    [House Hearing, 119 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

                         BALANCING THE FEDERAL BUDGET:
                      EXAMINING PROPOSALS FOR A BALANCED
                               BUDGET AMENDMENTS

    =======================================================================

                                    HEARING

                                   BEFORE THE

                      SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND
                               LIMITED GOVERNMENT

                                     OF THE

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                         U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS

                                 FIRST SESSION
                                   __________

                          WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2025
                                   __________

                               Serial No. 119-41
                                   __________

             Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

                   [GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                   Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
                                     ______

                       U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

    62-173                     WASHINGTON : 2026

                           COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

                            JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair

    DARRELL ISSA, California             JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
    ANDY BIGGS, Arizona                    Member
    TOM McCLINTOCK, California           JERROLD NADLER, New York
    THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin         ZOE LOFGREN, California
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky              STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    CHIP ROY, Texas                      HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
    SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin            Georgia
    BEN CLINE, Virginia                  ERIC SWALWELL, California
    LANCE GOODEN, Texas                  TED LIEU, California
    JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey       PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
    TROY E. NEHLS, Texas                 J. LUIS CORREA, California
    BARRY MOORE, Alabama                 MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
    KEVIN KILEY, California              JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
    HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming          LUCY McBATH, Georgia
    LAUREL M. LEE, Florida               DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
    WESLEY HUNT, Texas                   BECCA BALINT, Vermont
    RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina          JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
    BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina           JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
    MARK HARRIS, North Carolina          DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
    ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri       JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
    DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
    BRANDON GILL, Texas
    MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington

                                     ------

            SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION AND LIMITED GOVERNMENT

                             CHIP ROY, Texas, Chair

    TOM McCLINTOCK, California           MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania,
    THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky                  Ranking Member
    HARRIET HAGEMAN, Wyoming             STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
    WESLEY HUNT, Texas                   PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
    GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin            JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
    MARK HARRIS, North Carolina          BECCA BALINT, Vermont
    ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri       SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
    BRANDON GILL, Texas                  DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York

                   CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
                    ARTHUR EWENCZYK, Minority Staff Director

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------

                          Wednesday, December 3, 2025

                               OPENING STATEMENTS

                                                                       Page

    The Honorable Chip Roy, Chair of the Subcommittee on the
      Constitution and Limited Government from the State of Texas....     1
    The Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking Member of the
      Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government from
      the State of Pennsylvania......................................     3
    The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
      from the State of Ohio.........................................     6
    The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
      the Judiciary from the State of Maryland.......................     6

                                   WITNESSES

    David M. Walker, Chair, Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation
      Oral Testimony.................................................     8
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    11
    Kurt Couchman, Senior Fellow in Fiscal Policy, Americans for
      Prosperity
      Oral Testimony.................................................    22
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    24
    Brittany Madni, Executive Vice President, Economic Policy
      Innovation Center
      Oral Testimony.................................................    34
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    36
    Brendan Duke, Senior Director for Federal Fiscal Policy, Center
      for Budget and Policy Priorities
      Oral Testimony.................................................    46
      Prepared Testimony.............................................    48

              LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING

    All materials submitted by the Subcommittee on the Constitution
      and Limited Government, for the record.........................    82

    Materials submitted by the Honorable Becca Balint, a Member of
      the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government
      from the State of Vermont, for the record
        A tweet from Kurt Couchman regarding aluminum tariffs, Jun.
            4, 2025
        A tweet from Kurt Couchman regarding inflation and tariffs,
            May 30, 2024
        A tweet from Erick Erickson regarding tariffs, Nov. 4, 2025
    An article entitled, ``How DOGE's Cuts to the IRS Threaten to
      Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save,'' Mar. 5, 2025, ProPublica,
      submitted by the Honorable Mary Gay Scanlon, Ranking Member of
      the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government
      from the State of Pennsylvania, for the record

                         BALANCING THE FEDERAL BUDGET:
                      EXAMINING PROPOSALS FOR A BALANCED
                               BUDGET AMENDMENT

