Old tax and spend Democrats never die. They just lie around costing the honest taxpayers of our nation a lot of money.
On Tuesday, U.S. senators will cast their votes for what many believe will be one of the biggest shots heard 'round the world in the Republican Revolution.
The issue is whether to amend the Constitution to force Congress to do its job - balance the federal budget.
While even modest polls show that nearly four of five Americans support the balanced budget amendment, many, such as President Clinton, are still against it. Even if the Senate passes the amendment, Clinton is against it and may try to stop it, given his lame-duck condition.
The House of Representatives already has passed the amendment as part of the Republican Contract With America. One of the only pieces of old world debris standing between its defeat and economic responsibility are two Democratic senators. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-West Virginia, the King of Pork himself who has been threatening a filibuster, but now has realized the Senate is only one vote away from passing the measure.
One of the other roadblocks may turn out to be our very own Sen. Wendell Ford, D-Kentucky. Being a bastion of popular consensus, he should vote with the people of the Commonwealth and support it.
Don't think this is a new debate. The lines on this battle have been drawn for quite some time. The history of a balanced budget amendment goes back to 1975 when Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman formed the National Tax Limitation Committee. They took their message directly to the states versus Washington first, as is the case now. They came up two states shy of the 34 necessary to call a convention.
The fight was taken up more recently by Illinois Democrat Sen. Paul Simon. While many in his own party believe his bow tie was on just a little too tight when he said pork barrel legislation was wrong, he continued to fight. Unfortunately, he also failed to win bi-partisan support.
Today, the battle lines have been drawn and now that the smoke is clearing for Tuesday's vote, it appears they are as follows: Bill Clinton and a few loyalists versus America. From Rush Limbaugh to Michael Kinsley, it has support from both political extremes, we well as the entire Republican House delegation and many Democratic representatives, as well as 60 percent of the nation's governors in a 1994 CATO study.
So who joins Clinton in opposition? Besides his wife, many fringe Democrats such as Sen. Byrd, former Sen. George Mitchell, the American Association of Retired Persons and organized labor such as the AFL-CIO.
Which room would you rather sit in?
Today, even though the Republicans have taken up the fight he couldn't win even in his own party, Sen. Simon remains steadfast in his support of the amendment. He has called supporting such a bill "courageous."
As he has said, "There was so much courage at the Alamo because there was no back door."
Quite simply, balance the budget or face economic disaster. The alternative mandates action.
Most of today's opposition to the amendment is different than the past and their reasons why demonstrate the maturation of such an idea. Today, those senators against the measure, aside from Byrd, no longer doubt public support but question how it would be enforced by the judicial system and how much power it would take away from Congress to make cuts if an unbalanced budget were submitted.
If such an event were to occur, could the courts then make the cuts to balance it since the Constitution would enable them to ensure its balance? And others, like Byrd, say such an amendment is unnecessary and that Congress will balance it or people can just vote their representatives out.
Someone please wake him up.
If Congress does its job, the amendment will work. Republicans have demonstrated they can make cuts to ensure that it will work. Just last week, they made $17 billion in cuts.
As to the limitation of Congressional power, the First Amendment does the same thing. I believe it says, "Congress shall make no law É ." If the founders limited the power, so then should not the 27th Amendment?
The balanced budget amendment must become a reality on Tuesday. If the states do not like it, then the idea will die. The very least the undecided Democrats in the Senate can do is pass it and allow the people to decide as each state casts its vote.
Staff Columnist Joe Braun is a political science senior.
Copyright 1995, Kernel Press Inc. All rights reserved.
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