The GOP House should pass a clean five year debt ceiling bill with the purpose of forcing a balanced budget, allowing $300 billion for the remainder of FY 2011, $1.2 trillion for FY2012, $900 billion for FY2013, $600 billion for FY 2014 and $300 billion for FY 2015 and nothing thereafter. Forget attaching specific cuts onto the bill.
Then tell the Dems the House is moving onto working on a new budget to fit under the new debt ceiling and welcome the Dem Senate and President to do the same.
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Sounds reasonable. It's just hard to believe that they would abide by those constraints rather than later changing them, given that they can't even abide by an insanely high debt ceiling.
I think there needs to be personal liability for politicians. If they can't agree to a balanced budget, we dock their pay and maybe even federal dollars to their state, because essentially, they are not doing their job.
Maybe expenditures should be required to be in terms of weights upon total revenue (similar to percentages) rather than absolute dollars. That way, borrowing will have to be as explicit as taxing, and government will automatically shrink with reduced revenue.
I'm sure there are problems with it, but something essential like that must change, where the default leads to a balanced budget rather than borrowing.
I would much prefer a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and capping spending absent a declaration of war or a supermajority vote of Congress.
However, a long term structured debt ceiling would have the virtue of being the status quo baseline that Congress would have to affirmatively change.
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