Congressional Republicans appear anxious to use their limited remaining time left in session on burning issues such as flag burning and gay marriage, but the drive to pass a constitutional amendment mandating balanced budgets, fortunately, seems to be all-but dead.
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.
You mean it’s a bad idea to remind the nation that a Republican White House and Republican Congress turned the largest surpluses in history into the largest deficits in history? And that Republicans won’t embrace fiscal responsibility but they will embrace writing a gimmick into constitutional stone? How could this winning approach possibly backfire?
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.”
I don’t know if I’ve ever agreed more with something a House Republican has said. If the House GOP leadership were capable of feeling shame, this would be a good time for them to hang their heads.