We occasionally give Frequent IHateTheMedia.com commenter Perlcat a soapbox. He climbs aboard and issues one of his epic rants:
I don’t want a balanced budget amendment.
Let me explain.
Government is very good at screwing stuff up, and then selling us on a solution that screws things up still more, and then selling us yet another screwup. It’s like an out-of-control episode of the Three Stooges, but with tequila and lots of Other People’s Money.
Why is a BBA on the table in the first place? Because our politicians lack the political will to keep government at the proper size, doing the proper things. A lot of the things they have going on now are well outside of the constitution. Yes, I know, they got rulings favorable to them in a lot of cases — but in many more situations, they simply ignore the Constitution. You can’t tell me that, for example, raising the national drinking age by tying it to highway funds is within the spirit of the Constitution. If it was, they’d simply vote directly upon it. They have no mandate, so they use excess tax money that they confiscated beyond their needs to violate the Constitution in spirit.
If you think that the BBA will keep government in check from doing the things that they aren’t supposed to do, what makes you think that they will pay attention to this one, too? Examples from human nature:
There are speed limits on our highways, and they get ignored all the time. Other traffic laws are also ignored, usually by the same people. A person willing to disobey one law has no new compunction against disobeying another, totally unrelated law coming from the same authority. There’s no magic here — if they don’t give a damn, they just don’t give a damn. In addition, when we have a speed limit of, say, 55 MPH, do people normally drive at a range of speeds of 0 to 55, or do the vast majority of people drive as close to 55 as possible? Pushing the limits is human nature, and more so amongst politicians that already lack the will to do what’s right. A BBA is a guarantee that government will *NEVER* size itself within its mandate, although it WILL size itself to fit what we let them get away with.
There will always be an amazing coincidence that government just happens to need to be that size. If you believe the BBA will work, try this experiment. Have a friend go to one of those used car lots that does not have prices marked on cars, pick a car, and get the price for you. Let’s say that it was $500. You withdraw $2,000 from your bank account in nice, clean Benjamins. Come onto the lot the next day, find a salesman, tell him you want that particular car, and tell him that you only have $2,000 in your pocket. Amazing coincidence! The car increased in value 4 times overnight! Glory be! Feel free to write another chapter in “Negotiating For Dumbasses”.
In other words, there are two outcomes that I see to a BBA. Either Congress ignores this one, too, or they size government at exactly the limit, and there is still no urgency to either eliminate waste, or keep the government within its duly described boundaries. As an example, a BBA would not stop the government from having secret police, as long as they kept the cost under a certain amount. Oppression on the cheap! As another example, if a government sized at 20% of GNP were to decide that it could grow the GNP through some cheesy-assed government program that did more harm than good and would ultimately pass cash directly to some scumbag, where would John Kerry berth his new yacht? If they thought they could grow government by changing the way that GNP was figured, don’t you think it would take them under ten minutes to do so? They pull that kind of crap with unemployment figures all the time.
Here’s what I want.
1) an HONEST assessment of the various government programs what we are blowing our money on — every dime.
a) are they constitutional?
b) do they serve a public good?
c) can they be given to the states to handle, or is the only place to impement them at the federal level?
d) if they are
i) needed,
ii) currently unconstitutional, and
iii) ONLY implementable at the federal level,
write the constitutional amendments needed to implement them, vote on them, and hand them to the states to vote on in turn.
e) if they are constitutional, is there waste? Can it be eliminated?
2) constitutional amendments to bar politicians, their families, and associates from seeing any profits derived from any of their legislation or actions while in office. (While a schmuck like AlGore makes money after being out of office, there is no law against him taking advantage of dummies.)
If the “needed” programs are not accepted as constitutional amendments, they MUST be shut down. Every SINGLE ONE. It doesn’t matter how “wonderful” they are — they failed to pass the most basic test. The feds are welcome to vote on guidelines and recommendations to pass to the states, but after that, their involvement is OVER. If you can’t get the People to want it, the People. Don’t. Want. It.
If we held our government to doing what is constitutional, we’d have no more fiscal issues. If we held our government to doing what is constitutional, their opportunity for fraud, abuse and welfare in all its forms is SHARPLY reduced. It would be possible to arrange for the amount of oversight needed to watch this properly sized government. If the federal government was held within its Constitutional mandate, maybe they could find the time to do what they are supposed to do — protect our borders — deal with other nations — keep us safe.
There is one problem with this, though.
You need to find honest politicians to do this. You might find a few amongst the GOP and the Libertarians — good luck finding an honest politician amongst the donks. It has to be more rare than Lawyers in Heaven.