                                  ----------

                          Wednesday, December 3, 2025

                            House of Representatives

            Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government

                           Committee on the Judiciary

                                 Washington, DC

        The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in
    Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Chip Roy
    [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
        Present: Representatives Roy, Jordan, McClintock, Massie,
    Hageman, Grothman, Harris, Onder, Gill, Scanlon, Raskin,
    Jayapal, Neguse, Balint, and Kamlager-Dove.
        Also present: Representative Schmidt.
        Mr. Roy. The Subcommittee will come to order. Without
    objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
    time.
        We welcome everyone to today's hearing on balancing the
    Federal budget. I will now recognize myself for an opening
    statement.
        Today, our national debt is at $38 trillion and counting.
    In the time it took me to read that first sentence, the debt
    increased by over $200,000. By this time tomorrow, we'll add $6
    billion more. By any calculation, our Nation's debt is
    staggering.
        For generations, politicians here in Washington have
    shunned hard conversations about spending, choosing to max out
    our national credit card and leaving the next generation to
    foot the bill. Families across our Nation have to balance their
    budgets, and there's no reason their elected leaders shouldn't
    as well.
        Americans know that debt comes with strings attached. It's
    no different for government. Every dollar we spend beyond our
    means today is a dollar and change we must repay tomorrow. The
    more America borrows, the more expensive every next borrowed
    dollar becomes. Indeed, annual Federal spending on interest,
    the price we pay for the last generation's fiscal indiscretion,
    is now one of the largest line items we have in the budget. We
    spend more on interest than we do on national defense. We spend
    more on interest than we do on Medicare. Republicans and
    Democrats will have different policy ideas and priorities, but
    surely, we can agree that a budget hamstrung by huge interest
    payments benefits nobody.
        Our fiscal trajectory is alarming and unsustainable. Make
    no mistake, a reckoning will come. Indeed, America is already
    long down the road to a debt crisis. Financial markets have
    already grown--shown grave concerns about America's long-term
    debt load. Higher than expected interest rates or other
    challenges could trigger a debt spiral. It's happened to other
    countries throughout history. It could happen to us, and
    without changes, it will happen to us.
        When that day of reckoning comes, it will be ugly. Spending
    cuts will be drastic and immediate, instead of targeted and
    phased in over a longer period. Massive tax hikes will take
    money out of your pocket, not to fund new services, but to pay
    for services already rendered. It is a matter of when, not if,
    unless we make changes now while we still can.
        That's why we're having a hearing today about a balanced
    budget amendment. A balanced budget amendment would be a
    possible tool to beat back a future fiscal crisis. It could
    reduce the cost of living here and now.
        The enormous Federal debt load is already driving up
    borrowing costs for all Americans--your mortgage, your car
    payment, and your student loans. We saw the disastrous effects
    of budget busting deficit spending during the catastrophic four
    years of the previous administration.
        With the eager support of my Democratic colleagues in
    Congress, the Biden-Harris Administration approved $4.7
    trillion in new deficit spending, racking up $8.5 trillion in
    new debt. Now, we have the worst inflation in 40 years.
        When Biden and Harris took office in January 2021,
    inflation was at just 1.4 percent, and by the middle of their
    term, it was over nine percent. Inflation is a tax on everyone,
    but we all know who it hurts the most: The poor, the working
    class, seniors on fixed incomes, and American families who saw
    their expenses explode, but no similar increase in their
    salaries.
        A balanced budget amendment is a long-debated tool that, if
    properly structured, could limit Washington's inflationary
    overspending and ensure that future Federal outlays are funded
    with actual revenue, not debt and money printing. Indeed, a
    balanced budget amendment could build on the work we started
    with the One Big Beautiful Bill. We fought hard to ensure that
    we kept our promises of fiscal discipline.
        A balanced budget amendment could force Congress to kick
    the habit of spending money we don't have once and for all. I
    hope my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will join us
    in calling for a full debate and full consideration of a
    balanced budget amendment to get our fiscal house in order.
        Believe it or not, there's a long history of Democrats
    supporting balanced budget amendments, including former
    California Governor Jerry Brown. I hope that's still the case
    today. Let's have a good and honest debate on various
    proposals.
        Some proposals allow Congress to approve deficit spending
    only by a supermajority vote and some delay the amendments'
    effective date to allow for a softer landing. I hope that we'll
    explore these finer points today with our expert panel.
        The concept of a balanced budget amendment is simple and
    powerful. It's important that we get the details right. Many
    States have requirements that they must balance their budgets.
    The Federal Government should be similarly situated.
        I will note, and I know some of my colleagues on both sides
    of the aisle will raise appropriately the question that, if you
    have a balanced budget amendment with exceptions, will Congress
    not drive a truck through those exceptions just as they
    currently do every time we vote on a debt ceiling increase? I
    say that to say that I'm not here to say that a balanced budget
    amendment is a panacea for irresponsible Members of Congress on
    both sides of the aisle that continue to blow our budget to
    smithereens. We have to have responsibility in Congress, and a
    balanced budget amendment will not make up for irresponsible
    Members of Congress who will exploit any loophole to spend
    money that we don't have and mortgage our children's future.
        The reason we're here to talk about a balanced budget
    amendment is because something has to change. If we're going to
    do something, structure it properly. If we're going to do
    something, do something to actually put brakes on what Congress
    does.
        That's what I hope we will debate today and have a full
    conversation about, because we've been talking about a balanced
    budget amendment for years, but every year, or every other
    year, or every few years, we literally disregard the current
    limit on our spending when we lift the debt ceiling, and we do
    it with regularity and with impunity.
        Whatever we do today, whatever discussion we have today,
    whatever debate we have on a balanced budget amendment, let's
    recognize that we're $38 trillion in the hole with no end in
    sight.
        We should have a full debate on this and I look forward to
    having a discussion about a balanced budget amendment. With
    that, I will yield to the Ranking Member for her opening
    statement.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to our
    witnesses for testifying today.
        It's an interesting topic and one that has, certainly, at
    least superficial appeal, but the devil as always is in the
    details.
        The decisions that Congress makes about the economy, about
    taxes, spending and budgets, are or should be decisions about
    our values, who we're fighting for, what kind of country we are
    or want to be, and the future we're trying to create for our
    children, which brings us to the topic of today's hearing--a
    balanced budget constitutional amendment, which at least in the
    proposals we've seen so far, seems to be a misguided proposal
    about how to address the often competing values and interests
    that have to be taken into account when crafting our national
    budget.
        We all share the goal of developing smart, efficient fiscal
    policies in budgets, but for decades, Republican Presidents and
    Members of Congress have talked a big game about fiscal
    responsibility while enacting policies that have exploded the
    Federal deficit and the national debt.
        It wasn't that long ago--not generations, as the Chair
    suggested--but only about 25 years when under the Clinton
    Administration, the U.S. had a balanced budget for multiple
    years, fueled in part by a combination of tax increases,
    spending cuts, and reduced military spending. Since then, in
    the early 2000s, and again during the first Trump
    Administration, Republicans have handed the ultra-wealthy huge
    tax breaks, eroding the Federal Government's revenue base and
    threatening our ability to fund essential programs that
    Americans rely on.
        Time and again these policies have failed to produce the
    broader benefits for all Americans that the advocates of
    trickled down economics have promised, and instead these
    Republican policies have exploded the deficit, adding $10
    trillion to the national debt.
        Despite this, this summer, Republicans once again doubled
    down permanently extending the Trump tax giveaways from his
    first administration, extending those giveaways to the wealthy
    in their one big ugly bill, further expanding the deficit and
    ballooning the national debt, as was just noted.
        Now, after voting for that policy, our Republican
    colleagues are making a show of caring about fiscal
    responsibility, but don't be fooled, today's hearing is part of
    a decades-long orchestrated political effort to help
    corporations and the wealthiest people avoid paying their fair
    share. It's based on a theory that tries to convince people
    that reckless tax giveaways to the ultra-wealthy somehow
    stimulate investment and economic growth for everyone for the
    greater good. That's a lie that's been debunked again and again
    and again, for more than 50 years now, and one that's led to
    sky-high income inequality and the enshrinement of a corporate
    oligarchy in our society.
        These tax policies, these giveaways have fueled the
    greatest rise in income inequality that our country has known,
    at least since the robber baron days, resulting in a continuing
    transfer of wealth from working and middle-class Americans to
    the wealthiest among us. We need look no further than the fact
    that the top one percent in our country pay a lower tax rate
    than all other Americans. This pathological dedication to
    trickle-down economics is outrageous. It betrays the values
    this country should stand for and which our budget should
    reflect.
        If we want to shrink the deficit and lower the Nation's
    debt, we should be talking about a tax policy that gives relief
    to working families and makes the rich and corporations pay
    their fair share, rather than allowing them to reap even more
    profits by imposing the costs of their business on the American
    people, whether by paying substandard wages that force workers
    to rely on food stamps or subsidized healthcare to survive, or
    to force Americans to pick up the cost of industrial waste,
    dangerous products, or unsafe working conditions.
        A tax policy that makes sure that everyone pays their fair
    share isn't a radical idea and should be the starting point of
    any serious discussion about bringing the two sides of the
    budget equation--taxes and revenue on the one hand, spending,
