Presidential candidate Rand Paul has announced his support for a balanced-budget amendment (BBA) to the U.S. Constitution. This is an old idea, but a good idea. A BBA has been proposed in Congress as far back as 1936. In 1982 the Senate passed a BBA by a vote of 69-31, but it failed to get the needed two-thirds approval in the House. In 1995 a BBA passed the House by a 300-132 margin, but it fell one vote short of passage in the Senate.
Today we need a BBA more than ever. Historical budget data show that federal politicians have become increasingly irresponsible over the years. The bipartisan 19th century belief that balancing the budget was morally proper and economically prudent disappeared during the 20th century. As the chart below shows, from 1791 to 1929 the federal government balanced its budget in 68 percent of the years. But from 1930 to 2015, the government balanced its budget in just 15 percent of the years.
Read more at http://www.cato.org/blog/balanced-budget-amendment-constitution
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