Balanced Budget Amendment Gains Momentum

Well, you don't see this every day -- Olympia Snowe and Jim DeMint have teamed up to produce this Wall Street Journal op-ed about the need for a balanced budget amendment:

Whatever happens when President Obama meets with congressional leaders of both parties at the White House today, no long-term solution is on the table for the spending habits in Washington that have endangered the prosperity of future generations. With our federal debt exceeding $14 trillion—nearly 100% of our gross domestic product—fiscal calamity is jeopardizing our standard of living and undermining our national security. And President Obama recently requested that we add an additional $2.4 trillion to our debt.

There has to be another way, and there is. Republicans in the Senate are united in our concern about our nation's fiscal future. Before we consider saddling our children with even more debt, we must enact significant spending cuts and enforceable caps on future spending. For the long term, to prevent both this Congress and its successors from hijacking the promise of American prosperity, we also need a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, like the one we and all 47 Senate Republicans have introduced.

A balanced budget amendment has long been talked about, but after months of these debt ceiling shennanigans and increasing awareness that we face fiscal calamity, the public's desire to see drastic measures to rein in the government's ability to spend might reaching critical mass.