    including military spending, on the other. It takes a different
    kind of politics than what we are hearing today, one that
    believes that the purpose of government is to serve all
    Americans, not just the wealthy and well-connected.
        The programs that our Republican colleagues have been only
    too ready to slash in their big ugly bill and with the
    political scam of a balanced budget amendment that they're
    pushing here, these programs are critical to the health and
    well-being of the American people.
        The majority of our yearly spending is mandatory, that is
    funds not subject to congressional appropriation and which must
    be paid, including Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,
    veterans benefits, retirement programs for military service
    members, and retired Federal employees. These are vital
    programs that help our government keep its promises to the
    American people. Less than half our budget goes to
    discretionary spending, which is spending that Congress
    appropriates every year, and half of that money goes to defense
    spending.
        We can make sure our national debt is on a sustainable path
    by investing wisely in the American people and taxing fairly.
    We can work to build an economy that grows from the middle out,
    not the top down. We can provide affordable healthcare and
    childcare, affordable housing, and make sure that every child
    gets a world-class public education, but that's not the focus
    of today's hearing.
        Instead, the solution to the deficit problem they helped
    create is to propose constitutional amendments that force
    Congress to balance the budget on the backs of working and
    middle-class families, forcing cuts to essential benefits like
    Medicare and Social Security.
        House Republicans have introduced at least six different
    proposed balanced budget amendments. Though they don't all
    share the same features, they have the same common goal: To
    continue to put their thumb on the scale to favor big business
    and billionaires over working and middle-class people, seniors,
    and our most vulnerable Americans.
        A balanced budget amendment would shackle Congress and
    limit our flexibility to respond to changing economic
    conditions or crises with appropriate fiscal and budgetary
    policies.
        As the Chair mentioned, many of these proposals would
    require a supermajority in Congress to raise revenue or raise
    the debt limit but not to cut spending. The Framers of our
    Constitution rejected the principle of requiring a
    supermajority for basic government functions because they
    believed it would shift power away from the American people's
    popular will to a determined minority.
        Balanced budget proposals requiring a supermajority would
    allow an extremist minority to hold our Nation's economy and
    financial stability hostage. You only need to look at the chaos
    of the current Republican majority in the House to see what
    might be in store under such a proposed amendment. We've seen
    political brinks-manship over the debt ceiling and government
    funding. We've seen Speakers dethroned, and Federal budgets
    that slash healthcare and food assistance for Americans, while
    giving more handouts to billionaires and big business.
        A balanced budget amendment would only make things worse,
    and this dysfunction would then be baked into our Constitution
    and democracy. I don't think that's what the American people
    want or need.
        The bottom line is we don't need to amend the Constitution
    to balance the Federal budget. Our colleagues need to get their
    heads out of the sand and be willing to look at the revenue
    side of the equation.
        During the nineties, under a Democratic President and a
    Republican-controlled Congress, the Federal Government ran
    budget surpluses without a balanced budget amendment. Our
    Republican colleagues control the House, the Senate, and the
    White House; if they wanted to do this, they could. Instead,
    they've chosen to make their No. 1 legislative priority this
    year a trillion-dollar handout to their billionaire buddies.
        Our budget is not just numbers on a spreadsheet. It's the
    choices we make to invest in our neighbors, our communities, to
    provide opportunities for young people, to take care of the
    elderly and the most vulnerable, and to invest in American
    prosperity. If we really want a prosperous economy where
    everyone can get ahead, we need to abandon the misguided
    orthodoxy of trickle-down economics. Instead, we need to focus
    on policies that support children, family, communities, and our
    wider economy.
        We don't need a balanced budget. We just need Congress to
    do the job the American people sent us to do.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the Ranking Member.
        I will now recognize the Chair of the Full Committee, Mr.
    Jordan, for his opening statement.
        Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be brief.
        The Ranking Member just said, and I quote, ``a balanced
    budget amendment would shackle Congress.'' I think there are
    30-some trillion reasons why that might not be a bad idea,
    frankly, and that's what this is about. She also said that the
    answer is to increase revenue, better known as raise taxes.
    That seems crazy to me as well.
        I look forward to hearing from our witnesses. I appreciate
    the Chair for having this hearing. I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank Chair Jordan. I will now recognize the
    Ranking Member of the Full Committee, Mr. Raskin, for his
    opening statement.
        Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Chair Roy. Thanks to our witnesses
    for joining us today.
        Our Republican colleagues have convened this hearing to
    discuss a constitutional change to solve a problem that they
    have created legislatively, which is gigantic runaway Federal
    budget deficits.
        We don't need a constitutional amendment to legislatively
    balance the budget. We just need some old-fashioned fiscal
    discipline.
        In the 1990s, President Clinton worked with a Republican-
    controlled Congress to eliminate the deficit, and they ran huge
    surpluses without the aid of a contrived balanced budget
    constitutional amendment or even rhetoric about a balanced
    budget amendment. They just did it.
        Why can't Republicans who control the House of
    Representatives, the U.S. Senate, and the White House do the
    exact same thing today with control of every part of the
    government? If they want to balance the budget, just do it.
        They could just take action on their own to make the hard
    decisions. Instead, they say, no, the real problem is we need
    to go out and get two-thirds of the House and two-thirds of the
    Senate and three-quarters of the States to do it, instead of
    just passing it by a Majority in the House, in the Senate, and
    in the White House. Obviously, they lack the political will or
    the fiscal discipline to do it.
        They think that maybe they can distract everybody now with
    this extremely stale and tired rhetoric about passing a
    constitutional amendment. We can't even get reporters to come
    and cover this charade anymore. They're practicing spectacular
    fiscal irresponsibility and budget recklessness, and then try
    to cover it up with the pathetic paper mache of a balanced
    budget amendment.
        The problem of ballooning deficits returns whenever
    Republicans enjoy complete control of the political branches.
    This is one of the great ironies of our political rhetoric.
    When they are in control, the budget deficits are sore. It's
    the Democrats who always bring the deficits down.
        They pass giant giveaways for wealthy corporations and
    billionaires. It was the policies of President George W. Bush
    and the GOP Congress that squandered the record budget
    surpluses of the Clinton years in the 1990s on tax cuts for the
    wealthy, even as the country was waging the staggeringly
    expensive no-end wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
        In 2017, President Trump and a Republican Congress passed
    the so-called Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a law that increased the
    Federal deficit by $1.9 trillion. This year they passed the
    obscenely ugly profligate law which will add a jaw-dropping $4
    trillion to the national debt because of its giveaways for
    corporations with political insider influence and billionaires,
    at the same time that they're stripping health insurance and
    food assistance from tens of millions of Americans to offset
    just a small part of the enormous cost of the tax breaks that
    they cut for wealthy elites.
        We don't need to start finger painting on the Constitution
    to accomplish what our colleagues in the Majority simply don't
    have the political discipline and will to do.
        You wanted a balanced budget, present a balanced budget and
    pass it. After voting for the most reckless recent increase in
    Federal spending, it's just, to me, way too little or way too
    late to have one more hearing on the idea of a balanced budget
    constitutional amendment. Something, by the way, which no other
    country in the world, or maybe it's a handful, but the vast
    majority of countries in the world don't need this to run their
    fiscal systems.
        I yield back to you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Roy. I thank Ranking Member Raskin.
        Without objection, all other opening statements will be
    included in the record. We will now introduce today's
    witnesses.
        The Honorable David M. Walker. Mr. Walker is the Chair of
    the Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, a nonprofit
    organization that supports statutory and constitutional
    approaches to fiscal responsibility. He previously served as
    the Comptroller General of the United States, public trustee
    for Social Security and Medicare, and is the Chair of the
    Independent Audit Advisory Committee for the United Nations.
        Mr. Kurt Couchman. Mr. Couchman is a Senior Fellow in
    fiscal policy at Americans for Prosperity, a nonprofit
    organization that advocates for economic opportunity, fiscal
    responsibility, and limited government. His work focuses on
    solutions to Federal and State budget and government
    challenges. He previously worked for the Committee for a
    Responsible Federal Budget, as well as several other
    nonprofits, and is a House staffer.
        Ms. Brittany Madni. Ms. Madni is the Executive Vice
    President of the Economic Policy Innovation Center, a nonprofit
    organization that advocates for policies that promote freedom
    and prosperity. Prior to joining EPIC, she served in a variety
    of roles with Members of the House and with the House Budget
    Committee.
        Mr. Brendan Duke. Mr. Duke is the Senior Director for
    Federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy
    Priorities, a nonprofit organization that advocates policies
    that expand economic opportunity and health security. He
    previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor on the National
    Economic Council in the Biden-Harris Administration.
        We thank our witnesses for appearing today, and we'll begin
    by swearing you in. Would you please rise and raise your right
    hand.
        Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the
    testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
    of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
        Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in
    the affirmative.
        Thank you. You're already seated.
        Please know that your written testimony will be entered
    into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you
    summarize your testimony in five minutes.
        A reminder that you have your microphones on before you
    begin. With that, Mr. Walker, you may begin.

