Would you support an Amendment prohibiting the US Gov. from deficit spending even if it would likely lead to a future Great Depression?

Oh, if it were only that easy…

I don’t take “populist outrage” as a compelling reason to pass an amendment and I don’t see this as a likely or desirable scenario.

No.

I also don’t think that people upset about “deficit spending” even know why they are upset. I think they are just repeating things people on TV tell them they should be mad about.

@Qingu Amen.

Frankly…it really doesn’t matter if any of us support it or don’t support it. Not a single legislator or politician gives a crap what any of us think and just do whatever they want to do anyway.

@SirGoofy – Amen.

I would have back in the 90’s when we had more then a balanced budget, if we would have voted that in then maybe we would have not gone to 2 different wars all willy nilly.

THe World Bank is calling the shots.
Get use to it.

I’d like to see our deficit go down significantly in the next decade (and my lifetime as a whole). Unfortunately a lot of the things that will make it go down in the long run, will make it go up in the short run. The old adage “you’ve got to spend money to make money” is true here too.

Also, you should think of this spending more as investing in most cases. Like the bailout last winter/spring. It’s not like we went out and spent all that money on Ice Cream, lap dances, and a car with racing stripes….. We invested it in our infrastructure, homes, research, etc…. We may have spent 700 billion or whatever now, but we’ll be getting paid back with interest over the next 10 years on what that money will do to us. Most of government spending is like this.

Think you’re confusing the bailout with the stimulus.

Though the bailout was basically an investment in “not devolving into a barter-based economy” And it was mostly loans, which are being repaid.

@Qingu Yes I did confuse them, I meant to say stimulus not bailout.

Though really you can think of the bailout in the same token. And that’s paying us back in literal money, not just benefits of infrastructure and such.

Thanks to all who have answered. Lots of thoughtful responses there. That’s encouraging. :-)

Populist outrage is easily manufactured by the talking heads idolized by the great unwashed and uneducated masses. It is astro turf: Frear, andger, discontentment generated by Faux News and Tabloid Radio. Most who would support such an amendment can’t differentiate between the national debt and the deficit.

@SirGoofy I’ll admit I will be amazed if they can get 67 Senators to put their coveted earmarks at risk, but it is ultimately the people that must support or reject Constitutional Amendments. It takes 75% of the States ratifying the proposal for it to become an Amendment.