Word: budgeteering
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...past few weeks, California Governor Jerry Brown has phoned five members of TIME'S Board of Economists. Why, he asked, did they oppose his call for a constitutional convention to devise an amendment that would force Congress to balance the budget? Recalls one of the economists: "When you say to him, 'Look, it just doesn't make a damn bit of sense,' his comeback is, 'Yes, but I want some amendment in the Constitution that reflects fiscal responsibility.' " The California legislature, by a vote of 12 to 8 in its ways and means committee...
Every member of TIME'S Board of Economists opposes a constitutional amendment that would require balancing the budget in each year. Similarly, all shudder at the thought of a constitutional convention, at which extremists might bring up all sorts of far-out schemes to change the Constitution. Said Beryl Sprinkel: "I don't want to lose the freedom we've got, so I am very concerned about having a constitutional convention." However, added David Grove...
Board members pointed out that an amendment to balance the budget would straitjacket the economy, particularly during a recession, when deficit spending often is prudent to spur a recovery. Otto Eckstein noted that because tax revenues fall during a recession, Congress would have to raise taxes in order to balance the budget, and that would bury the economy even deeper...
Alan Greenspan would endorse an amendment specifying that "all money bills, budget authority, appropriations and outlays would require a two-thirds vote by both houses of Congress." Trouble is, that would give veto power to one-third of Congress and seriously undermine the principle of majority rule. Yet, while all the ideas have flaws, Greenspan argues: "If the Congress does not respond to what is now in the process of occurring out in the grass roots, we will end up with a constitutional convention, and I think that would be a bad mistake...
This has placed a staggering burden on COWPS' 130-member staff. Though it is growing by 10 to 15 a week, the staff has a budget for only 230 employees, vs. the more than 4,500 that administered wage-price controls during the Nixon years...