Letter to Washington

February 4, 1997

Dear Senators and Representatives:

Common Cause strongly urges you to oppose the proposed balanced budget constitutional amendment expected to be considered in the Senate in the next few weeks.

As Common Cause Chairman Emeritus Archibald Cox has stated, "[This proposal] trivializes our basic charter and thus threatens to substitute cynicism for the honor and respect of the people, upon which the vitality of the Constitution depends." The United States Constitution is not the place for resolving the nation's economic and fiscal policies. Nor is the United States Supreme Court, which inevitably will be drawn into these policy matters if the amendment is adopted.

While Common Cause believes it is essential to reduce the federal deficit, we do not believe that amending the Constitution is either an appropriate or effective approach to deficit reduction. A constitutional amendment is no panacea -- it contains no specific proposal for the large spending cuts and the tax measures that must be enacted to deal seriously with the federal deficit problem.

Reducing the federal budget deficit is a painful process which requires leadership and political courage by the President and Members of Congress. Congress and the President have embarked on this process by committing publicly to a plan for balancing the federal budget by 2002. The President is expected to present such a plan with the Administration’s FY 1998 budget.

If Members of Congress are serious about deficit reduction, then they should get on with the business of enacting specific measures to accomplish this rather than spending time and energy on passing an unnecessary and potentially dangerous constitutional amendment.

A balanced budget amendment will undermine the United States Constitution and bring about a profound change in our constitutional system of government by damaging the principle of majority rule that has been a cornerstone of our democracy.

By establishing a three fifths vote requirement to pass an unbalanced budget, the amendment (as proposed last year) cedes enormous new constitutional powers to a minority of representatives, constitutionally empowering 175 Representatives or 41 Senators to block any spending or tax measure being considered in a year when an unbalanced budget is adopted. This represents an extraordinary and unwise shift of power in our democracy from majority to minority rule and would only increase, not decrease, the Washington gridlock that fuels the public's anger and frustration with Congress and the rest of the federal government.

Proponents of a balanced budget amendment like to point to state "balanced budget" requirements as evidence that the federal government should have a similar provision in the U.S. Constitution. But that is an illusionary comparison that simply does not stand up to scrutiny. As Rudolph Penner, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, has noted, "While 49 states have constitutional provisions or legislation requiring a balanced budget, many routinely resort to outrageous accounting gimmicks to 'balance' budgets, and many have created 'off budget' agencies."

Congress should not hold out to the American people the false promise that the balanced budget constitutional amendment is a real solution to the deficit problem. This will only serve to increase public cynicism about the willingness of our elected officials in Washington to face up to the serious problems facing the nation.

Common Cause strongly urges you to oppose proposals for a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Sincerely,

Ann McBride
President, Common Cause