SonicFlyer

None... that I know of...

rickair7777

Human nature.

The trick is to run things so most folks don't actually need handouts (tough this year with covid). If most people are concerned with the hard-earned fruits of their labor being squandered by government, then government might be compelled to behave in a fiscally prudent manner. I think that's the trick to keep/wean folks off largesse from the treasury.


Even though the fed won't, at least some states have balanced budget requirements (including some that might surprise you, such as CA).

In fairness, our republic has thrived and lasted a lot longer than Lord Tytler would have predicted. He did point out a very valid weakness though, definitely worth bearing in mind.

Swakid8

Virginia is also a state with a balance budget requirement.

sflpilot

Why don’t we just say that we want to go back to the pre-1978 days. This proposal won’t end in March they will be back asking for an extension by then.

senecacaptain

commendable and clearly needed, but Fiscal Year ends Sept 30. Congress is out entire month of August.

It is unknown if any such measure could be enacted with no budget and in a CR

our leaders may be focused on keeping their own jobs. not sure how Mr Taxpayer feels about this

njd1

Scenario 1:

A loser who doesn't pay attention in school and does not have the brains or ability to excel at anything goes out into the world and realizes that no one will pay them a dollar for a day's work because they fail to provide anything of value to society. Knowing full well they can't pay their own bills or anyone else's, they have children. They then ask the government (John Q. Taxpayer, that is) for a handout.

Scenario 2:

The government overreacts to a minor illness similar to the flu and shuts down the economy, putting 30+ million capable people out of work practically overnight, destroying entire industries in the process, all to save an infinitesimal number of people (0.03% to be precise) who would have died anyway from a variety of co-morbidities if they had caught the common cold.

I would argue Scenario 1 warrants no assistance but scenario 2 does, by virtue of the fact that we all want to work and are fully capable of working, yet the government's inept and irrational policies restrict us from doing so. They created the problem, so they're responsible for cleaning it up.

The best government is small government, and certainly a government that has little direct control over our lives, and the sooner people realize that the better off we'll all be.

05Duramax

Funny thing, I’d argue anti-government religion is what got us into this problem. Notice the countries with “big government” are on their way to living normal lives with control of corona?

Firefighterpilo

Which states would that be? I currently live in California and I can assure you this big -government state has screwed up the corona response as good as anyone, if not worse. The governor just announced today essentially the closing of all schools until January. Many of my business owner neighbors are staring at bankruptcy due to the mandatory shut down, reopen, shutdown goat rope here. This is a cluster everywhere it is ignorant and plain deceitful to suggest Democrat controlled states have somehow done a better job.

terks43

First of all he said counties not states. Second of all, basically, All of Europe.

Firefighterpilo

Yeah that’s about as subjective as it gets. Italy would beg to differ. Hell I bet North Korea is also doing great with this pandemic but not really a selling point for heavy handed governments.