Design flaws have undermined BBA proposals. The traditional BBA has many shortcomings. Annual balance would convert revenue volatility into spending and revenue policy instability. Limiting “outlays” instead of the general term “expenditures” would create management challenges. Outlays happen when agencies spend, and Congress does not control them directly. Putting the president’s budget request in the Constitution risks changing the balance of powers that today’s statutory requirement does not. A supermajority vote to raise the statutory debt limit is redundant in a constitutional provision to control the debt. The traditional BBA’s multiple emergency thresholds could produce perverse incentives for military conflicts. Requiring full balance within five years would require faster and bigger deficit reduction than is politically realistic. Some Republican BBAs would require supermajorities to increase revenue or to spend more than a fixed percentage of GDP. Democratic proposals often would exempt Social Security, Medicare, or disaster relief from balance or would waive balance requirements during economic downturns. These features have policy problems, are barriers to supermajority support, or both.