The Glade 4.0

This is a conversation we've never had here, which is rare.

Are you pro, or con, and why?

_________________

Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Yes, with some very strict caveats. I'd allow a federal government to run a deficit in times of official war, possibly restricted to IF a draft had to be enacted, and maybe with other restrictions as well. (Total War, like WW2, requires exceptional measures to win.)

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yes, but it has to be implemented gradually, not "cut 33% of government spending immediately."

For, with restrictions very similar to Talya's.

_________________
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Talya hit my exception, too. You can't handicap yourself in times of war, for you can't rely on your opponent to do likewise. I like her stipulation of a draft, to prevent the last 10-15 years of wagging the dog from counting.

I'd also probably cap non-warfare spending increases during times of war. So no declaring war and then going wild on social programs just because the balance restriction is suspended.

_________________
"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I thought it was a part of Congress' job to do so? Yes, no caveats. Caveats are how we got here. We're already in a state of constant war and I don't consider the draft a thing that should happen ever.

_________________
"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

More along the lines of Wwen's thoughts.

Voted period yes. A person can't run deficit continuously and get a new line of credit. A business that fails to report a profit (incomes in excess of expenses) after so long no longer qualifies for business tax rules. Why would our government be any less subject to these rules.

As much as I'd like to see a war caveat in here, I feel any sort of exception will be judicial activized (activisted, activated?) into an end run around the amendment. Can't we work a "rainy day" or "war fund" into our budget if we do it right?
I don't think any amendment being proposed would take affect tomorrow or even 90 days after passage.

2016 is a reasonable and attainable number I think. that's not no much a caveat as a due date.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Civilized countries don't have laws like this, so no.

That's why I said it would require the draft, among other things.

We've gotten soft in thinking there will never be another war like WW2, where all of every participant nation's resources are utterly devoted tot he war effort. It will happen again, and your balanced budget amendment won't mean a thing once you're saluting another nation's flag. It is best to have an extremely difficult to use caveat that allows one to run a deficit in the most dire of emergencies. If the law is too inflexible, you lose, and suddenly your balanced budget amendment ceases to exist with the rest of your constitution.

_________________
Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yes, with caveats. During a declared war, against an actual country, there should be no upper limit whatsoever on borrowing or spending for defense purposes. If there is not a declared war, then expendiatures on military operations should not be allowed to run a debt. During peacetime, I'd mandate a "war fund" savings plan of 1% of the defense budget every year, and the remaining defense budget would be a mandated minimum 25% of revenue. This would also be the only circumstance allowing foriegn aid; expenditures needed to close out the orderly occupation of a defeated nation, or loans and aid to allies in wartime.

I'd also abolish the income, capital gains, and any similar tax and go to a national sales tax and look at increases on tariffs and duties on imports as part of the amendment.

I'd strictly prohibit any "mandatory" that exceeds revenue; defense would come first, then debt servicing, then whatever was left over would be available for other expenditures. Bonds and other debt could be incurred only to cover short-term shortfalls; i.e. costs within the course of a fiscal year that could not have been anticipated, and a body that would audit government spending to ensure compliance with this amendment and other Constitutional mandates which would be appointed by the State legislatures, and would report to the Supreme Court, and allow the Court to issue an injuction blocking any spending bill that violated Constitutional guidelines.

Not part of the amendment, but as a result, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veteran's benefits and so forth would need to be totally revamped. I'm not going to go into how I'd revamp them, especially because the medical ones are kind of baffling to begin with, but for SS and Veteran's benefits the rules would get a lot stricter. Quite a few "disabled" veterans who are out there doing very physically difficult jobs are getting cash payments for "disabilities" that mysteriously don't stop them from being firefighters or cops or whatever, and I'm sick and tired of watching people game the system. I suspect if you looked into it deeply enough you'd find it's a matter of minority servicemembers qualifying more easily than whites for vet benefits because of who works for the VA.

I had chronic back pain when I left active duty, and for a long time I thought it was something that had happened to me... then I found out it wasn't an injury, it was hypothyroidism making me fat. I got on medication, lost weight, regained the ability to exercise, and viola! No more back pain, and no need for a disability claim. I found out in the meantime though, that if you're white you may as well not even show up at a VA hospital unless you're missing a body part.

