Reading Room Document

The Balanced Budget Amendment

The lack of any enforcement mechanism in current proposals to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget could result in the transfer of power over fundamental political questions of taxing and spending to the courts. This would represent a substantial reordering of our basic constitutional structure. Before resorting to the drastic step of amending the Constitution, Congress should explore other reasonable alternatives, including line item veto legislation. The OLC does not provide release dates for its opinions, so the release date listed is the date on which the opinion was authored. The original opinion is available at www.justice.gov/file/20261/download.

January 23, 1995