Balanced Budget Amendment - Pros and Cons in Budgeting

The balanced budget amendment is a proposal introduced in Congress almost every two years, without success, that would limit the federal governments spending to no more than it generates in revenue from taxes in any fiscal year. While almost every state is prohibit from running deficits, federal lawmakers have never gotten  a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution signed by the president, and the government continues to run deficits in the hundreds of billions and trillions of dollars every year.   One of the milestones in the modern debate over the balanced budget amendment came in 1995, when the House of Representatives led by Speaker Newt Gingrich passed legislation that would have banned the federal government from running deficits as part of the Republican Partys Contract With America. It truly has been, I think, an historic moment for the country. We kept our promise. We worked hard. We produced a real change, Gingrich said at the time. But the victory was short-lived, and the balanced budget amendment championed by Gingrich and fiscal conservatives who had been swept into power was defeated  in the Senate by two votes. The same battle has been waged for decades and the concept is often raised during congressional and presidential campaigns because the notion of keep a balanced budget is popular among voters, particularly conservative Republicans.   What Is the Balanced Budget Amendment? Most years, the federal government spends more money than it takes in through taxes. That’s why there is a budget deficit. The government borrows the additional money it needs. That’s why the national  debt is near $20 trillion. The balanced budget amendment would prohibit the federal government from spending more than it takes in each year unless Congress specifically authorizes the additional spending through a three-fifths or two-thirds vote. It would require the president to submit a balanced budget each year. And it would allow Congress to waive the balanced budget requirement when there is a declaration of war. Amending the Constitution is more complicated than simply passing a law. Passing an amendment to the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in each House. It is not submitted to the President for his signature. Instead, three-fourths of the state legislatures must approve it to be added to the Constitution. The only other way to amend the Constitution is to convene a Constitutional Convention at the request of two-thirds of the states. The convention method has never been used to amend the Constitution. Arguments for the Balanced Budget Amendment Advocates of a balanced budget amendment say  the federal government spends too much every year. They say that Congress has been unable to control spending without some kind of restraint and that, if spending is not controlled, our economy will suffer and our standard of living will drop. The federal government will continue to borrow until investors no longer will purchase bonds. The federal government will default and our economy will collapse. If Congress is required to balance the budget, it would figure out what programs are wasteful and would spend money more wisely, advocates say. â€Å"It’s simple math: The federal government should not be spending more taxpayer money that it brings in,† said Republican U.S. Sen. Grassley of Iowa, a longtime supporter of a balanced budget amendment.  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Almost every state has adopted some form of a balanced budget requirement, and it’s past time that the federal government follows suit.† Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, a cosponsor with Grassley on a balanced budget amendment, added: Hardworking Americans have been forced to bear the burden of Congress’ inability and unwillingness to control federal overspending. As our federal debt continues to rise at an alarming rate, the least we can do is require the federal government to not spend more money than it has at its disposal.† Arguments Against a Balanced Budget Amendment Those opposed to a constitutional amendment say that it is too simplistic. Even with the amendment, balancing the budget will have to be done each year by legislation. This would require Congress to coordinate a large number of pieces of legislation – twelve appropriation bills, tax legislation, and any supplemental appropriations to name just a few of them. To balance the budget right now, Congress would have to eliminate many programs. In addition, when there is an economic downturn, the amount of taxes the federal government takes in usually drops. Spending often must be increased during those times or the economy can get worse. Under the balanced budget amendment, Congress would be unable to increase the needed spending. This is not a problem for states because they don’t control fiscal policy, but Congress needs the ability to stimulate the economy. By requiring a balanced budget every year, no matter the state of the economy, such an amendment would raise serious risks of tipping weak economies into recession and making recessions longer and deeper, causing very large job losses. That’s because the amendment would force policymakers to cut spending, raise taxes, or both just when the economy is weak or already in recession — the exact opposite of what good economic policy would advise, wrote Richard Kogan of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Outlook Amending the Constitution is a rare and daunting task. It takes a great deal of time to adopt an amendment. The House may pass the constitutional amendment, but the outlook is much more uncertain in the Senate. If it passes there, it still needs to be ratified by three-fourths of the states. Because of the legitimate opposition to a balanced budget amendment among some economists and policymakers, Congress is unlikely to undertake the cumbersome process of even considering the amendment barring a significant debt crisis.

