Tabitha does self-promotion just about as well as any other conservative new media personality. Early on we thought she’d burn out, but we are glad we were wrong. Here’s a recent interview AIM did with one of the biggest personalities behind the surge in participation in online activism amongst female conservatives.

For years, conservatives debated the Balanced Budget Amendment, a proposed amendment to the federal constitution requiring Congress to balance the federal budget just as many state governments are required to balance their budget by their state constitutions. Everyone was for a more responsible approach to government spending, of course, but the debate over the amendment splintered factions in the movement in such a way that the amendment did not receive the support from conservative opinion-makers and the Republican party that many people today believe that it should have.

What kind of conservatives would object to a balanced budget amendment? Elite economists and some supply-siders believed that there was a time and a place for deficit spending to stimulate growth so long as the spending level was kept to a reasonable percentage of overall economic output or GNP. Others grumbled that the amendment wouldn’t do a thing to prevent spending if there wasn’t political will for it, but it would provide a justification for tax increases — one columnist envisioned a crisis in which the Supreme Court ordered Congress to raise taxes in order to comply with the amendment and continue its entitlement commitments. National security conservatives believed that the amendment would weaken the country’s ability to spend sufficiently to fund a “war of civilizations” effort and pointed out that the amendment’s exception to allow deficit spending during a time of war didn’t mean much when war is all-too-frequently engaged in, but so rarely declared by Congress in modern times. Constitutionalists pointed out that the framers already included a means of dealing with excess spending, which was namely, “throw the bums, out!” Furthermore, some just opposed the amendment because it took a truly beautiful document and sullied it with a reflection of contemporary weakness and vice in a way similar to those who opposed an amendment to ban abortion on the grounds that abortion is a nasty subject to include in our country’s primary defining document.

So, what happened to the BBA? Republicans talked about it and even forced a vote or two to reveal how many Democrats wouldn’t support balanced budgets, but in the end they didn’t push with the tenacity necessary to amend the United States Constitution. All talk, no walk. After awhile, the BBA simply disappeared from the political landscape.

Today, however, the BBA made a startling appearance on the national political scene. In an op-ed piece, Jeb Hensarling, Mike Pence, and John Campbell proposed a new version of the BBA that addresses some of those old concerns and taps into the new conservative consensus that spending is out of control and drastic action is necessary. Basically, it limits spending to 20% “as a share of the economy.” Being from a state like California where legislators have gotten better at manipulating economic figures to define the budget than actually cutting spending or increasing revenues, we like the amendment’s emphasis on capping spending versus balancing budgets. Still, we can’t help but wonder how much wiggle room there is concerning the definition of the economic pie we are taking a percentage of? Should the number be 20% or perhaps… 10%?

The one page summary of the proposed amendment is here. Feel free to click on the thumbnail link below for the in-depth review:

Here’s a link to Erik Erikson’s endorsement.

John Hawkins of RightWingNews.com has slowly, but surely begun reaching beyond his base of conservatives to provide content to other people who might enjoy his unique world view. We’ve already written about his success with linkiest.com, one of the internet’s most eclectic collection of viral video, irresistible photos, and conservative opinion, but his latest website, SelfHelpQuotes.net, reaches even farther beyond John’s base to the public speaking and word warrior crowd.

If you’re looking for a quote to throw in to your latest effort at Rotary or your latest syndicated column, why not try John’s collection of quotes? It’s not Bartlett’s, but it’s the only source of quotables we know that leans to the right with over 200 quotes from Ann Coulter…

To visit SelfHelpQuotes.net, please feel free to click the thumbnail link, below:

If we have one suggestion for John, it is to bring the search box up above the fold. The advertising in the right hand column pushes it down and many laptop users or people with smaller monitors may never find the search box, something that is pretty essential to a full experience of the website.