Balanced budget

Republicans have started a new push that has more to do with gaining votes using simplistic rhetoric than help our this country. Rep Tim Walberg summed up the plan on his Facebook page.

"Only a Balanced Budget Amendment and meaningful spending cuts will be able to bring down numbers like these [of the national debt]."

Do you know what people think using a balanced budget approach is asinine? Corporations. No corporation in it's right mind uses a balanced budget form of operating. A business understands that investments in future profits may make them unprofitable in the current year but that doesn't mean they suddenly start making cuts just to end up with a balanced budget for the year.

For a group of people who have been pounding the mantra of "government should be run like a business" a balanced budget amendment is baffling. These two ideas are essentially mutually exclusive.

Abraham Lincoln stated that "The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities."

While the definition of a business states that businesses are "administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners."

If Republicans really wanted to use a business model to reduce the national debt they would look at a combination of spending cuts, increasing their profit margin (raise taxes), and investing in future growth.

Passing a balanced budget amendment solves nothing. With or without it there are still tough choices to be made. Given how Republicans are already back tracking and looking for loopholes to the relatively minor cuts they insisted on in the debt ceiling debate it becomes obvious that this amendment is just a political tool that Republicans will carry home to their districts as a badge of honor. They will ignore the fact that no one in congress has the gravitas to make the cuts and tax increases required by such an amendment.

It should be noted that the highest increase in national debt according to the most useful measure, debt to GDP ratio, happened under George W. Bush. Odd that only now that a Democrat is in charge does a balanced budget become paramount.

Perhaps the most concerning about Mr. Walberg's statement is the "only" part. As if there are no other answers. Amazing that we have had a national debt for over 100 years and no one else has been smart enough to figure out that a balanced budget is the only possible solution. Not only that but a total of zero other countries in the OECD have balanced budget requirements. That includes the much revered Germany. Maybe this is the obvious common sense solution to Mr. Walberg and his colleagues but history would suggest otherwise.

If Tim Walberg and the Republicans really wanted to affect the economy and subsequently the national debt they would focus on health care costs. No other single expenditure takes up a greater percentage of the nations GDP and the costs for our current system far eclipse any other industrialized country. If we reduced the cost per person of health care it would add over $780 billion a year to the economy. Unfortunately of the 33 legislative priorities that Republicans are currently backing to improve the economy none of them address this issue.

Tim Walberg's insistence that a balanced budget amendment is the only solution shows how committed he is to getting re-elected. If only he had the same commitment to improving the prospects for the rest of us.