It is with increasing concern that I continue to read about the movement to convene a constitutional convention for the avowed purpose of drafting and passing an amendment to the Constitution which would require the federal government to balance it budget each year.
It sound nice, but such an amendment would permit the president and Congress no latitude to deal with national emergencies, even those of a limited nature, not to mention the potential involvement of the United States in another war. If, on the other hand, a loop-hole was left open to permit unbalanced budgets in times of “emergency”, who would be responsible for, and have the authority to declare such an emergency existed? Further, would the explanation of the nature of the emergency be acceptable to the public, or end up being continually resolved in the courts?
However, one should not forget that a very large portion of the budget of a nondiscriminatory nature. A balanced budget amendment could, therefore, end up being a mandate to increase taxes on an annual basis merely to meet the fixed operating expenses of the government.
At the same time there is a far more potentially frightening specter which convening a constitutional convention might pose. Rather than simply being a forum in which a decision would be made to guide the federal government in keeping its fiscal house in order, I can envision the convention being torn at from every side by well organized, single-purpose and monied PACs (or the like) with such limited objectives as the passage of anti-busing, prayer in school, obscenity, gun control, right-to-life, gay rights, equal rights (to mention a few) amendments with only passing thought being given to the solving of the nation’s economic woes.
The very foundations of our system of government (which, even with its shortcomings is still the best ever devised by man) would lay exposed, not for the average American citizen, but for the pawns of politically and financially influential self-interest groups to manipulate as it best suits their power brokers.
A far better, far safer, alternative would be for the people to make the system work more effectively by bringing pressure on their congressmen, their senators and their president to become immediately more responsible in their dealings with the economy (federal spending, in this case in point) or else then out the rascals summarily in the fall of 1980. Our American system of government can work and be responsive, but not if continued public apathy toward the political process prevails.
Instant and simplistic-sounding solutions such as a balanced budget amendment usually create more problems than they solve. It is, therefore, with considerable dismay and alarm that I learned of a New Hampshire House of Representatives vote in support of calling such a convention. I hope that those other state legislatures which have not, thus far, called for a constitutional convention “to balance the federal budget” will think very carefully before opening a Pandora’s Box whose contents are so uncertain.
