The reason this amendment is deeply stupid and totally insane is because it actually makes it HARDER to balance the budget.
Because you can not raise taxes in order to pay for things that you need unless you're able to round up a super-majority to vote for a tax increase.
So you're then forced to cut services in order to comply with the law -- and those cuts will almost always fall squarely on the backs of those who need those services the most. In other words, the poor.
And there's a perfect template for just how asinine this sort of idea is by simply looking at the state of California where a similarly insane law requiring a super-majority in the legislature to raise taxes has been in effect for years and is pretty much responsible for that state being bankrupt and generally ungovernable.
Then there's this little beauty that the republicans have hidden in their RYAN idiotic balanced budget amendment that says, "No court of the United States or of any State shall order any increase in revenue to enforce this article."
OK, now think about that for a moment please.
Because what that's saying -- in the context of a constitutional balanced budget amendment is . . . well, why don't we let Ezra Klein explain it,
"If you have a constitutional amendment that says the budget needs to be balanced and you don't balance the budget, the courts get involved to make sure Congress is carrying out its constitutional duties. And if you write into the Constitution that the courts cannot tell Congress to raise taxes, then what you're saying is that the courts have to tell Congress to cut spending. So when Congress doesn't balance the budget -- and it won't, because it can't balance the budget now and this amendment would make that harder -- the courts will order spending cuts. It takes judicial activism to dizzying new heights. But that's par for the course with the Worst Policy Idea in Washington."
And FYI -- had the republican's amendment as currently proposed been the law of the land during the Reagan and Bush II administrations then every single year of their presidencies would have been deemed unconstitutional.
Oh, and while they're busy amending our Constitution so that America becomes even more ungovernable than Libya, the republicans also want to privatize Medicare so that seniors receive vouchers that will let them buy insurance on the open market.
Of course, the voucher plan has built into it an immediate cap on the amount each senior is allowed so that it makes it virtually impossible for a person seeking health insurance to actually AFFORD any of the currently available health insurance.
Anyone "serious" enough who thinks you can give vouchers to old people so that they can buy awesome insurance on the open market is someone who should never be listened to about anything ever again.
It is really surprising that there's a single person in America willing to publicly self-identify as a republican when the fact of the matter is that the GOP has become nothing more than a political party for inept simpletons.
And of course it will always be a home for those for whom greed and selfishness are their defining character traits.
It's truly amazing.
In fact, for me at least, the republican party has become the dead rat on America's kitchen floor -- something that to any normal person would be a sight truly disgusting to behold. And yet, for some reason I can't take my eyes off of it and am constantly fascinated by both it and the people who infest it and who clearly take pride in being part of it.
I mean really now!
Think about it !!!
How is it that any self respecting human being, who's also a republican and having just read the description of the GOP's balanced budget amendment can not feel anything but abject shame for associating themselves with such deep and abiding imbecility?
It truly is a wonderment.
