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:
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