J.E.D
Gold Member
- Jul 28, 2011
- 14,159
- 2,229
- 280
- Banned
- #1
Another non-jobs-related bill dies in Boehner's fractured House.
Balanced Budget Amendment Fails In House Vote
WASHINGTON -- The latest Republican push for a balanced budget amendment that would force massive spending cuts to the country's social safety net died in the House of Representatives Friday, brought down by lawmakers who argued Congress can balance the budget on its own.
Requiring a two-thirds majority to pass under the Constitution, the measure failed 261-165, with several Republicans voting with the majority of Democrats against the amendment.
Analysts had warned that instituting the proposed balanced-budget requirements would likely force cuts of greater that 17 percent within seven years of the amendment's ratification. Such cuts could mean slashing Social Security by $1.2 trillion and Medicare by $750 billion by 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The Friday vote was held as part of the compromise to hike the nation's debt limit this past summer -- a deal that also produced the deficit-cutting super committee that now seems deadlocked.
With the nation's debt surpassing $15 trillion this week and exceeding $1 trillion annually for several years, conservatives thought they had a chance to pass the amendment, but even some Republicans opposed it -- most prominently, House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.), who said that Congress had proved it didn't need to change the Constitution to even the books when it balanced budgets during the Clinton administration.