After raising taxes as I recently proposed on my blog at joplinglobe.com, the following is what I would do next.
Pass a law (or constitutional amendment if required) requiring the federal government to produce and adhere to a balanced budget each year just as is done by state governments. Just do it.
Pass a law (or an amendment) giving the president a line item veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress to override such a veto, line by line, one vote each veto.
Provide a loophole to allow deficit spending in presidentially and/or congressionally declared emergencies. Hurricane Katrina comes to mind as an example. Require such proposed deficit spending to be passed by again both houses of Congress with a two-thirds majority and of course signed in agreement by the president.
Then require that such deficit spending in that year be paid in full either in a balanced budget the next year or by tax surcharge passed with the same two-thirds majority vote in Congress and signed by the president. No other options. Pay it out of the next year’s budget or tax surcharge. But pay it, the deficit, in full and within a year of its authorization.
Leave everything else the same, for the time being.
Each year if the president and Congress want to raise taxes on Americans, let them do so as now procedurally allowed. If they are crazy enough both politically and fiscally do to so, let them have at it. With enough political clout they can still turn us into a socialist state. The only restriction would be a pay-as-you-go state, no credit cards to achieve that goal.
If that is what Americans want, then let them have it. In the meantime, we avert an ever encroaching disaster with our current fiscal policies and laws.
Anson Burlingame lives in Joplin. His blog, “I’m Not Sure, Are You?” can be found at www.joplinglobe.com.
