gain and stood at $1.2 billion. Through succeeding decades, different pieces of legislation were passed to place ceilings on the debt and to force a balance of the budget. However, President Coolidge was the last President to see a net surplus in the federal budget and by 1969 the national debt was at $357 billion thanks in part to the 1930s' New Deal program, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War ("Evolution," 1989, p. 258).
In an attempt to control the budget process, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was established in 1970 followed by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in 1974 ("Evolution," 1989, p. 258). All of these operational tools failed to keep the annual deficit under control however, and by 1982, with the national debt well over $600 billion, the Senate passed a balanced budget amendment, the first time such a measure had been approved by Congress. Its failure to pass the House resulted in a Congressional compromise with the 1985 enactment of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act, commonly referred to as the "Gramm-Rudman." This Act established deficit targets for Fiscal Years 1986-1991 and emergency procedures for deficit reduction ("Evolution," 1989, p. 258).
The Act's failure to hold the deficit to any significant reduction, however, has given rise again to the idea of a balanced budget constitutional amendment. Popular support has grown for it in recant years; President Reagan strongly endorsed the idea and President Bush has called it "the most fundamental change that is needed" in the budget process ("Balanced," 1989, p. 257).
Those in favor of the amendment believe that the budget problem has reached such magnitude that it can no longer be controlled through laws. Citing the disruption to the economy caused by huge budget and trade deficits and the failure of both the budget process and the Gramm-Rudman law, they say there has been nothing in the actions of ...