Saturday, November 5, 2011

Warren Buffet's Five Minute Plan to Fix the Deficit

Screen grab from CNBC of Warren Buffett in Sun Valley, Idaho

This is a quote from a CNBC interview on July 7th of 2011.

"I could end the deficit in five minutes.  You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than three percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election."  The only problem: the people who would have to pass such a law are the same people who would lose their jobs.
UPDATE:  An attorney in St. Louis, Jarrad Holst, points out by email that there is a way to enact Buffett's idea without the cooperation of Congress.  Under Article V of the U.S. Constitution, a "Convention for proposing Amendments" is convened when called for by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states.  A proposed amendment would then need to be ratified by the legislatures of three-quarters of the states.  If that happens, and it is a very, very big if, Buffett's deficit plan would become the law of the land.  That process would, however, take more than five minutes.

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