Tag: balanced budget amendment

The Balanced-Budget Amendment Threatens Americans’ Health Care, Social Security, and Jobs

The following article by Seth Hanlon and Alex Rowell was posted on the Center for American Progress website April 11, 2018:

The Capitol dome in Washington. (Brendan Smialowski/Agence France-Presse via Getty Images)

With the House, Senate, and White House in Republican hands, GOP leaders have taken every opportunity to enact massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy as well as to pay for the tax cuts by cutting health care and other middle-class priorities. First, they sought to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA)—which would have eliminated health care for millions of Americans—while cutting taxes on high-earners, wealthy investors, and health care companies. When that effort stalled, the majority regrouped and passed even bigger tax cuts that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates will add nearly $1.9 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years, even after taking into account potential growth effects. As Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) and other lawmakers have explained, the Congressional majority ultimately plans to pay for the tax cuts by cutting “entitlements,” or in other words, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. Continue reading “The Balanced-Budget Amendment Threatens Americans’ Health Care, Social Security, and Jobs”

Koch Convention to Rewrite Constitution Runs Into Roadblocks

The following article by Arn Pearson was posted on the ExposedbyCMD.org website June 12, 2017:

This year’s legislative season saw a strong push in the states from right-wing groups, bankrolled by the Koch brothers and other ultra-conservative billionaires, hoping to convene a national constitutional convention in order to inject rigid fiscal constraints into our country’s founding document. Advocates of a federal “balanced budget amendment” (BBA) picked up two more states, Wyoming and Arizona, in their drive to win the 34 resolutions needed to bypass Congress and convene a convention to propose changes to the U.S. Constitution.

That momentum, however, was blunted by surprisingly successful campaigns to rescind convention calls in three states, New Mexico, Maryland, and Nevada. As a result, BBA proponents now claim 27 states in their column, down from 28 at the beginning of the year. Continue reading “Koch Convention to Rewrite Constitution Runs Into Roadblocks”