Explain The Flaws Of The Federal Constitution

The United States constitution is a great document. It has built a government system from scratch that has withstanded the test of time long enough to become the longest lasting government in the history of the world. But, even the constitution has it’s flaws. When the framers were creating the constitution they knew it would not be a perfect document so they left guidelines for how to change it when needed. Unfortunately sometimes things that might seem like second nature slip by and don’t get put into these kinds of documents. I am proposing that a change gets made to the constitution by imposing a requirement that the congress and the Chief Executive work together to establish a federal budget. The bill must contain a provision requiring congress to reduce spending throughout all areas of the federal budget. The congress and the presidency have always had a precedent of submitting a balanced federal budget but it was very often farce and not taken seriously. The federal budget is something that is very important to balance. You can see what happens when we don’t take precautions on the budget by looking at the current debt crisis we are in.

The federal budget has been a partisan issue since the dawn of politics. People always bicker about what to spend on but what we can’t

keep spending money we don’t have. We need to fix the issues we are having at home and balance the federal budget. There have been dozens of polls and surveys showing that the majority of the public wants there to be some kind of federal balanced budget that’s monitored to make sure we stop going so far into debt. A recent poll suggests that as high as 85 percent of voters support a provision requiring a balanced federal budget. When polled about spending for the future or making spending cuts, 54-38 percent of voters believe it is better to cut spending than to spend money we don’t have trying to create more jobs. (Poll: 85 Percent of Americans Support Requiring a Balanced Federal Budget, Townhall magazine) Americans are simply no longer going to be okay with the federal government spending more than it makes. We need to cut spending but we cannot raise taxes to try and compensate.

When the federal government feels like it needs to make money quickly legislatures tend to attempt to raise taxes before doing anything else. The problem with raising taxes to make more money for the government is because when you raise taxes you prevent people from being able to buy more and spend more money that can be taxed so the government can make money. When people cannot spend money, the government cannot make any money.
Another problem with just raising taxes is that the idea of raising taxes is never a very popular one with the public.

If you raise taxes, even for a good reason you can almost guarantee that the party in charge will receive a significant amount of flak from both the media and the voters. Unless the tax being raised was raised to directly benefit the people the most likely story is that you and your party are going to get some bad press even if it is for the greater good. The average citizen does not understand nor does he care. He just sees that he has to pay more money and it’s not helping him with the negative review on your term you won’t be working long enough to get anything real

done.

The problem that has arisen, requiring a BBA (Balanced Budget Amendment) is not having debt. But the debt has gotten out of control. When Bush took office in 2001, the federal debt was $5.76 trillion. By the end of his presidency the debt was at $10.626 Trillion, which comes out to $607 Billion a year. Since Barack Obama has taken office the federal debt has risen by a rate of nearly $1.7 trillion a year and is growing exponentially (Specter.org, “The Answer is a Balanced Budget”). The Federal Debt at this point is unsustainable and jeopardous to this nation’s well-being. We need to start looking for ways to balance the budget and get this nation back on track to being great. We need to come back to becoming the world leader.

The United States has always been known as a country that spends a lot of money. With this getting out of control the United States is at the top of the list of nations when categorized by external debt (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt). Granted, The United States is a very wealthy country and has the right to spend a lot of money but we are over $8 Trillion ahead of the next highest, and $12 trillion over 3rd place. We might be a very big country but we don’t need to be spending this much money. Legislatures always claim that there is simply no room in the federal budget to cut spending. But, if we require the government to make changed with a BBA than we will see that they will find places in our budget to cut spending. The crucial part of this amendment is to cut spending instead of raising taxes. The total percentage of federal spending has skyrocketed from 18 percent in 2001 to 25 percent today. In increase by 7 percent in federal spending is a massive increase and if we cut spending back to 2001 the federal debt would vanish in a matter of only a few years, (The American Spectator, The Answer is a Balanced Federal Budget). Once we fix the spending we can begin enacting the BBA.

When submitting the new Balanced Budget Amendment we must start with the presidency, requiring that the president submit a legitimate balanced federal budget plan every year, if he fails to do so this is an impeachable offense. The amendment must also require that the congress committees hold hearings on the plan and submit a budget through both houses within 6 months of the calendar year. There should also be some way for the states to sue the federal government if they fail to complete this. This would allow the executive and legislative branches to collaborate and work together for a real balanced budget. They have to put aside their partisan issues because if they bicker for too long the states will take over and there will be consequences to pay. Lastly, the bill should include a provision that requires a 2/3rd vote in the senate to alter any of the current tax codes.