Klein on the fiscal soundness of the amendment:
I think “stupid” is the wrong word. “Dangerous” is more like it. And maybe “radical.” This isn’t just a Balanced Budget Amendment. It also includes a provision saying that tax increases would require a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress – so, it includes a provision making it harder to balance the budget – and another saying that total spending couldn’t exceed 18 percent of GDP. No allowances are made for recessions, though allowances are made for wars. Not a single year of the Bush administration would qualify as constitutional under this amendment. Nor would a single year of the Reagan administration. The Clinton administration would’ve had exactly two years in which it wasn’t in violation.
Read that again: Every single Senate Republican has endorsed a constitutional amendment that would’ve made Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy unconstitutional. That’s how far to the right the modern GOP has swung.
On the regressive impact:
It’s fairly obvious why rules making it hard to pass new taxes would lead to more regressive taxation: If passing taxes is extremely difficult, then passing taxes plus overcoming the opposition of powerful interests becomes almost impossible. And so you focus on passing taxes that don’t arouse powerful interests. In practice, that means passing more regressive taxes, as the poor have less political power than the rich.
On the inevitable judicial intrusion into budgeting:
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.
judy-meredith says
Good post — thanks for the talking points.
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edgarthearmenian says
Keep up this silly rhetoric and you guys will lose in a landslide to Brown in 2012. I’ve said it here many times before (and usually get buzzed off) but you really have to talk to others besides yourselves in the real world.
What you said about the amendment may very well be true, but people are tired of seeing their tax money pissed away in grandiose government schemes.
judy-meredith says
…………..people need to understand how their taxes support grandiose government schemes like making sure the water that comes out of their faucet is clean and safe, that the local fire department is capable are handling more than one fire at a time, that their disabled elderly neighbors who live alone are getting nutritious meals, that their sons and daughters in the armed forces know how to use their killing machines, that the young people in their community whose parents both work have a safe place to go after school, that their roads are not filled with pot holes, that their local business center is thriving, that the local library is open, that the board of health has the capacity to test the local restaurants and make sure the school departments refrigerators work, that the police department’s cars and radios are working, etc etc etc.
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p>We at ONE Mass have discovered that once ordinary busy,over-extended community people have gone through one of our Budget and Tax Policy sessions at their church or neighborhood organization, they understand that their tax dollars are combined with others to build the public structures that make their community livable.
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p>People ARE sick of seeing their taxes “pissed away” on projects and programs they don’t understand, especially when a single scandal is “exposed” in the media as if it were a standard practice instead of the criminal behavior of a few individuals abusing the system.
edgarthearmenian says
both the private and public sectors, which belie your beliefs: 1) ripoffs from the private sector like Evergreen Solar(58 million or so?), multi-million promises to the bio-tech industry; tax breaks to vultures like Raytheon and Fidelity, etc. 2) And on the public side we have the local employee unions who along with the teachers do not want to pay their fair share for health care and refuse to join the GIC. Did you see today’s papers about how some Boston firefighters have been ripping off the pension system? I agree with your points, but there are many, many more than just a few individuals abusing the system. Someone has to push back or we’ll all go broke taking care of the abusers. This amendment will not pass, but people are fed up with what is going on, budget wise. (You know, I forgot to mention people like Bobbie Haynes and Phil Johnston who have been sucking on the public teat since day one–give me some time and I’ll think of many, many more examples of governmental waste.)
judy-meredith says
and think of 10 important and almost perfect public programs and 5 competent public employees that have helped you/your family in a prompt and fair manner. Yes, you can mention your kind first grade teacher, or the lady who straightened out your application for somethingorother.
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p>Just asking.
edgarthearmenian says
firefighters saved my life when I had a triple A aneurism several years ago. No argument from me on some of the great people who work in state and local government that you mention. The pendulum, however, has swung a bit too far to the left on abuses, and I think that you will see some corrections coming via the ballot box.
fenway49 says
has the pendulum swung too far to the left in the United States or even in Massachusetts? And in what world are abuses of the pension system by (yes, a relatively small number of) Boston firefighters “on the left”? Until Scott Walker came along, firefighters leaned pretty heavily Republican.
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p>I agree with you-my idea of governmental waste is giving breaks to companies like Fidelity that move jobs away anyway. And loopholes should be closed to prevent egregious abuses, and abusers punished. Which is what the story said the governor is trying to do.
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p>But I can’t agree the broader demonizing of teachers because they’ve been more successful than private sector workers at preventing the Walmart-ization of their benefits. We should be bringing everyone’s benefits up in this country instead of attacking the portion of the population that still has some. Instead we’ve got everyday people calling decent – but hardly opulent – union salaries and benefits an elitist conspiracy of the left, and screaming for a race to the bottom.
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p>And if you want to talk about “grandiose government schemes,” Scott Brown is signing onto a proposed amendment that’s one of the more radically regressive things in our history.
somervilletom says
You asked “Did you see today’s papers about how some Boston firefighters have been ripping off the pension system?”
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p>Actually, I did see the story. Did you read it? Here’s the headline and the lead:
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p>So the Patrick administration is, in fact, pursuing the matter — presumably with your support. I fear that you are so consumed by your passion about such things that you fail to see the actual steps that our actual government is actually taking.