The United States And The Origins Of The Cold War

Ivan Novoa Professor Calvo AMH2042 23 July 2015 The United States and the Origins of the Cold War Essay Thinking about the decisions, strategies and goals of Soviet Union and the United States views on world domination and the possible accomplishment of such. The first and main would be to think and observe critically concerning the worldwide political scenery in the years after World War II (1945). This moment in history; taking all the way through the Cold War, may be seen as a lapse of severe ideological polarization through the world. Noticeably there were followers of the two conflicting camps expressing confidence that their philosophy would emerge victorious over the other and become the pre-outstanding type of government around†¦show more content†¦If you do not think about world domination in the Alexanderian or Napoleonic sense, but rather a global hegemonic sense; then yes the Soviet Union (and on the other side of the same coin, the U.S.) were aiming towards world domination during the arms races taking place from 1945 onwards. The Soviet Union in pursuit of its objective of world hegemony during the last half of the twentieth century, not only accepted the premise that military warfare was inevitable and essential, but continued to orient each and every policy and action toward a constant increase of total Soviet military potential. There was no doubt that the advent of Soviet atomic capability would result in a sharp increase in Soviet total power. When talking about this power though, were are not saying that the Soviets possessing a sizable stockpile of atomic weapons would necessarily equal the Soviets attacking the United States and its Allies by direct military action. This was always certainly on the forefront of the political landscape of the time though. When thinking about the employment of military force by the Soviets though, one must take into consideration other Soviet strategic forces already engaged directly, as well as the status of Soviet-controlled areas and peoples. Therefore, at the ti me, any approximation of estimation of military action; or even guesses about probable Soviet concepts for achieving

