Balanced budget amendment

@wildgrass said
Actually multiple people on this thread are in disagreement.

You're picking at the penny jar with DOE. Try Defense, Medicare and other entitlements. That's the only way to cut trillions.

Wildgrass, do the items on my list qualify? It will take you libs to shut them down but that will free up money in our quest to balance the budget? Which one of the 10 would you want to keep active?

@suzianne said
Thanks for reminding us that you're still a conservative.

Interesting comment . I state a boilerplate unquestionable documented fact, on point, and you respond about my being a conservative?
So, tell us, what would you say if a liberal had posted the facts? And what would be the relevance, in any event?
You have been off the grid and gotten a bit Rusty, sharpen those nails!

@averagejoe1 said
Wildgrass, do the items on my list qualify? It will take you libs to shut them down but that will free up money in our quest to balance the budget? Which one of the 10 would you want to keep active?

This one certainly does not. It's not even a budget item.

$200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal immigrants.

Many of the others are state budget issues or really, really small numbers (relatively). While potentially they appear to be wasteful spending, it doesn't fit in the context of this thread since state budgets are more/less balanced year over year.

How about real things that are in the federal budget? Something bigger than a grain of sand?

Medicare $829 billion per year, up from ~$500 billion ten years ago. It's completely unsustainable growth at current tax rates.

Military $800 billion per year. A pentagon audit found $200 billion of this is wasted, but no politician has the stones to propose any cuts.

@averagejoe1 said
Interesting comment . I state a boilerplate unquestionable documented fact, on point, and you respond about my being a conservative?
So, tell us, what would you say if a liberal had posted the facts? And what would be the relevance, in any event?
You have been off the grid and gotten a bit Rusty, sharpen those nails!

LOL Suzi was responding to my post.

@wildgrass said
Markets should be unstable and risky.

State budgets do just fine with a mix of rainy day funds and emergency authorizations. I get that they also rely on Uncle Sam for natural disasters, but emergency contingencies could be built into the sauce of the amendments at the federal level too.

The Trumpian economy was propped up with irresponsible, unnecessary debt spending ...[text shortened]... a's deficit. That's the type of reckless spending we'd like to fix with a balanced budget amendment.

Actually, State budgets performed extremely poorly during past recessions and required Federal government bailouts. For example, during the Great Recession which started in 2008, State tax revenues plummeted by 17% and without Federal intervention States would have had little choice but to severely cut spending by mass layoffs and/or punishing reductions in social welfare - both of which would have caused even future loss of aggregate demand deepening the economic downturn. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/state-and-local-budgets-and-the-great-recession/

If there had been a Federal balanced budget amendment in place, this response would have been impossible and it's quite likely the US would have wound up in a prolonged economic depression.

@averagejoe1 said
Interesting comment . I state a boilerplate unquestionable documented fact, on point, and you respond about my being a conservative?
So, tell us, what would you say if a liberal had posted the facts? And what would be the relevance, in any event?
You have been off the grid and gotten a bit Rusty, sharpen those nails!

Wasn't talking to you, either.

We already know, that you are not only a conservative, but a PoS Ayn Rand-style conservative.

@no1marauder said
Actually, State budgets performed extremely poorly during past recessions and required Federal government bailouts. For example, during the Great Recession which started in 2008, State tax revenues plummeted by 17% and without Federal intervention States would have had little choice but to severely cut spending by mass layoffs and/or punishing reductions in social welfare ...[text shortened]... been impossible and it's quite likely the US would have wound up in a prolonged economic depression.

If there had been a Federal balanced budget amendment in place, this response would have been impossible and it's quite likely the US would have wound up in a prolonged economic depression.

Whether it's conservative or liberal, governments waste soo much money on junk! I would like a system in which the government that was over budget were somehow forced to choose between cutting services or not funding construction of a giant stadium for a billionaire.

There exists the possibility to construct a balanced budget amendment that would allow for occasional excess spending in emergencies along with contingencies to raise the remainder through increased taxation. Voters can decide whether they want a low tax model that cuts services and stadiums or a high tax model that keeps the luxuries.

@suzianne said
Wasn't talking to you, either.

We already know, that you are not only a conservative, but a PoS Ayn Rand-style conservative.

Why don't you like Rand? Sorry I got between you and another post.

@suzianne said
Thanks for reminding us that you're still a conservative.

The idea of course is to make sure the populist politicians who are all gung ho about low taxes are held accountable for making the required cuts to the federal budget.

You can't ONLY eat cake.