BALANCE THE BUDGET

In the absence of a catastrophe, America must no longer incur debt, but must pay for all expenditures. Further, to be able to fund catastrophic recovery plans, America must make arrangements and commitments to amortize and pay off its current National Debt. Because Washington, D.C. has proven itself incapable of fiscal discipline, catastrophic thinking must impose fiscal discipline in the form of a Constitutional Amendment.

The Constitutional Amendment should, above all else, require government to budget to spend only the revenues collected in the previous fiscal year. That way the sources of funding must be proven before the money is spent. No more would new programs be funded by gimmicks like projected savings by “cutting waste” or accounting trickery or selling assets. Instead, the sources of revenue will be collected on an ongoing basis.

The only exceptions by which Congress and the President could spend more than established revenues would be by a two-thirds vote by both Houses of Congress and signed by the President, with no veto overrides, AND by a declaration of war or a declaration of a catastrophe. A declaration of catastrophe would include the imposition of martial law (it’s a catastrophe which by definition requires military intervention to maintain law and order as well as to provide relief to the stricken areas). The declaration of catastrophe would automatically trigger most if not all of Plan C. Plan C will include many changes in the law to automatically help govern in times of crisis.

Another aspect of a balanced budget amendment would to be to require the amortization of any debt incurred by a sinking fund perhaps over ten years. The amendment would also address the National Debt by requiring a sinking fund of the existing national debt, over a period not to exceed 100 years.