Governor John Kasich (R-OH) visited Your World Thursday (8/15/13) to discuss the “need” for a balanced budget amendment. Host Neil Cavuto gushed in his introduction, “(Kasich) knows the inner workings of our budget probably better than anyone. He has single handedly turned his state around.”
Kasich said:
I was a sponsor of (the balanced budget amendment) when I was a very young legislator. Then I became the Budget Committee chairman for a while and developed a great team of people around me, and we actually got the budget balanced, and we started paying down debt. But once the team of us left, you know, everything went south, and they just started spending again.
…I am convinced that this Congress is not going to get there unless there’s some cataclysmic event and if that happens, the collateral damage is going to affect people who don’t have a lot of power, people who are caught in the middle, and so I believe that we in Ohio want to reignite the issue to force the Congress to pass a balanced budget amendment so we can do something that makes perfect sense.
Cavuto was more challenging than his introduction would have suggested. But the challenges were about the process, not the substance of a balanced budget amendment. Cavuto said that while Congress may “talk a good game,” about the amendment. they never go so far as to pass it. “Ronald Reagan wanted it, many wanted it, you wanted it, but they never do,” Cavuto argued.
Kasich said, “Neil, we balanced the budget when I was there. …We get 34 states, the Congress will pass something because they don’t want to see a Constitutional convention. …Why now? Because I’m just sort of fed up with it just like you are. I am fed up with the fact that they can’t control their spending habits, and it’s both parties.”
A graphic appeared on the screen showing that under President Obama, the budget deficit has gone from $1.4 trillion in FY 2009 to a projected $641.8 billion in FY 2013. That’s a reduction of more than 50%. But there was no credit to Obama from either Cavuto or Kasich.
In fact, there’s a lot to dislike about the balanced budget amendment. Paul Waldman, writing in The American Prospect called it “one of the GOP’s dumbest ideas.” He said, “If you think the sequester was a terrific idea and worked out great for everyone, have they got a deal for you."
If Your World was truly fair and balanced, Cavuto would have at least mentioned some of the criticism.
“Yet what Americans want are jobs.”
That is, jobs OTHER than the menial, low-paying dead end jobs in “McJobville” (i.e. McDonald’s) and “Wallyworld” (i.e. Wal-Mart).
’Nuff said.
It’s also worth noting that, so far, only 31 states have ever applied for a Constitutional Convention regarding a balanced budget amendment, but many of the applications have differences so the applications shouldn’t count (any more than an amendment proposed by Congress which has differences between the House and Senate versions can be considered until AFTER the versions have been reconciled). Adding even more fun to the mix is the fact that several states have rescinded their applications (which, to me, would require them to submit new applications—and the right-wing have already set precedent when they succeeded in getting the rescissions of several states’ approval of the ERA removed from the needed “38”).
