Former Presidential hopeful Rick Santorum was in Pierre today to sample the bitter cup of disappointment he’ll be drinking from this next session when the legislature once again rejects a measure to open up the US Constitution for Amendment:
Santorum blamed legislative leadership in the state Senate for its failure. Last session, Sen. Lee Schoenbeck, the Senate’s president pro tempore, opposed the resolution.
Santorum predicted that incoming leadership in the House would also prove a challenge.
Read the entire story here (Subscription required).
Doubt me? Go ahead and read this and this.
They dumped 1/2 million into attack ads which turned them from a benign lobbying group into one trying to buy elections that people will now actively oppose.
They weren’t going to move the needle forward in the State Senate. And now they admit House Leadership will be tough for them.
Game over.
The state of Pennsylvania would probably be better served in Santorum stayed home and offered his advice and support for the incoming senator-elect! THAT guy needs a lotta help!
So, what I’m hearing is that nobody hates the idea of a balanced budget amendment, just the people that are proposing the idea? Is that about right, Pat?
This is the one and only chance the States have to keep the country from economic implosion. Do you really think the same Congress that spent us $31 trillion into debt is going to suddenly reverse course and stop the bleed? If you do, well, you may want to see Lee’s doctor about a cranial extraction of mineral masses.
the pay-off-debt train left the station between 1994 and 1998 when the fiscal conservative win of newt gingrich as speaker, was squandered by his fellow republicans, who: balanced a budget but left the debt to languish and later grow; failed on two crucial points of the contract with america they passed; later turned and helped democrats drive gingrich out when he unveiled a plan to save costs by streamlining and modernizing medicare/ medicaid. the pay-off-debt train exploded and was seen no more when nancy pelosi’s democrats won their 2006 elections by pretending to be more tight-fisted than republicans, and took the house in 2007-2010. we’ve been a financial joke since then and a balanced budget amendment won’t fix it any more than adopting a ‘make millions’ home budget will make you millions. it’s complex.
I didn’t even mention paying off the debt. I’m simply talking about not adding on (at least) a trillion to it each year to the debt via deficit spending, not even counting the half a trillion in interest, which is what a balanced budget amendment would achieve.
It’s not that all that complex, really. When your household income is $49k, you simply can’t spend $59k and put the other $10k on a credit card which is already racking up $5k in interest each year. (Scaled by a factor of 100,000,000 in the case of our country.)
Sheesh I need to proofread better before posting. Sorry for the typos. At least the logic is sound, even if my words are shaky. 🤦🏻♂️
We the people have the power. We have the power to elect representatives to achieve a balanced budget. We the people have the power to have a convention of states with no boundaries. Once we get there, We the people have the power to change or discard the Constitution . You may not like the changes the majority of We the people want.
That’s why.
“You may not like the changes the majority of We the people want.”
Maybe. But I’m willing to take the risk, given the status quo of what the 532 chuckleheads in DC give us year in and year out. (Yes, I know there are 535. I like three of them enough to not call them chuckleheads. No, I will not name names. 🤪)
we need a national will, with the power to stay the course on forms of austerity, or any top-down thing like a balanced budget amendment is doomed. states themselves need to be the driving force of this kind of convention; instead the effort comes off as a special interest group cajoling states to let them borrow some unused powers since they haven’t won via the usual process.
If it’ll get the job done, I for one don’t care if Mark Mekler gets the credit for it. (I suspect he wouldn’t either, but that’s pure speculation.) Someone has to remind states that they can do this, and that’s the role COS has assumed. With the exception of spending, nothing ever gets done in government without “someone” pushing for it. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, it would seem.