If they weren't willing to enforce the debt limit now, I don't believe they'll be willing to enforce a BBA later.
They aren't willing to go cold turkey this year, and won't be willing to go cold turkey in 10 years if a BBA is approved. So there will be some scheme for easing into a balanced budget that will never quite get us there. Like maybe a debt limit that keeps getting raised (the old jokes are the best jokes).
Since wars are very difficult to finance without debt, there will be some escape clause for 'emergencies', and we will live in yet another state of perpetual emergency.
One way or another, there will be an escape hatch for the BBA.
The tool we have now (the debt limit) is the one we need to use. If we can't get the politicians to make this one work, we won't get them to make the next one work. God help us if we get a BBA and then have Sonia or Elena write the majority opinion on what it really means. At least the current debt limit isn't raising constitutional questions.
Luke,
Here’s why the BBA is better than the debt limit: the debt limit is statutory, a BBA would be *constitutional*.
Plain and simple.