GOP Drops Work on Balanced Budget The timing seemed a bit discordant last week, when the House Judiciary Committee began considering a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, just as Congress moved to pass its fourth tax cut in as many years.A week later, the committee has not finished its work on the legislation, and the GOP House leadership has decided to drop the issue indefinitely, fearing that any spotlight on the burgeoning deficit would backfire politically.
.... Last Wednesday's drafting session turned into a fiasco, members from both parties said. Democrats ridiculed the GOP majority, which has controlled Congress and the White House for most of the past four years while record budget surpluses turned to record deficits. Even some Republicans conceded that their hearts were not in it. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) said he had not taken it "as a very serious discussion."
"We can limit [deficits] on our own," said Flake, a Judiciary Committee member. "We in Congress ought to be embarrassed by what has happened. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves."
.... Deficit hawks were amazed that the GOP even tried, after Congress had squandered a $236 billion surplus recorded in 2000. Since 2001, overall government spending has risen 23 percent. Defense spending at Congress's discretion has increased 48 percent, while non-defense spending has jumped 27 percent. Meantime, taxes have been cut four times, at a price tag of $1.9 trillion over 10 years. House and Senate negotiators began work yesterday on a major corporate tax cut that could be wrapped up by the end of next week.
Tax cuts account for 29 percent of the swing from surpluses to deficits over the past three years, according to White House budget documents.
"The idea that the balanced budget amendment could even be taken up by the Judiciary Committee almost defies description," steamed Stanley E. Collender, a federal budget analyst at Financial Dynamics Business Communications. "The cynicism in the whole effort is just astounding."
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