• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • About Us
    • Volume 14 Staff
    • Past Mastheads
    • Subscriptions
    • Contact Us
    • For HLS Students
  • HLPR Blog
    • Notice and Comment
    • Write For Us
  • Online Pieces
  • Print Archive
    • Volume 14-2
    • Volume 14-1
    • Volume 13-2
    • Volume 13-1
    • Volume 12-1
    • Volume 11-2
    • Volume 11-1
    • Previous Volumes
  • Submissions

Harvard Law & Policy Review

The Danger of a Balanced-Budget Amendment

July 29, 2011 by hlsjrnldev

Mark Wilson

It seems to make sense: families have to live within their means. State and local governments have to live within their means. Why not the U.S. government, too? But as John Kenneth Galbraith pointed out in The Affluent Society, “conventional wisdom” — premises that everyone generally holds as true — are usually unexamined and often false.

A balanced budget amendment, promoted by Republicans in Congress as a necessary component of federal debt reform, would have the unintended (or maybe intended) consequence of hog-tying Congress’ budgeting ability, especially in the face of a recession.

Filed Under: HLPR Blog: Notice and Comment

Primary Sidebar

Mailing List

Enter your email address to subscribe to the official HLPR mailing list!

Facebook

Facebook

Twitter

My Tweets

Tags

abortion aca affordable care act burwell v. hobby lobby campaign finance capital punishment citizens united civil rights congress contraception mandate criminal justice criminal justice reform death penalty Donald Trump education eighth amendment financial crisis first amendment food law fourteenth amendment gay marriage gay rights gun control gun violence health care HLPR Symposium hobby lobby immigration LGBT rights marriage equality obama obamacare Obama Legacy Symposium obergefell v. hodges policing President Obama religious freedom Republican rfra same sex marriage SCOTUS supreme court volume 9.1 voting rights voting rights act

Archives

Footer

Contact Us

For questions or comments, email hlpr@mail.law.harvard.edu or write to:

Harvard Law and Policy Review
1585 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138

Copyright © 2021 · Magazine Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in