I think you might be right. However, requiring the government to balance the budget seems to defy Keynsian economic principles about the role of government during an economic crisis. One wouldn't want to require a balanced budget during WWII, for example, or while facing a massive banking crisis like we recently did. How does a balanced budget amendment deal with the exigencies of the real world and still have teeth?

It seems like it should come with some basic things like banking regulations and a minimal relationship between tax and spending. There would have to be an exception for war and economic crisis, but could such exceptions exist without becoming the kind of loophole that would blunt the teeth of the amendment?

Could an amendment actually address the vagaries of the business cycle? I mention it becaues what seems to me to happen is that every 10-20 years or so the folks in the upper echelons of the private sector walk around suggesting that they've actually managed to find ways around the business cycle itself. Really all they are doing is using new words to describe standard economic factors. Downsizing, junk bonds, low-equity, etc. are all just terms used to describe what we already know of as layoffs, debt, high-risk loans. These things have existed forever. However, they get presented as if they are new concepts. Could something as standardized and stolid as a constitutional amendment stand up to the constantly shifting vocabulary of the business world?

Another view of 'fair share':http://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2011/09/29/postmodern_class_warfare

It goes without saying that no society ever has been able to supply all of the
needs, real or perceived, of its citizenry. Implicit in the term 'fair share'
is the recognition that there will never be enough resources to fill every maw
which fact, of course, does not mean that we should not construct and maintain a
reasonable safety net. When the safety net becomes a cocoon or hammock, the
product of one man's labor becomes the unworked for gains of the idle.

The United States borrows forty cents of each dollar that it spends and government
spending now approaches 25% of our economy. The concept of fair share must relate
to the ability (and desirability) of government to address all of the needs of its
citizens. Since we are mortgaging the future of generations to come, it should
be apparent to the densest amongst us that we need to prune expenditures. For the
young to develop a good work ethic would be salutary as well; the menial jobs are
still out there.

Honestly, I think you've got this backwards. It seems to me that the assumption that we should construct and maintain a reasonable safety net does indicate recognition that there are enough resources to fill every maw. That would seem to me to be the definition of the common understanding of what "fair share" means. The assumption that it is the role of government to supply the real or perceived needs of the citizenry would be going beyond the implications of "fair share" and into a sort of redistribution of wealth that implies neither fairness or sharing.

So, I think we might be getting to the heart of the matter. The perception of what "fair share" means. I think the people who have been arguing against the term/concept itself are assuming that paying a "fair share" REALLY means paying an unfair share to the socially and economically idle (that fabled and oh-so-difficult to define "welfare queen" oft touted, but much less often exemplified) while using "fair" as a code for "levelled income distribution" and "share" for "equal parts regardless of contribution."

I don't think that's what most people understand "fair share" to mean. Most would, I think, assume that "fair share" means the amount that should be contributed by people who use the protections and resources of society. That's it. No social engineering agenda. Just that person contributing justly back to the society under which they have advantages that allowed them to create greater income.

How much would that same person make if they had been born in, say, the Congo or Yemen in middling economic circumstances? Would they have still have managed to make as much of an income as they have in the U.S. (or some other Western nation?) One must recognize that the difference between the amount of income a person would have made in a country where there are few protections and advantages, and that in the U.S. (or other Western nation) is the advantage that person gained by living where they did.

A "fair share" of that additional income is one that recognizes that their income is not merely the product of some personal, magical conjuring trick. The society in which they live is expensive to maintain, largely for reasons having to do with the creation of social and economic circumstances that allow such folks to create wealth. Not everyone avails themselves of every social and economic advantage, but that doesn't absolve one of the responsibility of paying for them. Joan Baez was not absolved of her need to pay taxes that supported the military even though she was herself against America's participation in Vietnam. Likewise, those who will probably never need a social safety net are not absolved of paying part of the greater income they earned in the society that has such a safety net simply because they personally don't care to.

Hokay then. Since I don't think I'll be able to muster any more cogency than that last post, do you think you could avoid responding to my posts in the future? I'll extend you the same curtesy. Please don't contact me privately. Thanks in advance.