Unintended Consequences

This past week, a Republican led attempt to change the US Constitution with the Balanced Budget Amendment failed when it received only 261 votes, well short of the 290 needed to send the amendment to the Senate.  Senate approval of the amendment was virtually a non-starter, and the entire Balanced Budget Amendment was largely a political gesture, intended to attempt to embarrass President Obama and congressional Democrats.  However, neither Republicans nor Democrats should be interested in an amendment such as this; Republicans should consider it especially anathema.

A balanced budget amendment would virtually guarantee judicial involvement in the political budget process.  In a time when ranting and raving about "Judicial Activism" is the political mantra for Republicans, especially for Republican presidential candidates, the idea that our judiciary should be involved in the budget process seems to be especially galling.  Judges, whether elected or appointed, are not intended to be involved in budget processes.  Their jobs, as defined in our system, is to resolve legal disputes brought before them by interpreting the laws and applying them to disputes.  This does not extend to determining budgets and whether or not they are appropriate.

If this amendment were to pass Congress, and were enacted by the states, anyone who disagreed with a budget, passed by congress, would sue to block the budget, and/or to have a part or parts of the law declared unconstitutional.  Judges would, of necessity, have to resolve those problems, and would then have to determine whether the law in question passed the test and/or was creating an unbalanced budget.  This puts judges in an untenable position, as they are being called upon to exercise judicial function to approve or disapprove a law, but are instead involving themselves in the political process.

If congress does not have the intestinal fortitude to balance our budget, that is a problem the voters need to resolve:  they can do it at the ballot box by refusing to re-elect those congresspersons or senators who are unwilling to put politics aside and to do what is needed to truly resolve the budgetary problems of the United States.