                      STATEMENT OF DAVID M. WALKER

        Mr. Walker. Chair Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, the Members
    of the Constitution Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity
    to testify on this important issue today.
        Let me start at the outset, the Federal Government's
    financial condition is much worse than advertised. Many people
    focus on the level of Federal debt which now exceeds $38
    trillion; however, the debt is just the tip of our financial
    iceberg.
        Total Federal liabilities and unfunded obligations exceed
    $125 trillion and are growing faster than the economy. Our
    current level of debt to GDP is 123 percent, which is greater
    than the end of World War II, but the difference is, is at the
    end of World War II, it was coming down, now it's going up.
        Today, over 75 percent of the annual budget is on
    autopilot, mandatory spending. We've written a blank check. In
    addition, net interest is now the second largest and fastest
    growing expense in the Federal budget for which we get nothing.
        In my view, we must adopt a fiscal responsibility
    constitutional amendment if we want to restore and sustain
    fiscal sanity over time. A constitutional amendment is the only
    way to force Congress and the President to make the tough
    choices needed on both sides of the ledger to reduce overall
    debt burdens to a reasonable lower level of debt to GDP over
    the next 10-15 years and have mechanisms in place to make sure
    that we do not spin out of control again.
        There are several approaches to taking--to deal with that
    constitutional need. Some advocate for a traditional balanced
    budget approach by the ones--like the ones employed by the
    States. Others advocate for a principle-based balanced budget
    approach designed to achieve balance over a stated period of
    time. I and others prefer a debt-to-GDP-based approach, which
    is progrowth and does not dictate to the Congress how to solve
    the numerator challenge, but it says you've got to solve it.
    The latter two approaches have been used successfully by other
    countries. Importantly, irrespective of the approach that is
    employed, it must contain very limited exceptions and effective
    enforcement mechanisms.
        As you know, there are two ways to achieve a constitutional
    amendment under Article V of the Constitution. Two-thirds of
    the House and Senate can pass an identical proposed approach,
    and three-quarters of the States must ratify it. Alternatively,
    two-thirds of the States can file an application for a
    convention of States to propose one or more amendments to the
    Constitution, and Article V says the Congress shall call the
    convention. It is nondiscretionary, ministerial duty, and then
    if the States can come up with an amendment, then three-
    quarters of the States have to ratify it.
        The Federal Fiscal Sustainability Foundation, which I
    Chair, discovered over three years ago that enough States had
    filed applications for a convention dedicated solely to
    proposing a fiscal responsibility amendment as far back as
    1979. Enough applications existed for 25 years, and most
    recently in 2016 and 2017, and yet Congress failed to call the
    convention.
        Shockingly, the Congress never assigned responsibility to
    any party to receive, store, and count the applications until
    January 2015, when it was assigned to this Committee. To this
    Committee's credit, it began steps to update its records
    earlier this year. The National federalism Commission, which is
    an official interstate governmental body, worked with the
    Committee to bring its records up to date and they issued a
    report on Constitution Day of this year, which confirms what
    our foundation found, that there--enough applications existed,
    Congress should have called a convention many, many years ago.
    That was attended by Chair Jodey Arrington, Budget Committee
    Chair; the Hon. Bruce Lee, who is with us here today, who's
    head of the National federalism Commission, and I spoke at that
    press briefing.
        Mr. Chair, with your permission, I would like to enter into
    the record the National Federalism Commission's report and an
    illustrative call resolution.
        Mr. Roy. Without objection.
        Mr. Walker. Thank you.
        The H.C.R. 15, which is sponsored by House Budget Committee
    Chair Jodey Arrington, is designed to right this wrong and to
    call the related limited convention. I expect the States will
    sue, if the Congress fails to act within a reasonable period of
    time. This issue would then have to be addressed by the Supreme
    Court. If that happens, it would be the biggest federalism case
    in the history of this great Nation.
        In closing, let me be clear, in my view, we must adopt a
    constitutional amendment if we want to restore and sustain
    fiscal sanity at the Federal level. If the Congress can achieve
    the necessary support to pass a credible proposed amendment,
    then it should do so in a timely manner. If not, Congress needs
    to call a limited convention to propose a fiscal responsibility
    amendment and allow the States to exercise their constitutional
    right under Article V. Doing nothing is not an option.
        Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Walker follows:]

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        Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Walker, for your testimony. Mr.
    Couchman, you may begin.

