George F Will argues for a balanced budget Amendment...

[kentuck]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-time-for-a-balanced-budget-amendment/2013/01/09/6ecf85ec-59d5-11e2-9fa9-5fbdc9530eb9_story.html

<snip>
Democrats not allergic to arithmetic must know the cost of their “fiscal cliff” victory. When they flinched from allowing all of George W. Bush’s tax rates, especially those on middle-class incomes, to expire, liberalism lost its nerve and began what will be a long slide into ludicrousness.

Those temporary rates were enacted in 2001, when only 28 House Democrats supported them, and in 2003, when only seven did. But with the “American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012” — did liberals think about that title? — 172 House Democrats voted to make the Bush income-tax rates permanent for all but 0.7 percent of taxpayers — individuals earning more than $400,000 and couples earning more than $450,000.

Liberals could have had a revenue increase of $3.7 trillion over 10 years. Instead, they surrendered nearly $3.1 trillion of that. They cannot have repeated bites at this apple. They cannot now increase government revenue as a share of gross domestic product through tax reform because Republicans insist that the Taxpayer Relief Act closed the revenue question. And because tax reform is dead for the foreseeable future, so are hopes for a revenue surge produced by vigorous economic growth.

<snip>
Sixty-seven Senate votes are needed to send a proposed amendment to the states for ratification. There are 45 Republican senators. There are nowhere near 22 Democrats who would vote for an amendment Republicans could support. Still, Republicans, whose divisions cause Democratic gloating, could use a balanced-budget amendment to divide Democrats who threw the remnants of their fiscal self-respect off the cliff.

[sadbear]

1. Looks like we'll just have to cut the bloated defense budget now.

Oh well.

[lastlib]

2. Darn.

I wanted to be able to kill every inhabitant of the planet at least sixty times over.

[Richardo]

3. Need to update the Paul Krugman quote:

"George Will is a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounds like."

[MissMarple]

9. Too, too funny! He nailed it.

Here's to Dr. Krugman.

[Richardo]

10. His original quote was referring to Newt Gingrich, which is even funnier.

[MissMarple]

12. Can you see the two of them marooned together....without their technology?

That might make a Twilight Zone episode.

[JVS]

13. I think Vonnegut's statement about Slaughterhouse Five was the best.

"I have no regrets about this book, which the owlish nitwit George Will said trivialized the Holocaust."

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. Right after we get the ERA

[KansDem]

5. Are we still listening to George Will?

I used to listen to his drivel back in the mid-90s when I watched "The McLaughlin Group" on PBS.

Why is it these folks never leave? We're still hearing from for likes of Newt Gingrich and Pat Robertson who had the heydays in the late 80s and early 90s.

Enough already! Let's see some new faces and hear some new ideas!

[Make7]

6. Wasn't Eisenhower the last Republican president to have a balanced budget?

One has to wonder why that is....

[Wellstone ruled]

7. Got a whole bunch of Stupid going on here.

George Will is a multi-millionaire and he does not give a rats ass about the little people. Another prick with ears that needs his Meds reevaluated for his own good.

[4Q2u2]

8. Forcing

a balanced budget on any particular President Dem or rePub may result in cuts to programs that either side will not like while not in power. I am pretty sure that mR Will would love balancing the budget by raising taxes on over opinionated gas bags, and rePub political stategist like his wife, and you thought Romney was an abomination. President Rick Perry????????? Holy Hand Grenades.
That is hate speech right there.

[moondust]

11. Doesn't work at the federal level.

Unlike the states, the Fed needs the flexibility to cover anything that could possibly happen in the whole country--Hell or high water. The Fed is lender and guarantor of last resort. It would be foolish to tie its fiscal hands and then potentially have to face multiple natural disasters and/or wars and/or epidemics and/or states that couldn't balance their budgets and defaulted and/or whatever.

Better to just get smarter and more responsible people in Congress holding the purse strings.