Breast Cancer Essay - 1160 Words

Breast cancer is the most commonly detected disease in females everywhere [1]. There are several efforts done to give solutions to Detect of breast cancer using thermal images. In this section we will make a review for some of these iterations. Araujo et al. [2] proposed a framework to use interval data to model breast strange shape as malignant, benign and cyst. They used a segmentation method that drawing ellipsoidal elements that selects the area of each breast. Ellipses were adjusted for the patient’s breast. The morphological and thermal matrices are used to calculate minimum and maximum temperature values were extracted from. They presented a high accuracy supervised and unsupervised technique that used breast thermal images.†¦show more content†¦[6] and Hough transform. They used range of temperature in ROI, the mean temperature, standard deviation and quantization of the higher tone in an eight level posterization. These features were extracted from the entire breast image and breast quadrants. Support vector machine classifier gave an accuracy of classification around 86%. The method has compared the entire image with other related works presents superiors values of accuracy and sensitivity but lowe r specificity. Another comparison is made using analysis of area under the ROC curve, concern this, results from this work are better for Lacunarity measures, but lower when the Hurst coefficient is used. Motta et al. [6] developed an automated segmentation method, which used thresholding based on highest temperature of the breast for the detection of lower border. Upper limit of region of interest (ROI) is obtained by detecting axilla. The center point of the segmented image is used for separating right and left breast. But in an asymmetric breast, the center point of the breast may not detect right and left breast ROI separation point. Qi et al. [9] used Canny edge detection followed by Hough transform for the detection of lower boundaries of the breast. They assumed that lower breast boundary has a parabolic shape. In an abnormal and asymmetric breast, generalization of lower boundary as parabola may result in error in the detection of ROI of breast. The Hough transform method is alsoShow MoreRelatedMale Breast Cancer Essay861 Words   |  4 Pages Breast cancer in males is quite common, yet still many people are unaware of this disease. Often, it can go undiagnosed until the cancer is in the fourth stage. Every year over 2,000 men will be diagnosed, but only 54% will survive. Cancer in men is often overlooked as it is almost 100 times less common in men than women. During a man’s entire lifespan, the risk of having a diagnosis is about one in one-thousand. The most common symptom of this devastating disease are a lump or some swelling. 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Evacuation Movement In Apartment Buildings -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The Evacuation Movement In Apartment Buildings? Answer: Introducation The September 11, 2001 attack commonly known as the 9/11 attacks was a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks on United States. The attack killed around 3000 People and injured more than 6000 people. It caused around $10 Billion loss in infrastructure and property damaged. The attack changed the minds of several leading engineers and brought up several questions over the disaster. management consequently discussed over years and finally brought up with a conclusion which has amendments over the Construction Standards and Infrastructure Standards. Major Changes After 9/11 The 9/11 incident brought up several changes in International codes. Some of them are being listed below. Elevators are required in High rise buildings (commonly known as skyscrapers), more than 120ft tall, which marketing it easy for the fire fighters to get to the point. Apart from a general stairway, there requires an additional stairway for high-rises more than 420ft high. A higher standard for fire resistance must be provided in High rises more than 420ft high. Shafts enclosing elevators and exit stairways that have impact resistant walls. Self-Luminous exit pathway markings in all exit stairways must be provided, as it acts as a necessary one when both the primary and secondary lighting fails. These changes have been appreciated by several persons around the world. Some of them are, Charles Lewis (In a National Post) said. The Code Council has done an admirable job in that regard. Beyond that, building owners, operators and state and local governments will need to be ever vigilant and tailor their preventive strategies based on threat and risk assessment. Topic To Be Considered For Case Study: In the modern world elevators has become an ideal part of the life style. Being in a high rise building there needs to be adequate provision of Good working elevators at a speed of movement. Considering the fact of safety and the provision of speed evacuating of the persons from an accident zone it brings up important to notice. Henceforth it is being considered for the case study. Not only provision of adequate elevators also the provision of fire protected, and structurally hardened elevators must be provided to bring emergency response activities in high rise buildings by providing active tactical decision aids. Additional Stairway: Additional stairway is needed in a high rise building as it brings up to notice that while evacuating the width of staircase is very much essential or else it will lead to a stampede and create a lot of disaster. An auditing stairway with regular safety fire exits and proper fire extinguishers and mostly important. Self Luminous Exit Pathway Markings: Humans are often relating to the lighting and visibility of a living or a workplace. Hence the self-luminous pathway markings have become the ideal part of the discussion. The self-luminous pathway markings are done in all commercial buildings after 9/11 incident. Careful considerations have been done for this process. Case Study Plan: The above-mentioned factors are to be considered for the case study plan. The case study plan consists of the following contents to be covered Standard before 9/11 on the case study Damages because of the lag in standard on 9/11 Careful consideration points on the standard after 9/11 Clear view point on the standard Deriving at possible solutions on the case study Finalizing the solution of the case study standard Implementation and amendment of the standard References Lie, T.T., (2015), Structural Fire Protection, American Society of Civil Engineers, P-232. Lioy, J.P., Weisel, P.C., et.al., (2002), Characterization of Dust/smoke aerosol that settled east of the WTC, Environmental Healthcare Perspectives, PP-703-714 Peters, T.F., Drummer, H.O., Musshoff, F., (2007) Validation of New Methods, Forensic Science Internation, Vol-165 Issue 2-3, PP-216-224 Proulx, G., (1995), Evacuation Time and Movement in apartment Buildings, Fire Safety Journal, Vol-24 Issue 3, PP-229-246. William, L., Waugh, Streib, G., (2006) Collaboration and Leadership for Effective Emergency Management, Americal Society for Public Administration, PP-131-140