Balanced budget amendment gives GOP 'bargaining chip'

July 26, 2011

USA Today

David Jackson

WASHINGTON — House Republicans aren't giving up on what's been a holy grail for conservatives: a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, made a proposed balanced budget amendment part of his revamped debt-reduction plan Monday, assuring more conflict with the Democratic Senate and President Obama over an idea at least 80 years old.

"We don't need a constitutional amendment" to balance the budget, Obama said last week. "What we need to do is to do our jobs."

Boehner, meanwhile, calls the amendment "the ultimate enforcement mechanism for the American people on an out-of-control government."

The amendment would "force massive cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and other crucial benefits," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The Boehner proposal does not include a specific amendment, but requires the House and Senate to vote on one between Oct. 1 and the year's end.
 
Read all The Oval posts Even if an amendment makes it through Congress, three-fourths of the states would have to ratify the proposal before it is added to the Constitution.

Still, the balanced budget amendment has "a lot of symbolic value" for Republicans, particularly the Tea Party members elected last year, political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said.

While Boehner could use the amendment as a "bargaining chip" with Obama and the Senate over other parts of a debt-reduction bill, Rothenberg said it also gives the GOP a strong message with voters.

Polls show that voters like the idea of the amendment, and Democrats don't want to vote against it, Rothenberg said.

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