requirements for governors and legislatures to operate under, though there are exceptions that vary widely and do not all have strict enforcement mechanisms. Some states have filed applications for a proposal for a convention to add one but have not yielded progress. “In my view, we must adopt a fiscal responsibility constitutional amendment if we want to restore fiscal sanity and achieve fiscal sustainability. The debt ceiling is a bad joke and statutory approaches to constrain the growth of the federal government and mounting debt burdens have not stood the test of time,” said David Walker, a former U.S. comptroller general. Entitlement programs are the main driver of the national debt as more Americans reach retirement age and begin to collect benefits that have shot up with annual cost-of-living adjustments to keep up with inflation and rising costs of health care. They also pose the biggest political hurdle to getting the nation’s finances in check as they are highly popular across the electorate and all the solutions to shore up their finances are not. Interest payments on debt held by the public are the second-largest driver of federal debt and increased 8% last year to hit $1 trillion for the first time. The coronavirus pandemic also helped a surge in federal debt as lawmakers approved trillions in emergency spending to support the economy and try to contain the spread of disease between the Trump and Biden administrations. Twenty years of war in the Middle East and federal bailouts during the 2008 financial crisis have also sent the debt upward. Critics of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget argued that it would leave the U.S. less prepared to respond to emergencies like the pandemic and lead to stark cuts to entitlements that America’s seniors rely on. More than half of constitutionally mandated spending pays for Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security and veterans’ programs. “Any constitutional amendment to require annual balanced budgets would be a highly ill-advised and risky way to address the nation's long-term fiscal problems. It would threaten significant economic harm, while raising a host of problems for Social Security and Medicare,” said Brendan Duke, senior director for federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.has already become a nearly annual political football that has not succeeded in its objective to limit the amount of money the government can borrow. It has frequently been used as leverage from minority parties in Congress to draw concessions from the White House or risk default that would send shockwaves through the world economy.“A balanced budget amendment would only make things worse, and this dysfunction would be baked into our Constitution and democracy forever. That’s not what the American people want, or need,” said Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon, D-Pa., the ranking member of the subcommittee. “The bottom line is, we don’t need to amend the Constitution to balance the federal budget. Our colleagues need to get their heads out of the sand and be willing to look at the revenue side of the equation.”Amid reports of a number of monkeys caged outside, a home on Schimpfs Ln. in Tillman's Corner is marked off with crime scene tape Wednesday as U.S. Fish and WiDowntown Gayfer's building once again eyed for development If your grandparents or great grandparents grew up in or around Mobile, there's a very good chance they spent some time in this huge, cavernous building in theThe child was covered in blood and was in unchanged diapers, apparently trying to get the attention of his dead parents.
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