I believe you're mostly wrong and your bias is showing. Elected officials with some obvious exceptions are not idiots, they are human beings whose priority is keeping their job (and the power and valuables it provides). To do so they must follow the money, which is one reason I believe Citizens United v. FEC will exacerbate an already serious problem.
To suggest "Our '"leaders'" have been doing it for 2 years" is both disengenuous and highly partisan. Deficit spending has been an on-going problem for decades and the deficit has grown consistently.
The fundamental idea of fiscal responsibility is sound, implementing it is nearly impossible. Instead of demanding the Constitutional Authority before any bill is considered, The Congress must get their respective houses in order and pass rules which prevent riders, restrict logrolling and outlaw any member, any family member of any member and any aide from accepting anything from anyone with an interest in any legislation, pending or on the horizon. If an over-the-horizon bill is authored, the author and every member of congress must provide everything of value, offered, recieved or promised, by anyone with a vested interest in the matter.
Of course such a rule change would fundamentally change the nature of The Congress and potentially legislative bodies across our nation. If and only if such a change occurs it matters not if the Congress is controlled by the D's or R's or any other organized (or disorganized group), it will fall prey to the money and benefit the few and not the many.
Deficit spending has been going on for years. It is only recently, outside of WW2, that it has gone a rate of 65% of revenues. This is beyond ridiculous and IS criminally incompetent. It was don under a government that 100% controlled by the Dems. They had the majority in the House, a filibuster proof majority in the Senate and the White House.
My "bias" is that I have actually looked at what actually has happened and am not making excuses for the blithering idiots who have done this to us.
Expecting the bribery crazy thieves who have stolen from us for decades make more laws to pile on top of the laws that already should have prevented this is, please excuse me, stupid.
The only way to control the spending is to take away the money. This means to de-centralize the government and cut these A-holes off at the purse.
What you suggest is similar to allowing the Mexican Drug Cartels to write the laws that control our border security which, apparently, is the policy of this administration.