                       STATEMENT OF KURT COUCHMAN

        Mr. Couchman. Chair Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, and the
    Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to discuss
    balanced budget amendments to the Constitution and related
    statutory upgrades. I am a Senior Fellow in fiscal policy at
    Americans for Prosperity. We are the premier grassroots
    advocacy organization transforming policy around the country to
    empower every American to pursue their version of the American
    Dream.
        Congress should be the Federal Government's premier
    policymaking body. The best practices I'll discuss, including a
    BBA, are neutral, practical tools to help Congress improve
    budgeting, governance, and the exercise of legislative powers
    generally.
        Weak Federal budgeting hurts us: Higher inflation and
    interest rates, lower worker pay, polarized politics, and the
    risks of debt crisis and default. The budget process is usually
    just something to survive, not a robust and inclusive framework
    for considering tradeoffs.
        Many countries and U.S. States have gotten into debt
    trouble and got back out with policies to reduce borrowing and
    with better governance, including debt constraints. Nearly all
    U.S. States and prosperous countries now have balanced budget
    rules.
        I'll discuss BBA design, statutory complements, and how the
    House passed a BBA in 1995.
        Most constitutional provisions are broad principles.
    Congress applies those principles to modern circumstances
    through normal legislation. Any new provision should apply
    indefinitely as well. Annual balance is the original sin of
    most BBA proposals. Revenue varies a lot from year to year, so
    locked-in spending, especially outlays to revenue, would mean
    major uncertainty or, more likely, push Congress to waive the
    rules a lot. Many BBAs try to compensate for annual balance but
    create other problems.
        A simpler BBA, such as the principles-based BBA from
    Representative Moran and Senator Husted, may attract the most
    consensus. It would first require balance, quote, ``which may
    occur over more than one year''; second, let two-thirds of
    Congress approve emergency spending; and third, allow 10 years
    to reach full or primary balance after ratification.
        Primary balance requires about half as much deficit
    reduction as full balance. Implementing legislation for a
    principles-based BBA could start with Representative Emmer and
    then-Senator Braun's Responsible Budget Targets Act to support
    stable, predictable, neutral and flexible policymaking.
        It would set up annual revenue-linked spending targets for
    structural primary balance, balance in the budget, except
    interest over the medium term. Emergency spending would usually
    be offset over the following six years. The spending caps would
    adjust for automatic stabilizers, revenue changes, and more.
    Automatic enforcement would help Congress stay the course.
        Instead of the ineffective sequester model, however, a more
    sophisticated incremental approach would be more reasonable,
    politically sustainable, and binding. A real budget that
    includes all the Committees and empowers all Members would help
    Congress meet targets and do so much more. In addition to
    appropriators diligently stewarding their 26 percent of
    spending, 16 Committees responsible for direct spending and
    revenue, including this one, could manage their portfolios as
    well.
        Representative Blake Moore's Comprehensive Congressional
    Budget Act is a roadmap to effective annual budgeting. Finally,
    Representative Arrington and Panetta's Prevent Government
    Shutdowns Act would support a more bottom-up Congress that can
    more easily trim the fat.
        In 1995, the House of Representatives passed, and the
    Senate nearly passed, an annual balanced BBA. The special rule
    for the House floor set up a queen-of-the-hill competition. The
    most popular BBA would be the text for final passage.
    Substitute amendments began with more ideological versions and
    finished with the consensus BBA that passed 300-132. Despite
    flaws, it failed by just one vote in the Senate. Better BBAs
    exist now, and reviving BBA competition on the House floor can
    show the way forward. A well-crafted BBA would encourage sound
    budgeting and would help Congress take up the additional tools
    to strengthen fiscal democracy.
        Thank you for the opportunity to share these thoughts, and
    I look forward to the discussion.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Couchman follows:]

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        Mr. Roy. Thank you for your testimony, Mr. Couchman. Ms.
    Madni, you may begin.

                      STATEMENT OF BRITTANY MADNI

        Ms. Madni. Chair Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, the Members
    of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to testify
    today.
        It is a particular honor to be before this Subcommittee
    given the critical moment in our Nation's conscience when we
    are called on to address a growing fiscal crisis that threatens
    our constitutional prerogatives.
        We are $38.4 trillion in debt. To put this into context,
    our debt translates to approximately $288,000 per household
    across America. More than 60 percent of this total occurred
    over the past 18 years. We've added more debt during and since
    the Obama Administration than over the prior 2.5 centuries,
    including the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and two World
    Wars. This is wildly unsustainable.
        Our Founding Fathers would be aghast. They just fought a
    war because the Kingdom of Great Britain didn't know how to
    balance its books, and mad King George wrongly thought that the
    solution would be to raise taxes on the colonies. I'll spoil
    the story for you; it didn't end well for the British or the
    tea drinkers.
        What the Founding Fathers learned in a tangible way is that
    debt is dangerous. It is dangerous because it removes the
    ability of the government to adjust in times of need or respond
    to an existential threat. It leads to squeezing the pocketbooks
    of the people beyond reason. It is inflationary.
        It is dangerous, perhaps most interestingly to the
    Subcommittee, because it implies that government has gotten so
    large, so unwieldy, so involved in people's daily lives that
    the only way to sustain it is to bankrupt future generations,
    not only through excessive taxation, but through excessive
    intervention in personal lives.
        I want to tie the Committee's constitutional jurisdiction
    to its limited government jurisdiction by encouraging Members
    to think holistically about a balanced budget amendment, not
    just as a means of balancing the budget on paper or staving off
    the debt crisis my colleague Dr. Paul Winfree warned us is
    coming, but, most importantly, of making government spending
    match the people's priorities. This is inherently American, and
    it's inherently tied to the principles of limited government
    and individual liberty.
        We all know the Federal budget is bloated. It's rife with
    waste, fraud, and abuse. For example, GAO recently reported
    that the Federal Government has made nearly $3 trillion in
    improper payments since 2003. Over the past decade, we estimate
    that Medicaid alone issued more than $1 trillion in improper
    payments.
        Not all government waste--spending is blatantly corrupt,
    wasteful, or fraudulent, though. Much of it is just not
    necessary, which means it's not necessary for Congress to take
    money from the American workers to fund.
        Is every dollar the Federal Government spends improving
    individual liberty within the bounds of limited government?
    This is a foundational budget question Madison reminds us to
    consider in Federalist 41.
        According to the Federal Register, there are 444 Federal
    agencies right now all funded by the taxpayer. Not only does
    all that spending come out of Americans' paychecks, it often
    works against them with regulations and distortionary
    government subsidies. Given the purpose of our mission, balance
    must be designed for the sake of the people, not simply as an
    accounting mechanism. This year the Federal Government will
    take $5.2 trillion in revenues from the American people and
    spend $7 trillion, passing $1.9 trillion in debt to future
    taxpayers.
        A major part of the problem is that mandatory spending has
    grown from 33 percent of outlays in 1964 to 73 percent in 2024.
    That means Congress does not actually review 73 percent of what
    it spends each year. It's on autopilot and it's unacceptable.
        The cost of our debt is rising exponentially. Interest
    payments this year will equal $1.22 trillion, or $9,200 per
    household. Our $1.22 trillion interest payment is larger than
    the GDP of most countries. It is about the size of Saudi
    Arabia's entire economy. Our debt is out of control because
    spending is beyond reason. A balanced budget amendment would
    require lawmakers to regularly examine whether spending matches
    Americans' priorities or not.
        Why do I believe a balanced budget amendment is necessary?
    Because I was here a decade ago as a staffer, bright-eyed and
    bushy-tailed, believing we could get this done. I was wrong.
        In early 2016, I was working for a Member of the
    Subcommittee, Mr. McClintock. He charged me with working on a
    memo on ways to restore budget discipline. I would like to read
    to you from that memo that he published in 2016 and sent to his
    colleagues. He said, ``The budget now before us''--remember,
    this is 2016--``spends $1.07 trillion and balances in 2026, but
    only if we summon the discipline to stick to the budget in
    future years that has alluded us again this year.'' Maintaining
    budget discipline becomes particularly crucial given the
    deteriorating economic picture.
        Well, Congress certainly did not maintain budget
    discipline. It's 2026, and our deficit is not zero dollars but
    $2 trillion.
        A balanced budget amendment is an important safeguard for
    Congress to consider building into the Constitution itself. You
    should consider three main priorities when doing so: (1) Do not
    abdicate your Article I powers; (2) remember that we have a
    spending problem, not a revenues problem; and (3) it must have
    an effective enforcement mechanism.
        Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Ms. Madni follows:]

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        Mr. Roy. Thank you for your testimony, Ms. Madni. Mr. Duke,
    you may begin.

