Balanced Budget Amendment-- A Whole Lotta Nothing

Today, unexpectedly, the House failed to pass the Boehner's and Cantor's gimmicky and highly destructive Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, 261-165. As we saw Wednesday, last time they tried this trick (1995), one Republican with a spine, Senator Mark Hatfield (R-OR), shot it down in the Senate. There are no longer any Republicans like that-- and the Democrats are far worse today than they were in 1995. But 4 Republican extremists, for their own crazy reasons-- Ryan, Amash, Dreier and Gohmert--voted against it. After a menacing warning from Utah reactionary Jim Matheson that “If any Blue Dog does not vote for it, I’d have to question how much they’re a Blue Dog," every Blue Dog did vote for it-- except 7, Joe Baca (CA), Kurt Schrader (OR), Adam Schiff (CA) Mike Michaud (ME), David Scott (GA), Mike Thompson (CA), Loretta Sanchez (CA)-- as did 5 right-wing Democrats who run with that mangy, treacherous crowd.

Blue Dogs and other scummy, cowardly excuses for Democrats who barked along with Boehner today:

Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA)
John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA)
Sanford Bishop (Blue Dog-GA)
Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK)
Leonard Boswell (Blue Dog-IA)
Dennis Cardoza (Blue Dog-CA)
Ben Chandler (Blue Dog-KY)
Jim Cooper (Blue Dog-TN)
Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)
Jerry Costello (quasi Blue Dog-IL)
Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
Pete DeFazio (D-OR)
Joe Donnelly (Blue Dog-IN)
Kathy Hochul (D-NY)
Tim Holden (Blue Dog-PA)
Jay Inslee (D-WA)
Ron Kind (D-WI)
Larry Kissell (quasi Blue Dog-NC)
Lipinski Junior (quasi Blue Dog-IL)
Dave Loebsack (D-IA)
Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog-NC)
Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
Mike Ross (Blue Dog-AR)
Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC)

One of the main collaborators with the Republicans was ultra-conservative North Carolina Blue Dog Heath Shuler, a co-chair of a caucus dedicated fully to the agenda of the 1%. Shuler is in for a tough primary battle this cycle at the hands of populist Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell. Earlier today Bothwell had an interesting read on the whole Balanced Budget nonsense. He told us that "One of the principal reasons the 13 colonies quickly organized themselves into a confederacy and then a nation was to borrow money from Europe to fight a war with the English King. Borrowing in the name of and for the benefit of the people is an essential function of national governance. The Balanced Budget Amendment would do irreparable harm to the ability of the United States government to address the needs of the people, particularly in periods of crisis, in a timely and effective manner."

With a Republican Party wedded inexorably to a Grover Norquist pledge to never, under any circumstances, raise taxes on the wealthy-- and a conflicted and disabled Democratic Party unable to muster the courage or conviction to do anything about it-- a Balanced Budget Amendment would have meant the end to all progress, forever, for the United States... and a locking in of a caste system the 1% is so eager to enforce. Bye-bye New Deal, the Republican Party wet dream for the past 75 years.

Suppose, for example, society decides a better goal than the rich getting richer and the rapidly growing poor becoming serfs, would be to reverse the environmental damage that is threatening humanity and, oh, say, eliminating poverty. Sounds like perfectly respectable-- and achievable-- goals, right? Not if a Balanced Budget Amendment ever passes. Locked in would be any possibility of redesigning a toxic economic system that has been allowed to run roughshod over society. Remember this sentence from David Korten: "If government doesn't make and enforce the rules necessary to maintain fair and efficient market allocation, the market's most powerful corporate players make their own rules to suit their financial advantage, and society pays the price." And that, after all, is exactly what was just voted on. And even if the two-thirds rule kept it from passing, a big majority of these idiots voted for it.