[Tax-chick]

America’s problem is our debt, not our debt ceiling.

Wrong. Totally dead wrong. Go back to 9th grade and read Thomas Sowell.

America's problem is the Unconstitutional size and scope of government. The spending is a symptom of that, since government accrues and exerts power by taking money from the unfavored and giving it to the favored. The debt is also a symptom, of the "invisible foot" of government destroying the free economy, reducing revenue and demanding ever more expenditure to keep the game going.

[Nip]

BLUF

BBA must clearly LIMIT spending without increasing taxes or any other form of “revenue enhancement”.

The deficit “crises” has been a known and established problem for the last 10 - 15 years. Why else would Congress be discussing a BBA in the mid 1990’s? Remember that the first BBA failed to exit the Senate for ratification by the States by one vote!

Unless Congress is prohibited from balancing the budget by raising taxes or any other form of revenue enhancement they will do so. How else can a siting Congress Critter ensure his reelection?

Unless future growth of Federal Income is tied to increased GDP Congress and the Federal Bureaucracy will actively work against the American Middle Class. As the system now exists the Federal Bureaucracy makes rules and regulations in a vacuum with no concern over how they will affect the GDP. See coal mining restrictions, oil drilling restrictions, the EPA’s CO2 restrictions, etc for proof of that statement.

I find it very interesting that one of the biggest social/political conflicts in the Republic is the one between wealth producers and wealth consumers, The wealth consumers are doing their best to kill the very source of wealth that they depend upon for their own life style.

[wolfpat]

Do you think that a BBA could include repeal of the 17th? IMHO, that would go a long way toward a smaller government.

[sickoflibs]

RE :”But a “clean” BBA would change that. It would create a constitutional command. A private party with standing could ask a federal judge to remedy a violation of a clean BBA by ordering increases in taxes to close budgetary gaps, instead of spending cuts. Advocates of a clean BBA point out that with every provision in a BBA, it becomes harder to find the votes for a two-thirds supermajority needed to vote the BBA out of Congress and propose it to the states, where it would very likely be ratified in short order....But to grant judges the power to raise taxes would be antithetical to the constitutional design of political accountability for taxes. It would create a perverse incentive for members of Congress who wanted to raise taxes but were politically vulnerable to foster gridlock on spending battles, then let the courts do their dirty work for them by increasing taxes to make up the shortfall. “

And how could a judge even decide what taxes to raise, or spending to cut?

Want to cut spending?? Tie the debt ceiling increases to highly visible tax increases on the majority of voters, many who pay NO Federal income taxes now (they are not overtaxed.) And send them a letter telling them why their taxes are going up, the same way Washington sent a letter to voters telling them a welfare check (that $800 ‘rebate’) was on the way.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Easy solution. Fix the budget at a maximum percentage of the GDP except in times of war. Say about 18%.

[Blood of Tyrants]

P.S. And then all expenditures above that limit are to be spent on the war effort alone.