The unbalanced budget amendment is a requirement that in good times the government must run a budget surplus. The virtues of such a rule are that it allows for counter-cylical fiscal policy during a recession. Indeed, it reduces the cost of counter-cyclical fiscal policy because it guarantees a reserve fund for just such emergencies. The unBBA is thus a type of automatic stabilizer of the kind I have argued for before ....A simple version of the unBBA requires surpluses but more generally the rule would be a surplus or a similarly sized reduction from the previous year's deficit. The size of the required surplus/deficit reduction would be tied to a function of current and recent GDP growth rates.
For more, see An Unbalanced Budget Amendment by , July 25, 2011 at Marginal Revolution.
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