The United States Constitution actually lacks a budget provision. What provisions it has provide the following:
- Article I, Section 8 (Spending Clause): Grants Congress the power to lay and collect taxes, pay debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare.
- Article I, Section 7 (Revenue Bills): Dictates that all bills for raising revenue must originate in the House of Representatives.
- Article I, Section 9 (Appropriations Clause): States "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law," ensuring Congress, not the executive branch, controls spending.
We need a specific set of controls on the budget.
For decades Congress has spent more than it brings in through taxes. It's at the crisis level presently, with Congress busing the budget and adding to the deficit at a monumental level.
At one time, pundits use to ponder if national debt and deficit spending were bad things. They are, but no credible person doubts that the current levels will actually destroy the American economy in the near future. Trump, listing to extreme pundits and having graduated from Wharton, which apparently is a preparatory preschool based on his level of lack of understanding of economics, believed that tariffs would fix this and everything.
Well, it hasn't, and it won't.
We are now at the point where we need a severe austerity budget, or a massive rise in taxes, or both. We have no real choice.
Anyhow, on fixing the budgetary process, it can be fixed. The Constitution should be amended to require a balanced budget, with a provision to retire 10% of the national debt as part of it, annually, save in the instance of a Declaration of War, or a Declaration of National Emergency.
To put this plainly, this would require ever budget to be balanced and the national debt completely retired within a decade.
Of course, what if Congress ignored that.
The amendment would provide that if Congress failed to pass a balanced budget, but passed a budget by a set day, taxes of all types and government fees of all types would automatically proportionally rise to cover the budget. Additionally, government payments outside of payments for debts, medical obligations, and wages would cease. Payments of all types to Congress would completely cease, including payments for their staff.
Yes, that's harsh. The harshness would be the club that would put the pressure on to keep it from occurring.
If no budget was passed, say by February 1 of each year, the last balanced budget would come back into effect (it was during the Clinton era), with the additional provision of 10% of the national debt being paid for. If taxes had to go up to make that work, and the other provisions noted, they would.
Yes, this is severe, but the severity of it is what would cause Congress to actually take this seriously.
We know what a Declaration of War is. What would the Declaration of an Emergency be?
Well, predicting an emergency is tough, but I'd require 3/4s of the Congress to declare it and it could only last for one year. To renew it a second time would require 3/4s of the Congress and 3/4s of the state legislatures.
One final thing. No government assets of any kind could be sold to balance the budget or help retire the debt.
