US Politics Analysis: Republicans Find the Strategy of a Balanced Budget Amendment

An Independence Day article by the conservative commentator David Brooks in The New York Times, "The Mother of All No-Brainers", has sparked its fair share of controversy this week. His scathing criticism of the Republican Party's hidebound refusal to compromise in the debt-ceiling talks has drawn comments ranging from the adulation of "David Brooks' Lisa Simpson Moment" in The New Republic, to the derisive dismissal, "David Brooks Gets Played", at the conservative news site redstate.com. The article even received the unusual honour of both being mentioned on the Senate floor, by Majority Leader Harry Reid, with copies handed out to reporters at House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer's weekly briefing.

The notoriety of Brooks' article can be credited to the fascination with the motives and reasoning of an apostate. For on the same day that his piece appeared, other columns attacked the intransigence --- or, in the newly popular word, "recalcitrance" --- of conservatives over reaching some kind of a deal to raise the debt limit.

Perhaps the most overt example of this Republican-bashing in the mainstream media came in "A Grand Old Cult" by Richard Cohen in the Washington Post. Cohen began with the observation, “Someone ought to study the Republican Party. I am not referring to yet another political scientist but to a mental health professional, preferably a specialist in the power of fixations, obsessions and the like. The GOP needs an intervention. It has become a cult.”

Cohen then related Republicans' obsession with making pledges; all of which forsake reason for support of “cockamamie” beliefs. He paid particular attention to the Taxpayer Protection Pledge of the Grover Norquist-led Americans for Tax Reform, as he concluded:

Almost all the GOP’s presidential candidates have taken this oath, swearing before God and Grover Norquist to cease thinking on their own, never to exercise independent judgment and, if necessary, to destroy the credit of the United States, raise the cost of borrowing and put the government deeper into the hole.

Norquist's pledge campaign began back in 1986 with the approval of President Ronald Reagan. As of 1 June 2011, 236 members of the House of Representatives and 41 members of the Senate had promised that they will:

ONE, oppose any and all efforts to increase the marginal income tax rates for individuals and/or businesses; and

TWO, oppose any net reduction or elimination of deductions and credits, unless matched dollar for dollar by further reducing tax rates.

This second clause commits signers to eschewing any revenue increases through taxation. In essence, if the $2.1 billion in tax breaks enjoyed by the oil and gas companies are eliminated, then a corresponding amount in taxes would need to be cut somewhere else.

Norquist and his pledge have been frustrating Democrats for a while now. Two weeks ago Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) blamed the breakdown in the debt talks, led by Vice President Joe Biden, on Norquist's influence, "[The] reality here is that, until our Republican colleagues are more concerned about the need to reduce the deficit than they're worried about what Grover Norquist will say, we're going to have a really difficult time reducing the deficit.”

This week Senator Reid, continuing on the GOP intransigence theme, argued, “"The Republican Party has been taken over by ideologies either devoted to, or terrified by, Grover Norquist and his no-tax pledge, whatever that means.”

Surprisingly, however, while Democrats have identified a useful platform for attacking the recalcitrance of Republicans in the debt talks –-- their commitment to pledges –-- they have decided to concentrate on the wrong one. Norquist might appeal to a strong anti-tax base in conservative circles, but it is nearly a month now since Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) declared, "Grover’s old news. It doesn’t matter what he says, it doesn’t matter what he wants."

Shortly after these remarks Sen. Coburn joined with a group of fellow Republicans, all crucially from inside Washington, to formulate another pledge: the cut, cap, and balance pledge.

Cut: Substantial cuts in spending that will reduce the deficit next year and thereafter.
Cap: Enforceable spending caps that will put federal spending on a path to a balanced budget
Balance: Congressional passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution --- but only if it includes both a spending limitation and a super-majority for raising taxes --- in addition to balancing revenues and expenses.

The most significant of these three commitments is the last, and Republicans' zeal for a Balanced Budget Amendment can hardly come as surprise to Democrats. Back in early April, I noted how “Republicans --- and that means all Republican senators in this case --- are threatening that they will only agree to raising the limit if this long-term solution to the debt problem is also passed". In Monday's announcement, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) enthused that the current debt crisis is a ”once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to enact the amendment, and “win a major victory for the American people and begin the process of stopping the massive spending, takeovers and debt that are destroying our country.”

The rhetoric used now to support the Amendment has not changed since then, and not one Republican senator has defected from the cause. In Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, Sen. DeMint and the much more moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), co-authored the article, "The Only Reform That Will Restrain Spending", subtitled, "All 47 Senate Republicans now support changing the Constitution to balance the federal budget".

Reinforcing that united endorsement of the Amendment, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and 17 co-sponsors introduced the Cut, Cap, and Balance Act of 2011. The proposed legislation calls for an immediate reduction in spending for 2012 of $142 billion, sets spending caps for the next ten years, and requires passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment before the debt limit can be raised.

Interestingly, this commitment to that Amendment is beginning to highlight some cracks in the supposedly monolithic resistance from Republicans to raising the debt limit. Some House Republicans are more wedded to the idea of refusing to raise the limit under any circumstances, rather than joining their Senate counterparts in trying to gain concessions before ultimately doing so. It is that disagreement that led Erick Erickson at redstate.com to caustically berate some Representatives with the barb, “Just how badly are supposedly 'Tea Party Friendly' House Republicans abandoning conservatives? Olympia Snowe of Maine has gotten to the right of them. They should all break out the leather braids and self-flagellate. Shame on them.”

There is a long, long, way to go before the final details of a deal on the debt-limit emerge, but a bloc of 47 Senators all committed to the same end is not to be dismissed lightly; even when then that cause is the seemingly improbable passing of a constitutional amendment. Erickson counters that pessimism with the argument that Republicans must be bold as:

In reality, Republicans won’t get a two-thirds vote in either House when they first bring the Balanced Budget Amendment to the floor. But then, if they hold the freaking line and show their willingness to block a debt ceiling vote, i.e. shoot the hostage, they will get the votes.

Or as Daniel Horowitz also argued at redstate.com: "President Obama is intimating that the GOP’s opposition to “increasing revenue” is the sole obstacle to achieving a deficit reduction plan. We should call his bluff and put forth proposals to increase revenue. Then, there will be no excuses for opposing a Balanced Budget Amendment.”

That position should seriously worry Democrats and their supporters. Here are some rough back- of-the-envelope numbers to consider. Federal spending is now at 25% of America's $15 trillion GDP; or about $3.5 trillion. The Amendment requires spending and revenue, as illustrated by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) in a Senate speech Wednesday, to be capped at 18% of GDP: or $2.7 trillion. That $800 billion difference is, for example, more than the United States spends on its entire defense budget annually.

The important point to note is that the "significant cuts in exchange for raising the limit" discussions are not the only political game in town. If and when the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, and the President can agree on those numbers, they are still going to face concerted opposition from a solid, at least initially, and possibly intransigent minority in the Senate, who will not accept such a deal without also passing a Balanced Budget Amendment.