Civil and Human Rights Coalition Opposes Balanced Budget Amendments in U.S. Senate

The
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is opposing efforts in the U.S.
Senate to pass a balanced budget amendment (BBA) to the Constitution.

Echoing
arguments recently made to House members, Wade Henderson, president & CEO
of The Leadership Conference, and Nancy Zirkin, executive vice president of The
Leadership Conference, today sent a
letter to Senators Durbin, D – Ill, and Graham, R – S.C., stating that a BBA “would be disastrous for the economy as a whole and for the communities we
represent.”

A
BBA would “require extreme spending cuts” even during periods of economic
weakness and deny the ability of the federal government to enact
“countercyclical policies right when they are needed most,” write Henderson and
Zirkin.  “As a result, the BBA would tip a struggling economy into a
recession and keep it there for a protracted period of time.”

The
letter also argues against language that requires a supermajority of both
houses of Congress to raise the nation’s debt limit or increase revenues. The
effects of these policies, Zirkin and Henderson warn, would be to force the
government to make drastic cuts to vital programs such as Social Security,
Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits.

Passing
S.J.Res.3, S.J.Res.23, or any other proposed balanced
budget amendment, Henderson and Zirkin
conclude, is a “recipe for making recessions
more frequent, longer, and deeper, while requiring severe cuts that would
harshly affect seniors, children, veterans, people with disabilities, homeland
security activities, public safety, environmental protection, education and
medical research.”

A
recent vote
on a balanced budget amendment in the House failed to get the two-thirds
majority required for passage.  Ahead of the vote, The Leadership
Conference helped organize 275
national organizations in opposition to a BBA.

The full
letter is below and available in PDF.