After seeing the way the federal government is conducted (with an annual budget deficit and a $16 trillion debt requiring huge interest payments), it is clear that a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution is needed.

President Obama refuses to specify any meaningful spending cuts. The House Republicans have submitted several budget plans, but Obama’s subservient Democrat Senate allows them to die, so no budget bill reaches the president’s desk. Thus, Obama looks blameless.

Obama favors raising taxes to fund his extravagances. The Democrats have already done that in the hidden taxes in Obamacare which will emerge this year and in 2014. (Remember Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “Pass it now and read it later.”)

The liberal spenders in Maine can get around the balanced budget requirement by raising taxes, but that is not popular. Thus, they borrow money through bonding, or, as the Democrat-controlled legislatures did prior to 2011, opt to not pay Maine’s obligations to the health and retirement funds for the state employees and teachers.

The Democrats’ pals, the mainstream media, have already given the Obama administration a pass on the outrageous handling of the Benghazi massacre, sacrificing the ambassador and other Americans. They will likely do the same for the impending fiscal disaster.

In Maine, it remains to be seen what the majority Democrats will do, and undo, on the tax and education reforms the Republicans have enacted.

How much courage do they have to do the right thing?

Thomas F. Shields, Auburn