Daniel Schaefer: “in the years I have watched this body at work, I have concluded that only a constitutional amendment requiring a…”

“in the years I have watched this body at work, I have concluded that only a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced Federal budget will force the consensus necessary for real deficit reduction. Opponents of the amendment are pressing its supporters to present a plan to eliminate the deficit at the same time Congress considers the amendment itself. The debate over amending America's founding document should not be a divisive quarrel about narrow special interest spending programs, as opponents are seeking to make it. Rather, I believe the discussion should be elevated above politics, to a thoughtful and long overdue discussion of the more fundamental issues of the appropriateness and necessity of adding a balanced budget requirement to the Constitution. The Constitution both enumerates and limits the powers of the Government to protect the basic rights of the people. The Framers of the Constitution saw balancing the budget and promptly repaying debt as moral imperatives fitting squarely within that framework.”