Why the Balanced Budget Amendment is the WORST Idea Ever

By Publius Huldah.
Senator Jim De Mint, alas, is supporting The Balanced Budget Amendment. Proponents
of this "fix" trumpet these supposed benefits: That the amendment would

Require Congress to balance the federal budget each year

Prevent Congress from spending more than 20 percent of GDP
Require a 2/3 super-majority vote to raise taxes

But the actual effect of this terrible idea would be to transform our Constitution, which is
still clear & coherent [though ignored], and which created a limited federal government
with a few enumerated powers, into an incoherent hodgepodge where Congress could
spend money however it pleased as long as it gobbled up no more than 20% of the GDP.
1
And since Congress, the executive branch and the judicial branch ignore the existing
Constitution; it would be no time at all before they dispensed with the 20% limit (just as
they have "dispensed" with the concept of enumerated powers. This "emergency" or that
"emergency" would arise; and in no time our Constitution would be dead and gone.
Our Constitution Created a Limited Federal Government with Enumerated Powers.
With Our Constitution, WE THE PEOPLE ordained and established a Federation of States
which united for the LIMITED PURPOSES enumerated in the Constitution: national defense,
international commerce & relations; and domestically, the establishment of an uniform
commercial system: Weights & measures, patents & copyrights, a monetary system
based on gold & silver, bankruptcy laws, and mail delivery. That's about it! Read Art. I,
Sec. 8, clauses 1-16, U.S. Constitution, and you will see for yourself how few are the
powers delegated to Congress.
The Federalist Papers show, over and over, that ours is a Constitution of enumerated
powers only. In Federalist No. 45 (9th para), James Madison, Father of the Constitution,
says:
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal
government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State
governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised
principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign
commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be
connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the
objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives,
liberties, and properties of the people[emphasis mine]

Do you see? Congress may make laws respecting military defense, and international
relations and commerce. Domestically, Congress has no authority to do anything beyond
setting up the framework for an uniform commercial system.
Congress Violates the Constitution by Spending on Unconstitutional Objects!
The Constitution does not authorize Congress to appropriate funds for the monstrous
Departments of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing
and Urban Development, Labor, Transportation; etc.
The Constitution does not authorize Congress to appropriate funds for Independent
Agencies and Government Corporations such as AMTRAK, the Advisory Council on
Historic Preservation, African Development Foundation, Commodity Futures Trading
Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation,
Railroad Retirement Board, Small Business Administration, Social Security
Administration, Tennessee Valley Administration, etc.
The Constitution does not authorize Congress to appropriate funds for the many Boards,
Commissions, and Committees and various Quasi-Official Agencies.
The Constitution does not authorize Congress to appropriate funds for pork barrel
spending or for private concerns.
The Constitution does not authorize Congress to appropriate funds for the massive
"entitlement" programs such as social security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.
All these Departments, Independent Agencies, Government corporations, Boards,
Commissions, Committees, Agencies and programs are unconstitutional as outside the
scope of the legislative powers delegated to Congress in the Constitution. So is the Pork.
The Constitution does not permit Congress to appropriate funds to bail out private
businesses.
Furthermore, the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to
the people.
prohibits Congress from appropriating funds for all these unconstitutional purposes.
Thus, not only is Congress not authorized by the Constitution to spend money on these
objects; the Tenth Amendment forbids all such spending for those are all powers reserved
to the States or to the People.

The balanced budget amendment would legitimize spending which is now

unconstitutional. In effect, it would m ean that Congress could spend money for any
purposes whatsoever as long as it is not more than 20% of the GDP
But we still have the provisions

It is the massive spending for unconstitutional purposes which has resulted in our
national debt of over 14 Trillion Dollars ( and which increases at the rate of over 4
Billion Dollars a day.)
According to this chart, the GNP (for these United States) for 2009 was !4.119 Trillion
dollars. So 20% of that is 2.8 Trillion dollars
It would replace the existing constitutional principle that spending is to be for the limited
purposes enumerated in the constitution with the following new principles:
Federal spending is to be 20% of the GDP; and
Congress may spend money on whatever it wants.
legitimizes the spending on what are not unconstitutional programs. government:
instead of spending being limited to the enumerated areas (patent office, etc.)

The Constitutional Solution is to Restrict Congress to its Enumerated Powers!

They ignore the constitution now. Why will they obey an amendment? They don't obey
amenemdnts; supreme court has perverted them to mean their opposite: 1st amendment
man from va. who wrote me:
"My understanding persuades me to believe that a majority of the 17 amendments after
the first ten were made in either in haste or passion-of-the-period. Many of them have
led to a weakening of the Constitution's content because the particular amendment's
intention was already embodied in the Constitution. We have too frequently sought a
remedy by way of still another amendment rather than understanding the Constitution
itself."

Why? Because it would legitimize spending on the myriad of government agencies and
programs which are unconstitutional as outside the scope of the powers delegated to
Congress

Endnotes
1 According to this chart, the GNP (for these United States) for 2009 was !4.119 Trillion
dollars. So 20% of that is 2.8 Trillion dollars
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wbwdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=what+is+the+gross
+domestic+product%3F