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We should amend our Federal Constitution to require a 2/3 vote in both houses of Congress for sending the government into debt. Our $10 trillion (and growing) national debt is a serious problem. We usually go into debt because it is politically difficult to do the things that balance budgets: raising taxes and/or cutting spending. Conversely, it is politically easy to do the things that make deficits worse: cutting taxes and/or raising spending.The amendment would require super-majority support for sending the government into debt. This would make it relatively easy for politicians to do the things that are necessary to balance budgets while still keeping the option of borrowing money for emergencies or legitimate long-term investments.
To give one example of how this would have helped us in our current situation, it would have required that we either 1) pay for the Iraq war with taxes now, 2) pay for the Iraq war by cutting spending (the responsible choices), or 3) get 2/3 of both houses of Congress to approve the debt (a much harder proposition). In short, there probably never would have been an Iraq war if this Amendment were in effect. This is pay-as-you-go with teeth.
