Boehner Defeated: Balanced Budget Amendment Fails

Balanced Budget Amendment Fails In House Vote

WASHINGTON -- The latest Republican push for a balanced budget amendment that would force massive spending cuts to the country's social safety net died in the House of Representatives Friday, brought down by lawmakers who argued Congress can balance the budget on its own.

Requiring a two-thirds majority to pass under the Constitution, the measure failed 261-165, with several Republicans voting with the majority of Democrats against the amendment.

Analysts had warned that instituting the proposed balanced-budget requirements would likely force cuts of greater than 17 percent within seven years of the amendment's ratification. Such cuts could mean slashing Social Security by $1.2 trillion and Medicare by $750 billion by 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Friday vote was held as part of the compromise to hike the nation's debt limit this past summer -- a deal that also produced the deficit-cutting super committee that now seems deadlocked.

With the nation's debt surpassing $15 trillion this week and exceeding $1 trillion annually for several years, conservatives thought they had a chance to pass the amendment, but even some Republicans opposed it -- most prominently, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who said that Congress had proved it didn't need to change the Constitution to even the books when it balanced budgets during the Clinton administration

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/1 ... 01840.html

Well, at least a few Republicans have enough backbone to say NO to killing SS and Medicare... Sorry, Boehner...No soup for you.

LadyJazzer wrote:

Balanced Budget Amendment Fails In House Vote

WASHINGTON -- The latest Republican push for a balanced budget amendment that would force massive spending cuts to the country's social safety net died in the House of Representatives Friday, brought down by lawmakers who argued Congress can balance the budget on its own.

Requiring a two-thirds majority to pass under the Constitution, the measure failed 261-165, with several Republicans voting with the majority of Democrats against the amendment.

Analysts had warned that instituting the proposed balanced-budget requirements would likely force cuts of greater than 17 percent within seven years of the amendment's ratification. Such cuts could mean slashing Social Security by $1.2 trillion and Medicare by $750 billion by 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The Friday vote was held as part of the compromise to hike the nation's debt limit this past summer -- a deal that also produced the deficit-cutting super committee that now seems deadlocked.

With the nation's debt surpassing $15 trillion this week and exceeding $1 trillion annually for several years, conservatives thought they had a chance to pass the amendment, but even some Republicans opposed it -- most prominently, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who said that Congress had proved it didn't need to change the Constitution to even the books when it balanced budgets during the Clinton administration

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/1 ... 01840.html

Well, at least a few Republicans have enough backbone to say NO to killing SS and Medicare... Sorry, Boehner...No soup for you.

I'll agree with you... I'm glad it was voted down... it would have been a free ticket for the Democrats and the Republicans to spend, spend and spend .

Without spending caps or a supermajority requirement to raise taxes, this particular BBA essentially amounted to a license to spend profligately and hike taxes however high to balance the budget. Under it, deficit spending — exactly what any BBA purports to eliminate — would even be allowed by a bare three-fifths supermajority (not as high a standard as a two-thirds supermajority).

Luckily, the House voted down the amendment. With 261 in favor and 165 opposed, the chamber fell 23 votes shy of the two-thirds requirement to pass an amendment to the constitution.

What’s most disturbing to me about this vote, though, is that just four Republicans voted against it. Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan was one of them. “I’m concerned that this version will lead to a much bigger government fueled by more taxes,” he explained.

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/11/18/h ... amendment/

What's most amazing to me is the left didn't jump on this and rally it to passing. It would have been a money pit for future government expansion. Maybe they have finally got the message from the people... we're just about done with you robbing this country blind.

(ever get the impression that Lady Jazzer never gives you the whole story?)

LJ,
I thought you said SS was fully funded for the next couple decades?

But I agree that economically, a balanced budget ammendment would be a disaster in a economic recession. But we have to do something. We can't keep spending 66% more than we are taking in.

It IS fully funded for the next couple of decades... What's that got to do with the incessant, obsessive drumbeat on the Right to tear it down?