"Balanced Budget Amendment" Is a Fraud, But It Fires Up The Constitutional Arsonists

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For the most part, most state governments including the U.S. Government have balanced budgets.

The Federal Government doesn't do anything much different to balance its budget than Wisconsin does.

When there's not enough to pay expenses - government borrows money. Under Scott Walker, the state of Wisconsin borrowed money every year to meet balance. That's a fact. The federal government does the same thing. The national debt is an accounting of money owed that was used to balance the budget. Wisconsin has a similar running and growing state debt account. Pretty simple logic and math not much different than a household budget.

Sure, the Federal Government has the advantage of printing money. But it's important to note that the people supporting a balanced budget amendment are not calling for a moratorium on printing money or a prohibition on borrowing.

The terminology, "balanced budget amendment" is simply a cattle call much like Wisconsin's ballyhooed "Transportation Fund Amendment" state voters approved in 2014. That amendment was supposed to be the end-all solution to the state's chronically empty transportation fund by creating a dedicated transportation account funded with dedicated transportation sources. But since then, Walker and state republicans have borrowed heavily from creditors and the state's general fund to pay transportation bills.

Ironically, the same people in Wisconsin calling for a balanced budget amendment are the same people who called for the state transportation fund amendment and can't make balance without borrowing, are the same people who recently put state taxpayers on the hook for $200 million a year for the next 15 years without showing any means or guarantee to raise the revenue to pay for the new expense without putting other state obligations in jeopardy.

And on top of that, the Legislature's nonpartisan budget office filed a report showing Wisconsin won't break even with the $3B Foxconn deal until 2043. Yet these are the folks who think others should be forced to constitutionally "balance" annually. Whatever that means. Apparently.

So in my view, the "balanced budget amendment" is empty shell boilerplate coming from hyper-partisan operatives to fire up the base to open a convention at this critical time in history when single-party ruled fascism has gerrymandered itself into the country. That only means it is more dangerous.

Once the convention is opened, they can repeal the Bill of Rights and if the legislation in Wisconsin that cleared the state's justice system out of the way for a foreign international corporation is a barometer - they probably will.