“I am wholeheartedly in favor of our government balancing our budget. A balanced budget goes a long way toward getting rid of our National Debt problem which adds volatility to our economy and devalues our dollar. As Americans for a Balanced Budget Amendment work toward that goal we support their efforts.”
- Dave Ramsey, Fox News Host and Business Analyst
We believe that passage of a BBA will be one of the greatest, most meaningful achievements of this generation. The BBA can put this country back onto a sustainable course for future growth and prosperity if we limit our burdensome debt load. The BBA would force politicians to be wiser with our tax dollars and force them to cut out frivolous spending.
This measure will strengthen our nation. Only the strong can help the weak. A strong nation is in a better position to help with the ills, maladies, and problems of our own people as well as others around the world.
A BBA will help individual families. It will give us a stronger and more stable economy and will limit the amount we have to pay in taxes to service the debt. This will, in turn, put more money into the pockets of our families to pay for their own needs and will allow them more money to donate to charitable causes such as cancer research, famine relief, local churches, boy scouts, girl scouts, habitat for humanity, etc. In other words, other charities will benefit from a BBA now, which will have beneficial effects on all charitable causes far into the future.
Excellent questions. We support having an amendment that provides an "out" in times of war, severe depression, etc. We believe that any responsible balanced budget amendment must have a provision that allows our country to borrow in the aforementioned scenario. We believe that a supermajority of both houses of congress should be able to vote to suspend a balanced budget in any given year. We do insist that this vote be held every single year in order to suspend this amendment. If the amendment is suspended upon a declaration of war (as past proposed amendments have done), the danger is that Congress may declare war on "Islamic terrorism" or "Al Qaeda" or some other ill-defined entity that would allow them to stay in a state of declared war perpetually, allowing them to skirt the intent of this amendment. Requiring a supermajority vote of 60% or (preferably) 65% of both houses to override the balanced budget requirement should prevent easy circumvention of the balanced budget requirement.
This provision would force politicians to declare to everyone that they believe the current war, depression, or national calamity was severe enough in that particular year to warrant deficit spending for that year.