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p>I get that you join almost all of us in being frustrated by the many abuses of the public trust that we see on Beacon Hill and in City Hall. What I don’t get is how supporting Scott Brown — and the mindless tax-slashing that he at least occasionally claims to advocate — does anything but make an already bad situation many times worse.
edgarthearmenian says
democrats trying to do something about abusers, maybe not as much as some would like, but considering the hacknest which surrounds him I give him an A-/B+. Also, Brown has come out in support of subsidies for heating oil and some other worthwhile programs–“mindless tax slashing” may not be a fair description.
p.s. I wouldn’t equate Deval Patrick with “our actual government,” and if you think about it you will not either.
somervilletom says
Yes, Mr. Brown has said that he opposes the White House plan to cut subsidies for heating oil. How does he propose to pay for these subsidies? The reality is that Republicans (like Mr. Brown) spend just as much public money as Democrats — they just spend it differently.
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p>The difference is on the revenue side of the question. Republicans oppose, with passionate religious fervor, every and any proposal to pay for that spending through increased taxes. The right wing, led by the GOP and now the Tea Party, adamantly promotes the essentially superstitious delusion that such tax breaks will somehow someday “grow the economy” through “creating a better business climate.” Neither is true. You wrote “‘mindless tax slashing’ may not be a fair description.” Please cite a tax cut Mr. Brown publicly opposes or a tax increase he publicly supports.
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p>The “balanced budget amendment” that is the topic of the thread-starter is a delusional, irresponsible farce. You apparently object to people actually saying so. This stark dissonance between belief and reality is why I characterize the “balanced budget” mantra as “religious” and “superstitious”. Your comment (“What you said about the amendment may very well be true, but people are tired of seeing their tax money pissed away in grandiose government schemes”) suggests that you also see this same dissonance.
edgarthearmenian says
use the no-more taxes mantra much to the despair of the democrats. Ironically it is seen by the public that the captives of special interests are the democrats because of their constant appeasement of special interest groups. Have fun losing elections, Tom. (Especially have fun losing the “Kennedy” seat again in 2012 :))
somervilletom says
What the Republicans will do, if they win, is drive the economy back into the ditch, just like they did the last time they were handed the keys to the car. You admit yourself that the propaganda used to win elections is nothing but lies (“What you said about the amendment may very well be true, but…”).
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p>If the American public is stupid and ignorant enough to elect them, then the American public deserves whatever happens. If, knowing full well and acknowledging yourself that these Republican policies are dishonest, you support them anyway, then don’t be surprised or insulted when folks call you “stupid”, “ignorant” and “dishonest”.
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p>If Republican supporters like you want respect and courtesy, then you must be willing to embrace the basic standards of honesty and decency that respect and courtesy demand.
edgarthearmenian says
Look around you at the last three speakers of the state House of Reps, for example, or the multi six-figure pension abuses that Deval has been trying to correct, or the blatant, scummy hypocrisy of political hacks like Bobbie Haynes and Phil Johnston, and on it goes. I thought you had the balls to see corruption and lies even on your own home team. You know as well as I do that both sides use propaganda and lies during elections, as they have from day one.
bob-neer says
The Democratic Party in Massachusetts has hardly been a model of probity in recent years. It seems to me, however, that what Tom is talking about is more the national Republicans than the state Party because, as a practical matter, the latter have been largely irrelevant in recent years.
somervilletom says
Sorry, Edgar, but I’m not going to respond to crude gender references. I don’t understand why you resort to such coarseness when you obviously have the prerequisite writing skills to avoid them.
edgarthearmenian says
“then don’t be surprised or insulted when folks call you “stupid”, “ignorant” and “dishonest” which you posted to me. But I am not into playing politically correct word games. In fact the use of the word testicles, in various forms, although part of masculine anatomy, is a compliment in colloquial american, I believe. For example, if I say that Hillary is a balsy woman I am complimenting her courage and ability to make decisions. If some people take offense, so be it. I could also take offense at being called ignorant, stupid and dishonest–but I didn’t.
I will say, however, that if I have offended you, I apologize. The friendship which I have with you on this site means more to me than winning any kind of verbal joust.
hrs-kevin says
especially if you count their irresponsible practice of cutting taxes without any intention of making corresponding cuts to pay for it.
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p>It wasn’t the Democrats who gave us our giant deficits – except by being overly cooperative with the Republicans.
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p>The fact is that there isn’t a single Republican that has the slightest idea of how to actually balance the budget for real because none are willing to admit that it can’t be done without taxes.
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p>Perhaps the Republicans will continue to have success peddling their unsound economic policies to the American people, but to the extent that they do, all of us will suffer for it in the long run (except perhaps for the very rich).
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p>By all means, we should eliminate wasteful spending, but it is not fraud and abuse that is the source of our huge national debt. No one should be deluded into thinking that trimming waste is going to balance the budget.
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sabutai says
A few baseball players took steroids. Major League Baseball should be banned. Vanessa Williams had uncompromising photos out there. All beauty pageants should be canceled. The Republican Party has had members who committed graft and sought/accepted bribes. The Republicans need to be outlawed.
peter-porcupine says
And we suffer with one! The next porked-up budget, well over tax revenues but passed by the House and Senate so they can look like good guys and the Governor can take the fall, should fly off Deval Patrick’s desk. He should REFUSE to make those dangerous cuts! That’ll learn ’em!
jconway says
Brown is running unopposed…
christopher says
You do realize it’s not 2012 yet, right? Plus I can think of two people who have outright declared their intentions to oppose him and others very publicly considering it.
jconway says
Meaning that there are no opponents yet declared capable of beating him, thus he is essentially running unopposed. And its never too early, the longer we wait, the longer he goes unchallenged, the more likely it is he wins.
hoyapaul says
of the proposal is the provision requiring a two-thirds vote for any new tax increases.
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p>Yes, because that’s worked so well for California.
hrs-kevin says
That provision obviously makes it much harder to balance a budget
jconway says
i was going to say the same thing, balanced budget amendments can be good ideas, this one is not one of them