Don't amend Constitution; elect a Congress with common sense instead
A federal balanced-budget amendment remains a bad idea
By Daniel J. Evans
Seattle Times
A Republican, Daniel J. Evans represented Washington state in the U.S. Senate from 1983 to 1989 and served as governor from 1965 to 1977.
LATER this week, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to begin debate on a balanced-budget amendment to the United States Constitution. Similar proposals have been voted down, sometimes narrowly, many times in the past 30 years. It is a bad idea and Congress should reject it again.
When our founders drafted our Constitution, they produced a simple and elegant document setting forth only the structure of government and the basic rights of its citizens. Amendments consistently expanded opportunity for all of us. The Bill of Rights sings to us our freedoms. We ended slavery, expanded voting rights to all races, women and 18-year-olds.
Only once did we seek to control social behavior through Prohibition, but promptly repealed that aberration. There were no artificial term limits, no social engineering, no balanced-budget crutch. They knew well that the flesh and blood of governing a free society came not from artificial constitutional restraints, but from the vigilance and participation of citizens.
In recent years we have faced attempts to amend the Constitution to allow prayer in schools, establish political office term limits, ban burning the American flag, and to prohibit abortion. But our Constitution is strong because it is amended rarely and then to expand freedoms, not restrict them.
(More here.)
By Daniel J. Evans
Seattle Times
A Republican, Daniel J. Evans represented Washington state in the U.S. Senate from 1983 to 1989 and served as governor from 1965 to 1977.
LATER this week, the U.S. House of Representatives is expected to begin debate on a balanced-budget amendment to the United States Constitution. Similar proposals have been voted down, sometimes narrowly, many times in the past 30 years. It is a bad idea and Congress should reject it again.
When our founders drafted our Constitution, they produced a simple and elegant document setting forth only the structure of government and the basic rights of its citizens. Amendments consistently expanded opportunity for all of us. The Bill of Rights sings to us our freedoms. We ended slavery, expanded voting rights to all races, women and 18-year-olds.
Only once did we seek to control social behavior through Prohibition, but promptly repealed that aberration. There were no artificial term limits, no social engineering, no balanced-budget crutch. They knew well that the flesh and blood of governing a free society came not from artificial constitutional restraints, but from the vigilance and participation of citizens.
In recent years we have faced attempts to amend the Constitution to allow prayer in schools, establish political office term limits, ban burning the American flag, and to prohibit abortion. But our Constitution is strong because it is amended rarely and then to expand freedoms, not restrict them.
(More here.)
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