Balanced Budget Amendment

WASHINGTON -- The most far-reaching item of the Republican agenda -- a constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget -- appears headed for approval in the House today after a skirmish yesterday over whether to make it harder to raise taxes than to cut spending."

WASHINGTON -- The Republican drive to put Congress under the restraints of a balanced-budget amendment has taken on the tone of an addict's plea for help: Stop us before we spend again."

By Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell's calculation, at least one-fifth of the Senate is a fraud. We think he is being modest. We would guess at least one-third of the world's greatest deliberative body is so craven, so fear-ridden, so lacking in principle and courage that it would vote to muck up the Constitution with a balanced-budget amendment that most members know is a phony.Lest Mr. Mitchell charge that we exaggerate, here is how we figure. The Senate just voted 63-37 for the proposed amendment, four votes shy of the two-thirds majority required for changing the Constitution.

WASHINGTON -- This was to be the year that the balanced budget amendment -- under active consideration since the early 1980s -- would finally be approved by Congress.Given plenty of co-sponsors, a growing sense that Washington should balance its books, and a commitment from legislative leaders to let the issue come to the Senate floor next week, prospects for passage appeared good.And at first blush, it might even have seemed that Sen. Robert C. Byrd, arch-foe of the proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, was being unusually sporting about the matter.

WASHINGTON -- Conservatives who hate raising taxes and liberals who cannot stand to cut spending have joined to bring the Senate to within a handful of votes of passing a constitutional amendment later this month to require a balanced budget.Sen. Paul Simon, the liberal Democrat from Illinois who is the measure's chief sponsor, is not predicting victory yet, but he said in an interview that he had detected a gradual increase in support. He has been pushing the measure for several years, and won a promise from the Senate majority leader, George J. Mitchell of Maine, a firm opponent of the amendment, for a vote sometime in this Senate session, which may end by Thanksgiving.

"THE CONGRESS, . . . on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments to this Constitution." -- Article V.The Montana legislature is expected to vote this week on such an application for a Constitutional Convention.Some Montana journalists say they think the legislators will kill the resolution. A number of individuals testified during hearings that the state shouldn't be a party to calling a convention. Though the resolution before the legislators says the constitutional convention could only consider a balanced budget amendment, some people are afraid of a "runaway convention."

THIS IS NOT just Memorial Day. It is also the 215th anniversary of the opening of the first Constitutional Convention.First? Yes, now that the Archivist of the U.S. and Congress have validated the proposition that state actions to amend the Constitution are everlasting, the second Constitutional Convention is a certainty.What the archivist said and Congress voted overwhelmingly to endorse was that state ratifications of congressionally proposed amendments to the Constitution never expire.

WASHINGTON -- A new study says Maryland would lose 99,000 jobs in 1995 and personal income would drop 12.5 percent below projected levels if a balanced-budget amendment were enacted this year.Legislation to add a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution has become a perennial on Capitol Hill. Current bills in the House and Senate have been around for more than a year.Lawmakers have shown renewed interest in the idea lately, and it is possible that the measure could be passed and sent to the states for ratification early this summer.

WASHINGTON -- A constitutional amendment that would force the federal government to spend within its means would be impractical and irresponsible or painful and necessary -- depending on which member of Congress you believe.Lawmakers wielded charts and statistics yesterday -- even spoke of their children's economic future -- during competing arguments about the wisdom of a balanced budget amendment.Congress is expected to vote next month on such an amendment, in the face of a $400 billion deficit, with Democratic leaders predicting it will be approved and then sent to the states for ratification.

WASHINGTON -- With political survival instincts and economic desperation fueling a bipartisan urge for action, Congress appears poised to pass a constitutional amendment mandating that the nation's budget be balanced yearly.In coming weeks, both the House and Senate will vote on similar resolutions in an effort to get control of runaway spending that this year is expected to drive the federal deficit to $400 billion.Passage this election year is likelier than ever as members of Congress respond to voter anger over the lawmakers' apparent inability to balance the nation's books any better than they handled their own accounts in the now-defunct House Bank.