Disabilities for veterans should be for disability, not just aches and pains. Ok, your ankle hurts? But you can still run a mile and a half in under 10 minutes? **** you, you're not disabled. I see this **** all the time, some 25 year old kid with 1 enlistment and 2 deployments basking in the public appreciation of his service and collecting a lifetime "disability" payment without even having made it to retirement. Have some **** integrity, assholes. Disability and veteran's benefits are for people like Midgen that really did get seriously injured. That money could be going for newer and better equipment to keep young troops from getting their *** shot off in the first place instead of being a second paycheck for your ***.

_________________
"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

They would simply declare a war and never wage it to get by the law.

Nobody is thinking like politicians.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Voted no. Appropriate budgeting is too situation-dependent to create a hard Constitutional rule. I wouldn't mind a meaningful (i.e. not riddled with exceptions) law that required fiscal balance on some kind of rolling basis with various automatic stabilizers built in. For example, all budgets over a rolling 10 (15? 20?) year timeline have to net out to balance, and certain taxes and spending automatically ratchet up and down based on the state of the economy in any given year. Again though, do it with a law, not a Constitutional requirement.

Laws are already in place requiring submitting a budget and thousands of other functions of the government. They are routinely ignored.

In order to get the financial house in order there needs to be something greater than a law and one with actual penalties to the people charged with executing that requirement.

Unfortunatly doing this and not rendering it a political weapon is almost impossible. I really don't have a good solid answer other than having someone there with a stick beating them until they get their heads out of their asses.

_________________
A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

Declaring war does require a large majority of both houses and declaring war to go around the will of the people is likely to be unpopular. maybe that would work.

but yeah I haven't given much thought to the "what if they don't" part of the deal.

RD, Business use a 3 out of 5 years model. why would the government need 6 times more.

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Just be to clear, I don't receive a single penny (or any other tangible benefit) for my disability status. The retirement benefits I earned for serving 20 years is the only 'compensation' I receive. I don't receive anything above and beyond for being partially disabled...

Disability benefits (as they apply to former Military) only really apply to people who leave the service prior to qualifying for retirement benefits.

Grey problems are not fixed with black and white solutions.

Sure they are...

In fact, I would argue that grey solutions ARE the problem...

I'm not quite that cynical but this is my take too. Devil would be in the details and loopholes. I have to admit it sounds good but i wonder what the outcome would be. I think it would be to soak the rich even more.

In an ideal world they would eliminate pork, waste, corruption. Privatize large portions of the government. Get rid of non-performing or under performing programs, kill wasteful subsidies and all that. If that happened, well hells yeah.

Problem comes in when you have politicians pandering to a LOT of voters and asking them "Hey who wants free healthcare? Who wants their social security check? Who wants xyz entitlements? We'd LOVE to give it to you but whoops, constitutional ammendment says no. Now, where could we get some more money... *glances at staffer posing as a well dressed businessman with a monocle lighting a cigar off a 100.00 bill*

_________________
“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Considering that the fairly black and white crowd we have here has already pointed out several grey areas, I believe you are wrong.

Youd end up with them 'drafting' small numbers of people with 'critical' skills for nice safe domestic duties (cat wrangling!) to meet the requirement

Aizle, I'm confused.

Could you expound a bit on this comment, so we can avoid a circular argument?

Basically, a balanced budget ammendment is saying that you can't run a deficit. That's a black and white, line in the sand statement.

Yet already in this thread, we've identified at least one situation (war) where running a deficit is not only "ok" but also probably a good and needed thing. There's also an argument to be made for resessions as well.

So we've already come up with a couple of grey areas where running a deficit might be needed or desireable. There may be others.

I think the suggestions here are pretty black and white. The only way the debt ceiling should be raised is for Defense spending under the criteria that Congress has to declare war.

Seems pretty black and white to me.

My contention is, that those 'other possibilities' are what got us where we are now.

Oh I understand your position. I just disagree that a balanced budget ammendment will either be workable or even useful. Much less possible to even get created.