                       STATEMENT OF BRENDAN DUKE

        Mr. Duke. Thank you, Chair Roy, Ranking Member Scanlon, and
    the Members of the Subcommittee. My name is Brendan Duke, and I
    am the Senior Director for Federal Budget Policy at the Center
    on Budget and Policy Priorities. CBPP is a nonpartisan research
    and policy institute that advances Federal and State policies
    to help build a Nation where everyone has the resources they
    need to thrive and share the Nation's prosperity.
        Any constitutional amendment to require annual balanced
    budgets would be highly ill-advised and a risky way to address
    the Nation's long-term fiscal problems. It would threaten
    significant economic harm while raising a host of problems for
    Social Security and Medicare.
        Let me first begin with an overview of our fiscal outlook.
    Analyses typically focus on government spending and revenue as
    shares of the economy. In 2024, revenue was 17 percent of GDP,
    which is around the same level as in 1984. Programmatic
    spending, on the other hand, has grown 1.5 percentage points
    since 1984. Social Security and Medicare are responsible for
    more than 100 percent of the increase in spending because the
    country has gotten older. That's nobody's fault. I'm sure
    everyone on this Committee wishes they had the same knees or
    back they did 40 years ago. Similarly, we all wish we had the
    same demographics in ratio of working-age Americans to retirees
    that we had 40 years ago, but we don't.
        The combination of population aging and basic arithmetic
    means we will face a choice between raising revenue past the 17
    percent of GDP levels set when the country was much younger or
    making drastic cuts to programs. The past several months has
    shown how much harm would be caused to vulnerable Americans and
    how difficult it would be if the government relied solely on
    massive spending cuts to balance the budget.
        The Trump administration has attempted, often illegally, to
    close whole agencies, engaged in mass layoffs, and refused to
    spend congressionally appropriated funds with little or no
    savings to show for it. Similarly, the giant mega bill passed
    this summer adds $3.4 trillion to the deficit as it extends tax
    cuts tilted to the wealthy, despite cutting SNAP and Medicaid
    by about 20 percent by 2034. This will cause millions of low-
    income families to lose the ability to afford the high cost of
    groceries or go to the doctor when they're sick, cuts that a
    vast majority of the public staunchly opposes.
        The retirement of the baby boom was a predictable and
    predicted development, but at the beginning of the 21st
    century, we had a fiscal system that would deliver adequate
    projected revenue to meet our needs. Rounds of unpaid-for tax
    cuts ruined that.
        Take a look at CBO projections for 2025 that were made
    right before most of the Bush tax cuts were made permanent in
    2012, and before anyone even thought of the Trump tax cuts, and
    compare them to the actual 2025 values. The 2025 deficit is
    much higher than projected in 2012, despite programmatic
    spending being lower than projected. The reason the deficit
    rose is revenues came in far lower than projected as a result
    of those unpaid-for tax cuts. Importantly, Social Security,
    Medicare, and other health programs, such as Medicaid and
    premium tax credits, also came in below CBO's 2012 projections.
        What all this ultimately shows is it's entirely possible to
    meet our commitments to seniors while ensuring millions of low-
    and moderate-income Americans have healthcare and can afford
    food if we are willing to raise the revenue to do so.
        The most serious concern about a balanced budget amendment,
    aside from any cuts to critical programs, is it would
    exacerbate and prolong recessions. During economic downturns,
    consumers and businesses spend less, which in turn causes
    further job loss. The drop in tax collections and increases in
    unemployment insurance and other benefits that occur
    automatically cushion the blow to the overall economy and
    individuals involved by keeping purchases of goods and services
    from falling more.
        A constitutional balanced budget amendment, however,
    effectively suspends this automatic stabilization. That would
    launch a vicious spiral. A weak economy would lead to higher
    deficits, forcing more spending cuts and tax heights, which
    would weaken the economy further. It would also be
    unconstitutional for Social Security and Medicare to draw down
    their reserves to pay promised benefits without running a
    surplus in the rest of the government, because that's still
    deficit spending, spending money that was not collected in the
    same year, so we would immediately likely face their funding
    cliffs now instead of in the 2030s. In other words, a balanced
    budget amendment would serve as an effective backdoor way to
    immediately cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.
        Rather than spend time on an unworkable and economically
    calamitous amendment to the Constitution, policymakers should
    focus on policies that improve the fiscal trajectory while
    meeting the public's wise priorities about what government
    should do.
        Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
        [The prepared statement of Mr. Duke follows:]

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        Mr. Roy. Thank you, Mr. Duke.
        We will now proceed under the five-minute rule with
    questions. I will now recognize the gentleman from California,
    Mr. McClintock.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        The Democrats spent quite a bit of time telling us the
    debt's ballooned because of Republican tax cuts. Let me put
    their concerns to rest. Three numbers tell you everything you
    need to know about the Federal deficit: 46, 64, and 94.
        The Democrats blame excessive spend--46 percent, by the
    way, is the percentage of increase in inflation population
    combined over the last 10 years, 46 percent increase of
    inflation and population. Sixty-four percent is the increase in
    revenues in the same period. That's after the Trump tax cuts,
    after the big beautiful bill; we're taking in 64 percent more
    revenue than 10 years ago with only a 46 percent increase of
    inflation and population.
        The third number is what's killing us, 94, that's the
    increase in spending in the same period. The Democrats like to
    blame Republicans for excessive spending, but the only
    opposition I have ever heard from the Democrats on spending
    issues is that we're not spending enough money fast enough.
        At the end of World War II, our Nation staggered under a
    similar debt relative to GDP that we have today, as Mr. Walker
    noted. We'd exhausted our resources then, fighting the most
    terrible war in human history. The question occurs; how do we
    get out of that? Well, not by tax increases, as the Democrats
    propose. Quite the contrary.
        In Fiscal Year 1946, Democrat Harry Truman cut the Federal
    budget from $85 billion a year down to $30 billion a year.
    Almost two-thirds. He slashed Federal income tax rates. He
    abolished the excess profits tax. He fired 10 million Federal
    employees. It was called war demobilization. The Keynesians of
    the time predicted a 25 percent unemployment rate and a second
    great depression. Instead, we had the post-war economic boom.
        We already know how to fix the economy. The problem is
    summoning the discipline to do so.
        For the last eight sessions, I've introduced a
    constitutional amendment on this subject. It's 27 simple words:

            The U.S. Government may not increase its debt except for a
            specific purpose by legislation adopted by three-fourths of the
            membership of both Houses of Congress.

