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1991 Wis. L. Rev. 1301 (1991)
Controlling Legislative Shortsightedness: The Effectiveness of Constitutional Debt Limitations

handle is hein.journals/wlr1991 and id is 1315 raw text is: CONTROLLING LEGISLATIVE SHORTSIGHTEDNESS: THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEBT LIMITATIONS STEWART E. STERK AND ELIZABETH S. GOLDMAN- In this article, Professor Sterk and Ms. Goldman examine the efficacy of constitutional debt limitations as a method of controlling the incurrence of public debt. In examining the historical development of such limitations, the authors conclude that they are responses to perceived deficiencies in the legislative process rather than reactions to specific instances of legislative abuse. The authors determine, however, that courts have transformed absolute constraints on legislative power to incur debt into more flexible limitations that leave the judiciary with a substantial role in determining the fate of proposed borrowing schemes. Moreover, the authors found that few states revised their constitutions in response to these transformative judicial decisions. These results lead the authors to conclude that debt limitations, even if not rigidly enforced, provide a modest constraint on the legislative bias toward present spending and future payment. When legislatures act, do they account adequately for the future impact of their actions? In recent years, much public discourse has suggested that legislatures are too short-sighted, that they are too quick to discount the future consequences of their actions. Environmentalists lament a wide range of government decisions-from those that permit intensive development in ecologically sensitive areas to those that permit or promote destruction of the atmosphere. Economists express concern about the future effects of the federal budget deficit, and of the commit- ment to pay liberal Social Security benefits. Debate over the environment and over the budget deficit has differed from ordinary discussion of government policy in an important respect: critics of government policy assert not only that legislatures make unwise policy decisions in these two areas, but more broadly that legislatures, as institutions, cannot be trusted to make appropriate policy decisions. The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act,' for instance, is an attempt to constrain the ordinary legislative processes in order to reduce the federal budget * Professor of Law, Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. ** Law Clerk to the Honorable Clarence C. Newcomer, United States District Judge, Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 1. The Act is more formally known as the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. See 2 U.S.C. §§ 901-09 (1988).

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