Balancing the budget is such a low priority when you have such as exciting proposals to debate such as FMA, flag burning and more tax cuts. Balanced budgets are for wimps anyway.
The balanced budget amendment was a cornerstone of the Republicans' "Contract With America" 10 years ago, and halting efforts to resurrect it has underscored party divisions over a budget deficit that will reach $422 billion this year.
Last Wednesday's drafting session turned into a fiasco, members from both parties said. Democrats ridiculed the GOP majority, which has controlled Congress and the White House for most of the past four years while record budget surpluses turned to record deficits. Even some Republicans conceded that their hearts were not in it. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said he had not taken it "as a very serious discussion."
"We can limit [deficits] on our own," said Flake, a Judiciary Committee member. "We in Congress ought to be embarrassed by what has happened. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves."
Deficit hawks were amazed that the GOP even tried, after Congress had squandered a $236 billion surplus recorded in 2000. Since 2001, overall government spending has risen 23 percent. Defense spending at Congress's discretion has increased 48 percent, while non-defense spending has jumped 27 percent. Meantime, taxes have been cut four times, at a price tag of $1.9 trillion over 10 years. House and Senate negotiators began work yesterday on a major corporate tax cut that could be wrapped up by the end of next week.
