Mark Udall Hopes to Introduce a Balanced Budget Amendment

by: saindenver

Tue Aug 02, 2011 at 16:32:27 PM MST

One of the big victories by tea-party Republicans in the debt-ceiling measure signed into law Tuesday was securing a requirement that Congress vote later this year on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution.

The measure would need a two-thirds vote in each chamber, and then ratification by 38 states, to succeed. And most observers believe passage in the Democratic-controlled Senate is all but impossible.

Enter Sen. Mark Udall, the centrist Democrat from Colorado, who has introduced an amendment proposal and said Tuesday that Democratic leaders have chosen his legislation to be considered in the fall.

Udall is up for reelection in 2014. Many of his Democratic co-sponsors - including Sens. Claire McCaskill (Mo.), Joe Manchin (W. Va.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) - are running this year and need support from centrists.

But Udall's amendment has a couple of provisions that might win over some Democrats. It creates a "Social Security lockbox" (with apologies to Al Gore and his Saturday Night Live impersonator) that his office says would "protect the revenue and outlays of Social Security from any balanced budget requirement." And it prohibits Congress from providing income tax breaks for people earning over $1 million a year unless the country is enjoying budget surpluses.

Regardless, I don't like it.