Fiscal flimflam

Why should preaching the gospel of fiscal responsibility be constrained by the failure to practice anything of the kind? So goes the thinking behind a balanced-budget mandate expected to surface on Capitol Hill courtesy of the same lawmakers who passed tax cuts worth more than $1 trillion in deficits.

The House plans to consider the balanced-budget amendment after it returns from Easter recess, Politico reported, resurrecting a perennial proposal to constitutionally obligate the federal government to match expenditures with revenues. While the constitutions of California and most other states require balanced budgets, the U.S. government labors under no such burden — and it shows.

The expected vote is reportedly the House Republican leadership’s symbolic concession to the party’s right flank in exchange for the budget-busting tax cuts. The Congressional Budget Office projected that Congress’ rewrite of corporate and individual income taxes would add $1.5 trillion in federal deficits over the next decade, increasing the national debt as a share of the economy by more than six percentage points, to 97.5 percent of gross domestic product. While economic growth could offset some of that, it’s unlikely to reduce the net impact to less than $1 trillion.

Moreover, just before the recess, lawmakers reached a bipartisan compromise on a $1.3 trillion appropriations bill, pumping up spending on defense and domestic programs by $500 billion and further alienating fiscal hawks. President Trump threatened to veto the bill on Twitter, called it “ridiculous” and then signed it.

Like Trump’s bluster, the balanced-budget measure is nothing more than a crude ploy to distract voters from what actually happened.