Real talk

WSJ: Forget the Balanced-Budget Amendment!

It's a political and policy disaster.

The lede of the day goes to the Wall Street Journal editorialists: “As self-defeating sideshows go, few compare to the Republican obsession with a balanced-budget amendment.” The right-leaning Journal blasts House Speaker John Boehner for trying to pass a long-shot constitutional amendment that would require the federal budget to stay balanced. The legislation gives red-state Democrats a chance to bolster their conservative cred by voting for an unpassable bill, and even if it did become law it would be a policy disaster. “This is a recipe for politicians to tell voters that taxes must go up because the Constitution made them do it.”