WASHINGTON — The Senate rejected two versions of a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution, bringing an unceremonious end to another requirement of last summer’s hard-fought agreement to raise the debt ceiling.
A provision that both chambers of Congress vote on a balance-budget amendment was included in the August agreement to win support from reluctant conservatives in the House.
But the votes, which were mandated to occur before the end of the year, largely were viewed more as campaign ammunition than a moment for policy change. With a two-thirds majority required for passage, the amendment also failed in the Republican-led House last month.
The centerpiece of the summer debt-ceiling deal — the creation of a bipartisan “supercommittee” of Congress that was charged with producing a plan to reduce federal deficits — fizzled last month in a deadlock.
The panel’s failure triggered an automatic budget cut of $1.2 trillion over 10 years starting in 2013, split between defense and non-defense spending. Yet even that might not occur, as several GOP lawmakers said Wednesday they will introduce legislation next month to head off the defense cuts.
That means the one lasting result of the debt-ceiling battle, which nearly brought the country to default, could be the $917 billion in spending cuts over 10 years — a sliver of the total that GOP lawmakers wanted — that were passed when the deal was signed.
The two proposals on the Senate floor Wednesday represented competing approaches to the amendment — as well as an opportunity for political cover.
The Republican version, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would have required a two-thirds vote for Congress to raise taxes or to spend more money than the government takes in. It sought to cap federal spending at 18 percent of gross domestic product, a 6 percentage point drop from the current level, and prohibited the courts from forcing Congress to raise taxes to balance the books.
Hatch’s amendment failed on a 47-53, partisan vote.
The Democratic alternative, offered by Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado, would have allowed Congress to more easily override the restrictions and made it more difficult for Congress to cut taxes.
The measure was soundly rejected on a 21-79 vote, with nearly all Republicans voting against it, along with 31 Democrats and two independents.
