The social, corporate, and monetary interventionists have come forth with balanced budget language allowing them to retain power and control while, at the same time, increasing their likelihood of re-election at the hands of their constituents who, by more than 80 percent, favor passage of a balanced budget amendment.

One must wonder why anyone would take such an amendment by Congress seriously. There can be no reasonable expectation that a Congress, which flagrantly circumvents the existing limitations on governmental power contained in the first ten amendments to the very same Constitution, would adhere to provisions of any amendment purporting to balance the federal budget. In its first meeting this session, this very Congress voted to suspend the fourth amendment as it enacted a House Rule to allow drug testing of Congressional personnel.

However, even if Congress would adhere to the plain language of such an amendment, no language has yet been put forth which would genuinely prohibit various interventionist factions from moving the nation further down its current path of fiscal demise.

The monetary interventionists offer amendment language which allows circumvention of the deficit restrictions by Congress "in case of recession." This policy, based in the now-discredited Keynesian paradigm under which governments borrow and spend their way out of their own prior inflation-induced recessions, serves as no real justification for amendment circumvention.

Similarly, the social interventionists propose language which "herds" socially-sacred cows to the off-budget "pasture." Rather than acknowledge the irrefutable notion that subsidization of non-productivity begets more non-productivity, new "social experiments" changing only a minor variable or two, are implemented which do little more than increase the number of recipients ever more dependent upon programs ultimately destined to fail.

Lastly, the corporate interventionists proffer language to excuse Congress from a balanced budget not only during periods of "declared war" but even during periods when the United States is engaged in "military conflicts." The taxpayer's realization of the true cost of war is one of the soundest checks on government's policy to police the world. Instead, governments have historically resorted to use of the monetary printing presses and excessive borrowing to sidestep this vital form of political pressure.

Conspicuously absent from all proposed language are words necessary to address the real issue. The real issue is excessive growth, spending, and taxation by a Congress which has long ignored the already-existing, Constitutionally-imposed limits contained in the Bill of Rights.

Rather than adding yet another of what have become meaningless amendments to a Congressionally-diluted Constitution; an amendment which is only remotely prudent because protective provisions of the Bill of Rights have been ignored over time when politically convenient; let us instead acknowledge the limitations already placed on the federal government's power, and consequently, government's level of spending and borrowing.

Read Ron Paul's recent column on the Balanced Budget Amendment.