On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 11:39 AM, LRS Scout <[email protected]> wrote: > 6. We require a balanced budget amendment. You cannot spend more than you > make.
This is the sort of thing that sounds good in theory but isn't very good economics in practice. Though it depends on how you implemented it, I suppose. I'd be fine if the budget was balanced over, say, a 10 year running period. But a single year? As a business person, I know that sometimes it makes a hell of a lot of sense to borrow money today to invest in something that I know is going to give me a positive ROI in a year or two or three. Over a longer period of time those investments have to be paid for, sure, but in the short term, yeah, you are going to run a deficit. And if you cant' right the ship and bring it back to positive cash flow then the dudes in charge need to get replaced. Doesn't mean that the short term deficit is a bad idea though. When the economy tanks like it did recently, we would have to balance it out by severely slashing programs and/or severely raising taxes. Sudden changes in either of those things is likely to have a negative effect on the economy, thus making things worse, thus making you have to resort to those steps again. Wash, rinse, repeat. Not a good fiscal idea. Instead, you need to take advantage of credit capacity, borrow money to cover short term issues, do some mild cutting of programs, mild raising of taxes where appropriate and work on getting things going again. Once they start taking off, you need to continue to trim programs and raise taxes (if needed) to put things in the black and start paying back debt. Jud ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:314526 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
