Dear Editor,
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have failed to pass proposed balanced budget amendments to the Constitution.
The House effort was similar to an amendment that passed the House in 1995.
One of the arguments against the House proposal was that Congress would fail to pass balanced budgets and it would be the courts that would make decisions on cutting spending or raising taxes.
Our own state legislature has proven this to be true when they failed to meet the Kansas constitutional requirement to provide adequate funding for education.
A lawsuit before the Kansas Supreme Court finally forced budget changes on the legislature.
An amendment will not cause a Congress that does not agree to agree. 
If a balanced budget amendment is required then it should not require that Congress enact legislation to balance the budget.
It should simply prohibit members of Congress from serving another term if they do not.
Such an amendment would not be a discipline to cure Congress’s failure to act.
It would be a cure for our failure to act. 
We elect good people to Congress.
But only good people who assure us that the federal debt problem is caused by someone else.
We wind up with Congressmen who sound like negative political campaign ads and not even a remote expectation that we will solve our federal debt problem.
Our responsibility as voters is to elect representatives that will do the pragmatic work of governing.
When they fail to do this as they have with the federal debt problem, it is our responsibility as voters to elect someone who will. I urge voters to fulfill this responsibility during the next election cycle.
John Sturn,
Ellinwood