    To me, that is the simplest way of addressing the issue and is
    essentially what Thomas Jefferson had suggested we needed in
    the Constitution at the time of its adoption.
        Such an amendment taking effect 10 years from ratification
    would naturally require both a balanced budget and a prudent
    reserve to accommodate fluctuations of revenues and routine
    contingencies. It would trust that three-fourths of Congress
    will be able to recognize a genuine emergency when it sees one
    and that one-fourth of Congress will be strong enough to resist
    borrowing for lighter transient reasons. Whether it is this or
    some other mechanism, it seems to me that it is absolutely
    crucial.
        Now, we have a modern-day example of this, and that's
    Switzerland. Switzerland adopted a debt break in its
    Constitution almost 25 years ago. Eighty-five percent of Swiss
    voters approved it. Today, Switzerland's total debt is 30
    percent of GDP.
        Mr. Walker, what is the percentage today in the United
    States?
        Mr. Walker. Well, debt held by the public is about 100
    percent, but if you take the total debt, which includes the
    debt held by the trust funds it's 123 percent and rising.
        Mr. McClintock. Yes.
        Mr. Walker. As you properly pointed out, we were going down
    after World War II; we're now going up and we're not at war.
        Mr. McClintock. Because we cut spending dramatically and we
    cut taxes, and that produced an economic expansion, as it did
    under Democrat John F. Kennedy, and as it did under Republican
    Ronald Reagan and Republican Donald Trump.
        Anyway, 100 percent. Just debt held by the public, 100
    percent; Switzerland is 30 percent. Switzerland's running a
    slight budget surplus this year, I understand.
        What are we to take away from this experience?
        Mr. Walker. Well, Switzerland and certain other countries,
    including Germany and Sweden, have recognized that they need a
    constitutional constraint to maintain fiscal sanity.
        I might note, the debt ceiling is a bad joke. It's done
    nothing to be able to constrain the growth of government or
    mounting debt burdens. It's a political football. Statutory
    approaches to try to be able to bring fiscal discipline,
    whether it be Gramm-Rudman or anything else, have not stood the
    test of time.
        The only thing that can bind current and future Congresses
    and Presidents is a constitutional amendment. Remember what
    Washington said, among other things, ``avoid excessive debt.''
    We have not--we have not heeded his warning.
        Mr. McClintock. Thank you.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from California. I'll now
    recognize the Ranking Member of the Judiciary Committee, Mr.
    Raskin.
        Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
        Yes, it was Democrat Harry Truman who did all that, who
    made the requisite cuts in Federal spending after World War II,
    and it was Democrat Bill Clinton who gave us record surpluses
    in the 1990s. All this is possible with the proper political
    focus and discipline.
        Mr. Duke, say you've got a lawless President who wages war
    without a congressional declaration of war, takes emoluments
    from foreign kings, princes, and governments without
    congressional consent, impounds money appropriated by Congress
    for certain purposes and uses them illegally for other
    unauthorized purposes. Is there anything in the proposals for a
    balanced budget constitutional amendment that would prevent a
    reckless President who disregards the Constitution from
    bulldozing the budget and just going right through those
    barriers and spending us into oblivion?
        Mr. Duke. Not that I have seen.
        Mr. Raskin. If there's not any real constitutional
    guardrail there, it seems to me like this is symbolic politics,
    a kind of window dressing to cover up the fact that people just
    have not had the political discipline and will to balance the
    budget.
        Is it true that, as in the case raised by the gentleman
    from California with President Truman and President Clinton, is
    it true that the budget deficits have gone down more under
    Democratic Presidents and the budget has been balanced more
    often than it has been with Republican Presidents?
        Mr. Duke. Certainly, in the post-war period.
        Mr. Raskin. OK. What is it that we should be doing in to
    get our friends focused on actually balancing the budget and
    not adding trillions to the debt, as President Trump did in his
    first administration and as he's been doing again with the
    massive tax breaks to the wealthy?
        Mr. Duke. The first best would--to get into a time machine
    and not do the bill that they passed last July. That would be
    the first best. Second best would be to repealing it and
    starting from scratch. That would be where we could start.
        One idea, for example, there was that you could cut the
    cost of the expiring tax cuts in half by just not extending
    them for households making over $400,000. Then, you could
    offset that cost, the $2 trillion remaining cost for the tax
    cuts under $400,000, by raising taxes on the wealthy and
    corporations. That's just one of the parts for dealing with the
    fiscal cliff that basically President Trump and Republican
    Congress set up in 2017.
        Mr. Raskin. Well, what do you make of the notion that
    President Trump's tariffs--which may be struck down as
    unconstitutional, of course--but that in the meantime they will
    make up the problems in the Federal budget deficit for us, they
    will reduce the deficit? Does that make sense?
        Mr. Duke. Yes. They're big and they are raising real money.
    The CBO thinks they raised about $2.5 trillion, which is less
    than the $3.4 trillion cost of One Big Beautiful Bill. I'd note
    that the sense to which Donald Trump has done any sort of work
    on deficit reduction, the cuts to SNAP and Medicaid, as large
    as they are, are smaller than the increases in tariffs, which
    shows that even President Trump is kind of admitting that
    revenue is the solution here. We should just have smarter taxes
    than ones that cause people to pay more at Costco and Walmart
    and ask the wealthy to pay their fair share instead of doing
    illegal tariffs.
        Mr. Raskin. Yes. What do you think about the notion that we
    should have an Article V constitutional convention to pass this
    balanced budget amendment?
        Mr. Duke. You put it best yourself, why go through that
    rigmarole, and why can't Congress and the President just do
    that right now. They have the power to do it.
        Mr. Raskin. Aren't there special dangers with causing--or
    calling an Article V constitutional convention? Of course, we
    haven't had an Article V convention. We've always done it by a
    two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate and three-quarters
    of the States ratifying. Calling a constitutional convention,
    like the one we had in Philadelphia, would lead to potentially
    every other manner of amendment that our colleagues have
    favored, including an anticon-stitutional choice human life
    amendment, a school prayer amendment, a flag desecration
    amendment, and so on.
        Would there be any way to control it once we're back in the
    Rawlsian original position of a constitutional convention?
        Mr. Duke. No. I think it's a whole bag of worms.
        Mr. Raskin. Well, thank you for that. I yield back to you,
    Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Roy. I thank Ranking Member Raskin. I'll now recognize
    the gentleman from Kentucky for five minutes.
        Mr. Massie. I'm all for balanced budgets. I built this debt
    badge, and I wear it to try and instill at least some sense of
    urgency among my colleagues. I gave one to every freshman
    Member of Congress, and the only Member who wears one is a
    Democrat because he wants to show how much the debt's going up
    under the Republicans, and he has a fair point.
        The balanced budget amendment is one of those things that
    sounds good on the surface, but it's the exceptions that are
    written into it that get you. In fact, I voted against the
    balanced budget amendment when it came to the floor several
    years ago. I'll tell you why. It said that if Congress, if both
    Chambers of Congress voted it with at least 60 percent of the
    Members, they can undo the balanced budget amendment. That was
    the exception. Well, just a few legislative days prior to
    voting on the balanced budget amendment, we had just passed an
    omnibus with over 60 percent of the House voting for it and
    obviously over 60 percent of the Senate voting for it.
        When Mr. Biggs, our colleague on the Judiciary Committee,
    offered a balanced budget amendment, he suggested the threshold
    should be two-thirds. I went back and looked from 2016 until
    2026 at all the CRs that have passed the House and the Senate
    and all the omnibus bills that have passed the House and the
    Senate, and it turns out that 11 of the 16 CRs passed with more
    than two-thirds vote in the House, and 14 of the 16 CRs passed
    with more than two-thirds vote in the Senate. The results are
    similar for the omnibus bills. I believe my colleague here, Mr.
    McClintock, has suggested a three-quarters threshold.
        What does a three-quarters threshold get you? Well, in
    2024, the CR passed with 77 percent of the House, and 77
    percent of the House in the next CR, 72 percent of the House,
    74 percent of the House, 78 percent of the House, and, finally,
    in 2025, not too long ago here, the American Relief Act, the
    second CR of 2025, 84 percent of the House voted for that. That
    sucker wasn't balanced. What about in the Senate? Eighty-five
    percent. There's literally almost no threshold you could put in
    there that they couldn't override and haven't overridden
    already.
        Mr. Walker, do you want to address that?
        Mr. Walker. Yes. Thank you, sir. First, you have to define
    what type of unexpected events can cause there to be a
    potential exception to the rule, and then you have to have a
    high enough threshold combined with those unexpected events to
    be able to limit it. In addition to that, you have to say it's
    for year by year. In other words, you don't just get a pass;
    it's year by year.
        With regard to the convention, this is not a constitutional
    convention. The Federalist papers make it very clear that the
    Founders intended there to be Article V limited conventions.
        There are several safeguards to deal with your question,
    Mr. Raskin. First, a majority of the applications back in 1979
    and today are fiscal responsibility only. There's State
    delegate legislation--
        Mr. Massie. Let me followup, Mr. Walker--
        Mr. Walker. Yes, sir. Go.
        Mr. Massie. --on something you said, do you have to specify
    the exemptions, and one of those is war.
        Mr. Massie. I have tongue-in-cheek remarked that at least
    this would get Congress to declare wars again because there is
    an exception if you declare a war. This gives me some concern
    because I have watched them play budget gimmicks here with
    something called Overseas Contingency Operation (OCO). It is
    supposed to be for emergencies or for things that came up--
    contingencies, not expected--but they have used it to fund the
    basic defense of the United States to replenish stockpiles and
    whatnot.
        Forgive me if I am very suspicious of specific exemptions
    because I have seen those--they were statutory, not
    constitutional--but I have seen them abused here in the House
    of Representatives. The only thing that really works is you
    have got to elect people who are serious about balancing the
    budget. The result of the Big Beautiful Bill and the CR and
    everything that has passed since then is that this year, we
    have increased spending $200 billion, and next year, we will
    increase spending over more than $200 billion.
        My colleagues are--my Republican colleagues and especially
    my Democrat colleagues--but this whole place is unserious about
    balancing the budget, and the reason--and if you give them any
    exemption, they will use it. The reason, honestly, they are not
    that serious about it is because they can get reelected every
    time by telling people they can cut their taxes and increase
    spending and things are going to turn out fine. Well, that is
    not the case.
        With that, I see my time has expired.
        Mr. Roy. With that, I thank the gentleman from Kentucky,
    and I recognize the gentlelady from Washington.
        Ms. Jayapal. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        I love following Thomas Massie because he is very
    consistent, and I appreciate that. Because we can disagree on a
    whole host of things, but if you are consistent, it makes
    sense.
        I just find it really interesting that we are spending our
    time on the Constitution Subcommittee talking about a balanced
    budget amendment right after everyone on the other side except
    for Mr. Massie voted for a bill that dramatically increased the
    national debt. There are lots of other things that this
    Committee should be working on rather than this.
        The last time--the Ranking Member of the Full Committee
    said this. The last time there was a balanced budget was in the
    1980s under a Democratic President, Bill Clinton, and that was
    achieved both by increasing taxes and revenue--taxes on the
    wealthiest and revenue--and decreasing spending and cutting
    defense spending. This last big, beautiful betrayal bill
    actually did the opposite. It reduced revenue by giving massive
    tax breaks to billionaires and corporations, and it increased
    defense spending, and it did all of that on the backs of
    cutting healthcare for tens of millions of Americans.
        When we talk about this issue, we should remember that, in
    his first term, President Trump followed Republican Presidents
    like George W. Bush. He increased defense spending. He passed
    steep tax cuts for billionaires and corporations under his 2017
    tax scam. In fact, in 2023, Americans For Tax Fairness reported
    that the richest 748 Americans' wealth topped a record-high $5
    trillion, up 77 percent since those tax cuts were passed, and
    that the debt caused by those Trump tax cuts were then used by
    Republicans as an excuse to cut services.
        Then this year, instead of letting those tax cuts for the
    wealthiest expire, what did Republicans do? They made those tax
    cuts permanent and then added some more in. That gave the
    wealthiest Americans another five trillion in tax giveaways. As
    I mentioned, defense spending went up by another $150 billion,
    more enormous amounts of money poured into the Department of
    Homeland Security to send all these masked ICE agents into our
    streets to kidnap and deport people and terrorize communities
    and give massive profits to for-profit detention centers.
        The big, bad betrayal bill is what I call it, betrayal of
    the American people, betrayal of working families--increased
    the deficit by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years on the
    backs of working families while slashing $1.1 trillion for
    Medicaid, food assistance, other critical health programs. Now,
    Republicans have refused to extend the ACA tax credits so 22
    million Americans can afford health insurance, even though
    doing so would cost less than four percent of the cost of the
    tax cuts for the wealthiest. Just make this make sense for me.
        I am going to turn to you, Mr. Duke. Deficits are made up
    of two parts, right? Is that correct?
        Mr. Duke. That is correct.
        Ms. Jayapal. Revenues and expenses?
        Mr. Duke. You got them.
        Ms. Jayapal. OK. I just wanted to make sure. Can a balanced
    budget be achieved by the Federal Government just by decreasing
    spending?
        Mr. Duke. It could be done mathematically by dramatically
