In an excellent essay just published on NRO, Todd Gaziano and John Yoo make what strikes me as a compelling case against any version of a balanced-budget constitutional amendment that would allow judicial enforcement of its provisions. An extended excerpt:

Judicial enforcement of most constitutional rights is necessary, even if too many judges elevate their own preferences above the text of the law. But a balanced-budget amendment would raise numerous political questions — similar to those the federal courts rightly used to (and still occasionally do) refuse to entertain — with a vengeance. Rather than rely on the federal courts to resist the temptation to rule on such political questions (they won’t), an amendment should bar judges from considering, and eventually micromanaging, the federal budget.
One of the proposed balanced-budget amendments receiving attention, S.J. Res. 5, bans judges from ordering tax increases. That is prudent, but it is not enough. A ban solely on judicial tax increases would allow courts to infer that Congress wants them to choose among spending programs. Federal judges have neither the political accountability nor the expertise to set tax policy, and have no neutral principles to allow them to compare the relative costs and benefits of different federal programs. They have no legitimate way to decide whether $10 million would be better spent on armored humvees, national parks, or college scholarships — only our elected representatives can make those choices.
Other balanced-budget amendments from the mid-1990s would have limited judicial remedies to declaratory judgments and such other remedies as Congress authorized. Such a provision acknowledges the problem but provides a false sense of security. Activist judges can do great mischief with declaratory judgments, especially when prompted by lawyers asking loaded questions, as has been shown in the litigation over school-funding “equalization.” And recent experience with detainee laws demonstrates that the Supreme Court can interpret away or strike down statutory limitations on its jurisdiction and remedies. The only effective limit on judicial activism is a complete ban on judicial enforcement of the amendment.

Of course, it may well be that any effort to be expended on a balanced-budget constitutional amendment would better be expended making the hard decisions that are needed now to get our fiscal house in order.