by Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, Hamilton
In her letter in the Star for 1/25/23, Terri Lackey stated that the Constitution calls for a balanced budget. This is true of the Montana State Constitution and probably of many or most other state constitutions, but it is NOT true of the US Constitution, which says only, “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time” (Article I, section 7, clause 1).
A balanced budget makes sense for individuals, households, communities, and states. Why might it not make sense for a country as a whole?
It seems to me that the whole point of a government is to help the country run better, for everyone. If there are financial crises or crashes, wars, natural disasters anywhere in the country, or other sudden catastrophes, it’s the federal government’s job to help, so its access to money has to be flexible and it has to have the option of borrowing money to help the people.
Taxes are by far the largest source of revenue for the federal government. If every individual and entity pays their responsible, proportional share, we’re in good shape.
In 2017 the Trump administration reduced taxes on corporations and the super-wealthy from 35% to 21%, which added roughly $2 trillion to the national debt, which was already over $4 trillion. Largely as a result of that, we begin to find ourselves unable to finance our way of life, possibly including Medicare and Social Security, which more and more aging Americans depend on.
With its small Republican majority, Congress is pulling for a balanced budget, which doesn’t make sense to me (see above), or cutting social programs that are of continuing importance to a growing portion of the American public. They somehow refuse to see that
1) money at the top does NOT trickle down, because people are people and want to keep what they have, and
2) corporations and the super-wealthy, who arguably benefit most from the American Way of Life, are not being required to do their responsible part.
I don’t think the federal budget needs to be balanced; I do think it should serve the interests of the American people, which it has been doing pretty well for a couple years now.