Guest Commentary: America needs a tax-limitation balanced budget amendment now!
President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed the U.S. House recently by one vote.
The bill’s impact is certainly “big,” but how “beautiful” it will be remains to be seen.
As a former State Senator and Senate Republican Whip, I know every vote ultimately requires a “yes” or “no” decision. And if I was in the Congress when that vote was taken, I would have voted to pass the bill, and help equip President Trump with the tools to begin fixing our economy. Most importantly, as a proud, conservative “fiscal hawk,” I would have voted for the bill just to prevent the largest tax hike in American history from sending Southwest Floridians reeling.
But I also side with those conservative Republicans in Congress who know America doesn’t have deficits because we aren’t taxed enough. We have deficits because the government is too big and spends too much.
Here’s the sad reality: For every dollar the government raises in new taxes, it spends nearly $1.50 dollars more in new outlays. That’s been happening for decades. According to the Congressional Budget Office, just last year, we acquired $196 billion in new debt a month, $6.4 billion in new debt every day, $268 million of new debt every hour, and $4.5 million of new debt every minute. It doesn’t take Albert Einstein to figure out where that math takes us.
Worse yet, the Biden Administration’s Treasury Department even bragged about their spending: “Compared to the federal spending of $3.82 trillion for the same period last year, our federal spending has increased by $340 billion.” They even profaned our Constitution’s preamble by using it as a justification for their wanton spending: “the purpose of the federal government is…to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.’ These goals are achieved through government spending.” With such twisted interpretations of the role of government, at least we can now understand how America has landed in this fix. Liberals believe that taxpayers should feel grateful for seizing your money and redistributing it like Santa Claus through the behemoth federal bureaucracy. Next, I suppose pickpockets will expect us to feel grateful for leaving us the lint!
Government spending — and government intrusion into the economy — is not the solution. It is the problem. If a free-market economy is to ever work right, we must get government off our backs and out of our pockets. President Trump wants to unshackle the economy, and I agree with him.
I have a permanent solution to the spending problem.
It’s called a “Tax Limitation Balanced Budget Amendment” (TLBBA) and it should become Congress’s top priority.
A tax-limitation balanced budget amendment would give the ultimate force of law to a balanced budget, while also depriving Congress of the ability to use budgetary gimmicks or tax increases to achieve the goal of balancing the budget. The temptation may otherwise be too great for Congress to raise taxes to accomplish the balance. However, a “tax-limitation” amendment would require government to cut spending any time spending exceeds revenues. Exceptions would require a supermajority of votes in Congress to pass, which is difficult to achieve.
The last time a tax-limitation balance budget amendment came up for a vote in the House, was nearly 30 years ago, and it lost by a single vote. Recently, President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” won by a single vote.
I intend to ask President Trump to join with me in putting his shoulder into making certain a tax-limitation balanced budget amendment becomes law. I may even ask the President to name it the “Even Bigger, More Beautiful Bill.” Because I, for one, couldn’t imagine a better gift to our children and grandchildren than handing them a financially secure nation in which to flourish.
— Jim Oberweis is a former state senator and senate Republican Whip in Illinois now living in Bonita Springs. A longtime resident of Southwest Florida, he manages a large investment fund and is an announced candidate for Congress, hoping to succeed U.S. Rep Byron Donalds, who is running for governor.