Scott Walker, a man who has never worked a day in his life, has a new job that fits his grifting ways. He is now the honorary chair of The Center for State-led National Debt Solutions. In other words, he is pushing for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.
A balanced budget amendment is an utterly bad idea that the American Right has been pushing for years. It is an idea that ignores the reality that a national budget is not the same thing as a family budget. It would also put artificial constraints on the federal budget that could do irreparable harm in times of national emergency. Imagine if we had had a balanced budget amendment during World War II: Oops, sorry, world, we would love to help save you all from fascism, but we cannot fund the arsenal of democracy, as we need to balance the budget. While that is an extreme example, such an amendment could hinder responses to natural and manmade disasters.
Of course, the whole idea of needing a balanced budget amendment is nothing more than a sham to begin with. The Republican Party for years has undermined the federal budget. Instead of a reasonable tax policy, it has done everything it can to equate paying taxes to robbery and governmental programs to socialism. This goes back to Ronald Reagan and his statement that “the nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.’" Nothing has been the same since then. The Republican Party has run on cutting taxes ever since then, and the Democrats have been chasing them to the bottom.
Listen to any candidate running for any office that can impact taxes in some way. None of them look at taxes in a responsible manner, taking into account the fact that federal and state budgets have obligations that need to be met. Instead of ensuring that the government has the means to meet those obligations, they talk about cutting taxes on businesses and the rich, and tossing a few cents off the tax bill for the middle class—which then causes our public K-12 schools to be underfunded, and forces postsecondary schools to raise tuition and fees. Our nation’s infrastructure is falling apart—roads, bridges, airports, and other projects wait for funding that will never come, while the Walmarts of the world have their low wages subsidized by federal programs that were meant as a safety net, with their working-poor employees using them as a life preserver.
The push for a balanced budget amendment is nothing more than a ruse to further cut federal programs and give the rich and corporate America a bigger piece of the pie. Public schools failing? For-profit charter schools can pick up the slack. Can’t pay for college? Take out hundreds of thousands in loans so the banking industry can rake in millions of dollars in interest payments. The interstate highway system is falling apart? Let’s sell it to a private contractor and let it throw up toll booths.
Scott Walker is nothing more than a grifter. He has lived most of his life on the public dole, trying to destroy the very thing that was allowing him to live a comfortable life. The United States does not need a balanced budget amendment. What it needs is leadership, and tax policy that focuses on the needs of the majority of its citizens instead of on the rich and corporations.
Had it not been for government spending, and government programs during the Great Depression, we would not have seen the Hoover Dam built, and the Tennessee Valley Authority would not have powered a large portion of America. The United States would not have armed the Allies to fight fascism in WWII; we would not have begun our exploration of space, or sent men to the moon.
Instead of a balanced budget amendment, we need to invest in America, and our people. It is time we take a stand against grifters like Scott Walker. They are everything that is wrong with America.