The Parties want the Constitution to Balance our Federal Budget

Both political parties depend on the Constitution to solve our budget debt crises. The Constitution’s guarantee to have a balanced budget is more of a rallying cry than a successful strategy.

While all media focuses on former President Donald Trump’s indictments, they have lost interest in any future economic catastrophe from not raising a debt ceiling. Nevertheless, liberals and conservatives propose looking at our Constitution to avoid a repeat.

They offer two competing solutions that depend on interpreting or amending the Constitution. If either solution were successful, the next battle between any Administration and Congress to balance the budget by raising a debt ceiling would be eliminated.

Although the parties’ plans of being implemented are slight, they could surface big time before the debt limit returns on January 1, 2025. Consequently, it’s not too early to examine them. Are they realistic or impracticable?

The Democrat Plan — Reinterpret the Constitution

The Democratic Party has not pursued limiting federal debt with the same fortitude as the Republican Party. In this last standoff between them on needing to raise the debt limit, the Democrat’s progressive wing floated the idea of applying the 14th Amendment to eliminate the debt ceiling by declaring it unconstitutional. Some progressives argue that the Amendment says that the federal government’s debts must be paid once Congress has appropriated money to pay debts.

The Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Rep. Pramila Jayapal, wanted President Biden to make that case to the courts. She didn’t make a legal argument so much as a political one. She stated that what the debt created is “essentially preserving tax breaks for the wealthiest and making poor people pay for that.”

Progressives could produce data to substantiate her point. However, none of it would be germane to the majority of the Supreme Court Justices who would decide whether to invoke the 14th Amendment as the progressives would like.

Biden took a nimble step to acknowledge Jayapal’s political assessment but bought time in pursuing an appeal to the courts. He was open to taking a test case to the Supreme…