As a policy its still a cudgel because it opens the door to political extortion by the minority party. Think nearly constant government shutdowns that would require a super-majority just to raise the debt ceiling or to run a deficit during a crisis.
Imagine trying to run your household on a budget you made 20 years ago. As practiced in most states, mine included these BBAs mean that there is no new money for new infrastructure projects, upgrades, replacements, modernization, repairs, etc. We have a system of robbing Peter to pay Paul so money is 'stolen' from one government agency and shifted to another because no politician wants to be blamed by the ignorant voters for increasing taxes and spending.
Trying to portray the financial aspects of the whole country to someone's picayune family checkbook is profoundly ignorant. When we are short of money, maybe we can use credit cards or get a loan, but the payback is a huge hit. When the country needs to increase cashflow, it can issue bonds with very low interest rates to raise money, raise taxes, and even even print money in some cases.
Republicans only want to have a Balanced Budgets to prevent Democrats from legislating progressive policies.
Please do a bit more studying before buying into the GOPs tactic.
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