Columbus Dispatch...
Mandate balance
Only the Constitution could force Congress to deal with nation’s debt 
October 12, 2011 

A Friday report from the Congressional Budget Office says that the federal deficit for the fiscal year just completed is $1.3 trillion. Meanwhile, a news story in Monday’s Dispatch said that the congressional supercommittee charged with cutting $1.2 trillion from the nation’s red ink over the next decade is deadlocked. 

Even if the panel overcomes its paralysis to trim spending by that much, it will take 10 years to realize the savings, and that wouldn’t even cover the debt run up in the past year, never mind the continued annual deficits projected for the rest of this decade. 

The panel is stalemated because Democrats refuse to touch senior entitlement programs, which are unsustainable, unless Republicans agree to measures that would increase tax revenue.  

But the problem with agreeing to increase tax revenue is that there is no way to guarantee that it would be used to reduce debt. Politicians being politicians, the more likely outcome is that an increase in revenue simply would reduce the pressure on Congress to end its profligate spending. Serious action on the nation’s $14.7 trillion debt once again would be deferred to another day. 

This is why Congress should be subject to a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. Only such a mandate could force the president and lawmakers to balance spending and income. And only that would stop the runaway growth of the national debt. 

In its entitlement programs, Congress has made promises that it can’t keep. And it has been masking this truth with borrowing that can’t be sustained. Incapable of resolving this issue on its own, Congress needs the spur of a constitutional mandate to act responsibly. 

Read this and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch