You should not confuse balancing the budget, which in general is desirable, with the undesirabitity of using the Constitution to do it. just because the Constitution requires a balanced budget does not mean that the budget will be balanced. If an amendment were regularly flouted, then the budgetary impasse would become a constitutional crisis, “The first principle of a conservative should be: don’t muck with the Constitution.” says constitutional scbolar Robert Goldwin of the American Enterprise Institute.
By this standard, Congress has lots of Republicans but few conservatives. The amendment’s advocates essentially embrace a theory of immaculate consensus. No one wants to confront the inconsistencies of public opinion – the simultaneous desires for lower taxes, higher spending and no tampering with social security – that cause budget deficits. Instead, an amendment is supposed to dissolve these inconsistencies. Congress can’t control “its deficit addiction without the strong therapy of a constitutional mandate to make it get clean and sober,” proclaims Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
All recent major amendment proposals have been similarly inspired; they aimed to pervert the Constitution by using it to settle passionate public disputes. The school-prayer, “equal rights” and anti-abortion amendments all fit this description. None succeeded, because the Founders did not intend for the Constitution to be so used. They set high hurdles for amendments (two-thirds congressional approval, then ratification by three quarters of the states). Although – Prohibition the 18th Amendment – overcame these barriers, it showed the folly of using the Constitution for consciousness-raising.
Congress passed it in 1917 in a “mood of Spartan idealism” created by World War I, wrote historian Frederick Lewis Allen. If the war would “end all wars,” then Americans could imagine, an “era of efficient sobriety!” The actual result was rampant lawlessness: bootleggers, speak-easies and gangsterism. Congress was complicit because caught between demands for tougher enforcement and for repeal – it did neither. Finally, the amendment was repealed in 1933.
The plain lesson that the Constitution can’t singlehandedly impose consensus is now ignored. The amendment’s proponents echo the simple moralism of prohibitionists: note Senator Hatch’s identical imagery (“get clean and sober”). The reality is bound to be grittier. Consider three broad possibilities and their probability if Congress passes the amendment.
Intimidated, Congress and the president end programs (farm subsidies. public TV) and trim entitlements (social security, Medicare). Because a deficit remains, they, also raise taxes. Finally, they pass long-term social-security and Medicare reforms to prevent huge deficits when baby boomers retire. (Probability, generously: 20 percent.)
Congressional passage triggers a lobbying and TV blitz aimed at state legislatures by groups that feel threatened (the elderly, farmers, the poor, etc.). State and local officials realize the amendment could be costly; less federal spending on highways, health care and schools will mean more pressure for local spending. (Probability: 40 percent.)
Congress balks at visible tax increases or entitlement cuts. Or it regularly votes to run deficits by a three-fifths majority, as the amendment permits. Or it resorts to gimmicks to spend outside “the budget.” The amendment has no enforcement mechanism; courts refuse to intervene because budget choices are deemed “political” matters. (Probability: 40 percent.)
Until the 1960s, Americans valued balanced budgets . The respect was rooted in Jeffersonian beliefs that budget balancing checked the “corruption” of government, writes political scientist James Savage of the University of Virginia.* Deficits were tolerated in wars and depressions. But the need for discipline was seen, and budgets were balanced in good times. This consensus was destroyed by Keynesian doctrines that deficits could spur the economy. Now, the need is to reverse this: to de-emphasize the budget’s use as an economic tool, and to restore a balanced budget as a way of defining what government should and shouldn’t do.
Unfortunately, the balanced budget amendment serves as an excuse to evade specifics. At present, balancing the budget is not so hard. The deficit equals about 2.5 to 3 percent of national income. Americans will not starve if farm subsidies stop; the elderly will not become destitute if cost-of-living adjustments are trimmed; the economy will not collapse if taxes are raised modestly. Changes are horrific only if any spending cuts or tax increases are considered intolerable. The harder issues involve adjusting programs for baby boomers’ retirement.
Yet, budget hysteria is bipartisan. House Majority Leader Richard Armey won’t say how Republicans would balance the budget because “once members of Congress know exactly, chapter and verse, the pain … to get to a balanced budget, their knees will buckle.” President Clinton condemns GOP silence. But he has not proposed a balanced budget; all the White House plugs is “deficit reduction.” Worse, it tries to terrify people about the harsh tax hikes or spending cuts needed to balance the budget.
The resort to the Constitution is a reckless gambit that could backfire in many ways. It postpones necessary choices and, perversely, could make the choices harder by mobilizing threatened groups against ratification. But mostly it assaults our political culture. The Constitution stands above ordinary disputes; that’s why it’s respected. The amendment imperils this. Instead of elevating the budget debate, it may lower the Constitution.
