By Steve Brawner

© 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The U.S. House of Representatives last week played politics with a serious issue. You should not be disappointed if your congressman participated. You should only be disappointed if he brags about it.

And then more importantly, you should ask yourself why it happened.

Specifically, House Republicans voted on a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget, unless three-fifths of both the House and Senate had voted otherwise. A three-fifths majority also would have been required to raise the national debt limit.

All four members of the state’s congressional delegation voted for the amendment, which failed to reach the necessary two-thirds majority. That’s Reps. Rick Crawford in eastern Arkansas’ 1st District, French Hill in central Arkansas’ 2nd District, Steve Womack in Northwest Arkansas’ 3rd District, and Bruce Westerman in the 4th District, which covers everywhere else.

The vote itself? Not a problem

A balanced budget amendment is a debatable but credible policy, so voting yes is fine. Many states have legal requirements designed to prevent excessive debt. Arkansas has the Revenue Stabilization Act, a law with a mechanism to balance spending with revenues. State entities still go into debt for highways, university football stadium expansions, etc. But the RSA does a pretty good job of limiting it. It’s probably not a bad idea to do something similar for a federal government that has been more or less adding debt since the 1830s.

The problem isn’t the idea of a balanced budget amendment itself; it’s the timing, process and motivation for it.

Arkansas’ four congressmen knew this amendment had no chance of passing. They knew House Democrats would oppose it in sufficient numbers to kill it. It still would have required a two-thirds majority in the Senate, which wasn’t even a remote possibility. And then it would have required passage in three-fourths of the states, or 38 of them.

So this was both a symbolic vote and also a sham one. It occurred after the same House has been recklessly adding debt through tax cuts and spending increases. Legislation passed since June will increase deficits over the next decade by $2.7 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office and the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Because of that legislation and previous decisions, Uncle Sam next year will spend $1 trillion more than it collects. For perspective, that’s more than $3,000 in new debt for every American man, woman and child. And that’s on top of the $21 trillion in debt that already exists, plus the trillions more that were going to be added without these latest votes.

In other words, House Republicans voted for an amendment to balance the budget that they knew wouldn’t pass after voting for budget-busting bills they knew would. While many may have actually supported the amendment, the vote also allows them to proclaim during an election year that they’re trying to balance budgets without having to actually do so.

Just don’t brag about it

If they brag about that vote, take it with the grain of salt it deserves. All four Arkansas House members voted for tax cuts unaccompanied by spending cuts. All except Westerman then voted for the spending increases. All except Westerman voted for a budget deal that paved the way for the spending increases.

Congress has behaved this way for two reasons. One is policy, and the other is political. There are legitimate policy arguments for either cutting taxes or increasing spending. There’s just not an argument for doing both at the same time when it adds huge debt in a strong economy.

The other reason is political. Members of Congress know cutting taxes and increasing spending are popular with voters, and that talking about balancing the budget is, too.

What’s unpopular is actually doing the hard things that balance a budget – cutting spending and bringing in more tax revenue, or at least not cutting taxes.

Congress is reacting to the voters’ wishes. As a nation, we want to have our cake and eat it, too. If our grandchildren someday have to pay for it, then so be it.

Those expectations – that’s what’s really got to be amended, somehow.