    increasing poverty, causing millions of Americans to lose
    health insurance and not be able to afford groceries. It is
    mathematically possible, but it is very unwise.
        Ms. Jayapal. To Mr. Massie's point, do we need a
    constitutional amendment to create a balanced budget?
        Mr. Duke. Bill Clinton certainly didn't.
        Ms. Jayapal. Bill Clinton didn't. Yet, Republicans have
    done the exact opposite. As I mentioned, they increased the
    deficit, handed out tax breaks, and now they want--this is
    really rich--a supermajority vote to increase revenue or raise
    the debt limit but not a supermajority vote to decrease revenue
    or lower the debt limit.
        What effect would this one-way ratchet have on the payment
    of Federal benefits like Social Security?
        Mr. Duke. Sure. Anytime a Congress comes that wants to cut
    spending, they can do it, and any Congress that then tries to
    reverse it by raising revenue would not be able to do it. It
    would be a one-way ratchet where benefits, services, and
    eventually Social Security and Medicare find themselves on the
    chopping block because there is just not much room left.
        Ms. Jayapal. People feel like this is a rigged economy
    because it is a rigged economy. It is rigged for the
    wealthiest, and people across the country are seeing this now.
    That is why Donald Trump's poll ratings are as low as they have
    ever been in this term and almost as low as right after January
    6th. Because people can't afford health insurance. They can't
    afford basic food. They can't afford to live. Meanwhile, a very
    small group of people at the top are just having it big, and
    this is just another way to continue that cycle. I oppose it,
    and I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Washington.
        I now recognize the gentleman from North Carolina.
        Mr. Harris. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of you
    on the panel for your expertise and for being a part of this
    hearing, a very, very important issue that I think a lot of us
    have talked about and shared for a long time.
        We all know that unsustainable debt has placed this country
    on a collision course with financial disaster and that a
    balanced budget amendment might save us from that fate, and I
    would really like to hear our witnesses on what factors they
    think make a strong balanced budget amendment that does not
    bear any unintended consequences. As a freshman here, I have
    had the opportunity to look at six different constitutional
    amendments that have been introduced in this 119th Congress,
    and I want to start by addressing the issue of when a balanced
    budget ought to take effect.
        Mr. Couchman, what are the pros of a balanced budget
    amendment taking effect for the budget year immediately after
    it is ratified?
        Mr. Couchman. To require the balance of the budget
    immediately would require relatively large changes in spending
    and revenue policies. It would not give people as much time to
    adapt and plan, which is why I recommend 10 years--a glide path
    of 10 years after ratification, which would probably take 2-3
    years.
        Mr. Harris. OK. Because I understand, of the six that have
    been introduced, only one gives Congress time to pass the
    balanced budget and the other five require Congress to pass the
    balanced budget the Fiscal Year after the amendment is adopted.
    Some balanced budget amendments have provisions that allow
    deficit spending during a declared war, national security
    threats, or natural disasters.
        Mr. Couchman, should a balanced budget amendment contain
    these exceptions in your opinion?
        Mr. Couchman. Yes, sir. Every balanced budget requirement
    or debt limit requirement must have a safety valve. There are
    emergencies of many types that come up. Two-thirds is the
    standard supermajority for congressional action in the
    Constitution. Three-fourths does apply, but that is only in the
    context of ratifying proposed amendments.
        Mr. Harris. OK. Mr. Walker, what about you?
        Mr. Walker. Clearly, it cannot be effective immediately. In
    my view, I prefer a debt-to-GDP approach where you do two
    things:
        (1) You set a credit card limit, which is constitutional.
    Not the debt ceiling, which is a bad joke.
        (2) You have a target of lower debt-to-GDP than today
    because we are already too high, 10-15 years out, with specific
    targets or triggers to be able to make sure that we get there.
    Doing it immediately makes no sense. We need to really have a
    phased-in approach.
        Mr. Harris. OK. We all know--and this has already been
    alluded to today--that there are two ways to balance the
    budget: Raise taxes or cut spending.
        Ms. Madni, could you explain--you made a great point in
    your opening comments about the spending and not revenue as a
    problem that needs to be addressed. Can you expand on that a
    little more?
        Ms. Madni. Sure. Absolutely, sir. That the answer is quite
    simple. When we are looking at the math, we know that revenues
    are not catching up to where we are in terms of outlays. To me,
    that indicates that the Federal Government is spending more
    than we bring in.
        Every constituent that you have sits around their dinner
    table and is expected to balance their budget and figure out
    what they can actually spend within their means. We are quite
    simply not doing that as a country, and the result of that is
    that our deficit is ballooning. We are increasing our debt year
    after year.
        There are several instances of rampant waste that I think
    that the average American would be astounded to learn about.
    For example, there are several billion dollars' worth of waste
    going to things like green energy projects in Honduras, climate
    resilience in Honduras. It is about $24 million. Simple items
    like this actually do stack up.
        Then, when you start to think about the last major welfare
    reform--which your colleague, Ms. Jayapal, pointed out was a
    significant part of the President's 1996 balance--what you see
    there is that he actually did also contribute significant
    energy to reducing spending. It has to be a part of the
    picture. Then, it was about $100 billion in today's dollars
    worth of spending cuts to welfare. Now, in the One Big
    Beautiful Bill Act, about a trillion dollars of that is what we
    are seeing.
        It is really important to note that Medicaid is still
    growing after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. There is a
    significant impact. In fact, it grew 31 percent even after the
    reforms in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. It is not that
    revenues are the problem. It is that the spending trajectory of
    the country is continuing to go far beyond the pace of what we
    could ever bring in.
        Mr. Harris. Gotcha. Well, thank you very much. We saw some
    of that in the first few months of this administration when
    DOGE began to do its work, where the American public was rising
    up and saying that these cuts were something that needed to
    happen.
        With that, Mr. Chair, I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from North Carolina. I now
    recognize the gentleman from Colorado.
        Mr. Neguse. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for convening this
    hearing. Thank you to all the witnesses for your testimony,
    both written and your answers to the questions that have been
    propounded so far.
        Ms. Madni, I wasn't planning on asking this question of
    you, but I want to followup on the comment that you made just
    recently, and your summation focused on spending. Every
    academic, every economist that I have come across in the last
    six months have all agreed that the Republican tax bill, the
    so-called Big Beautiful Bill, increased the deficit. I assume
    you don't dispute that.
        Actually, let me read this to you, and then you can answer.
    The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget--right--has
    estimated that this bill will add $2.4 trillion to primary
    deficits over the next decade and $3 trillion to the deficit,
    including interest. Do you contest that?
        Ms. Madni. Thank you for your question, sir. I actually
    reject the premise of this question because, when you are
    adding to the deficit, you also have to think about what the
    mechanisms is doing so. As I mentioned in my opening statement,
    it is not just about balance on paper. This is not a simple
    accounting mechanism. You also have to take into account the
    economic impact of the choices Congress is making.
        Mr. Neguse. Sure. I understand that argument. Republicans
    on the dais here have made that argument.
        What you are essentially saying is that Elon Musk, the
    Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Mr. Massie, any
    Republican critics in good faith of this bill are wrong, that
    this calculation that the Committee for a Responsible Federal
    Budget has delineated and produced is inaccurate and incorrect.
    I don't know how you can make that argument. I suspect that
    your colleagues here sitting alongside you would not make that
    argument, but maybe I am wrong.
        Mr. Couchman, I have seen some of your material previously
    in which you have amplified the Committee for a Responsible
    Federal Budget. I don't think you have taken issue with them in
    the past. Do you contest their analysis here? They are wrong?
        Mr. Couchman. I worked at the Committee for a Responsible
    Budget before this, and there are times that I agree with them
    and sometimes I disagree.
        Mr. Neguse. I know. Sure.
        Mr. Couchman. On this matter, it really comes down to how
    you think about the statutory baseline and whether you think
    that was realistic, and as we saw from the bond market, the
    public, and policymakers, that was not an accurate reflection
    of where folks expected revenue policy to be.
        Mr. Neguse. How far off are they? Is it $2.4 trillion over
    the next decade? You are saying that this bill didn't
    increase--will not increase the deficit at all?
        Mr. Couchman. Relative to the statutory baseline, yes, but
    relative to what the bond markets and policymakers were
    projecting, no. It actually decreased deficits. Vice President
    Harris proposed extending most of these tax provisions as well
    to prevent the largest tax increase on the American people in
    history.
        Mr. Neguse. Well, again, that it is rich, in my view, for
    organizations who predicate their existence on making the case
    for deficit-neutral policies and for decreasing the debt, so on
    and so forth, to enthusiastically endorse a bill in which a
    variety of experts, including conservative ones, all attest
    that that particular legislation actually increases the
    deficit. It is quite convenient now for Americans for
    Prosperity, just by way of example, to now conclude that the
    Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is wrong and that,
    in the case of Trump's so-called Big Beautiful Bill, no, you
    have called it incorrectly. This in fact decreases the deficit.
    That argument is disingenuous, frankly, sir.
        In any event, you are entitled to your opinion, obviously,
    but I concur with Mr. Massie, and I applaud Mr. Massie for
    having the courage among Republicans to actually make an
    intellectually honest argument and to stand by his principles
    and vote against the bill because of what it will do to the
    deficit. Again, that is my view.
        Mr. Couchman. Sound budgeting is important to American
    prosperity. There is no question about it.
        Mr. Neguse. What was that?
        Mr. Couchman. Sound budgeting is important to American
    prosperity.
        Mr. Neguse. It doesn't feel like it. If it was important to
    you all, then you would have opposed this bill. You would have
    said, you know what, we ought to make the case for an extension
    of these various different tax credits and tax breaks that were
    embedded in that bill, but supporting the bill wholesale, your
    colleagues at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget--
    your former colleagues, I should say--I suspect they are very
    disappointed because that they put forward a very honest
    treatise on this bill's impact.
        I can see that your colleague here, Mr. Walker, would like
    to jump in, so feel free.
        Mr. Walker. I used to be on the board for Committee for a
    Responsible Federal Budget.
        Mr. Neguse. Sure.
        Mr. Walker. It all depends on what assumptions you use, but
    there are more people believe that it added to the deficit than
    not, OK?
        Mr. Neguse. Correct.
        Mr. Walker. Let me just note that things--
        Mr. Neguse. I appreciate you conceding reality, sir.
        Mr. Walker. No, that is right.
        Mr. Neguse. That is all I was asking of the other two
    witnesses.
        Mr. Walker. One last thing. Things have been out of control
    since 2002--
        Mr. Neguse. Sure.
        Mr. Walker. --and both parties have controlled the Congress
    since 2002, and both parties have had Presidents since 2002.
        Mr. Neguse. I hear you.
        Mr. Walker. This is a bipartisan problem.
        Mr. Neguse. Here is the difference, Mr. Walker. I
    appreciate that candor. I appreciated the Chair's indulgence
    for just a few seconds. Because I completely appreciate that
    point. You, sir, have spent a great deal of time in your career
    making the case that both parties have to ultimately help bring
    their fiscal house in order.
        The issue I take umbrage with are witnesses who advocate
    solely on the basis that Democrats are responsible, and they do
    that simultaneous to supporting a bill that increases the
    deficit by $2.4 trillion over the next decade so that my
    daughter and future generations to come are saddled with debt
    for the next 25 years.
        In any event, I digress. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Colorado.
        I now recognize the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Onder.
        Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the
    witnesses for being here today.
        Republicans have warned for years about the dangers of
    unchecked Federal spending, but because of the Biden
    Administration's unprecedented spending spree and the
    Democrats' refusal to return spending to pre-COVID levels even
    after adjusting for inflation, we are now at a defining
    crossroad.
        This first chart shows a simple overview of our Federal
    debt-to-GDP ratio. Within just a few years, debt held by the
    public will surpass every previous record in our Nation's
    history, even the levels reached during World War II. Here we
    are. We are up here at World War II levels of debt-to-GDP
    ratio.
        The second chart breaks down the annual Federal spending by
    category. One change that I believe should alarm every American
    is down here in the orange at about 6, 7 o'clock--is the slice
    of our Federal budget that is devoted to paying interest on our
    debt. We are now at 13 percent. At $881 billion--which it is
    even larger than today--that exceeds the defense budget, it
    exceeds Medicare and the ACA, and it--I am sorry--Medicaid and
    the ACA, and it exceeds Medicare. This is truly a warning sign.
    Two years ago--yes, two years ago we passed up the defense
    budget in our interest spending.
        Just a few questions. Ms. Madni, you mentioned Medicaid
    spending increasing even after the One Big Beautiful Bill and
    the reforms there such as removing requirement to work, keeping
    illegal aliens off welfare, checking eligibility. I believe we
    really should keep that in mind as we think about extending
    enhanced COVID ACA credits 2.5 years after the official end of
    COVID.
        Could you explain how our growing deficit and debt is
    affecting--I believe Mr. Walker pointed out that Moody's
    downgraded America's credit rating this year. Can you explain
    how the growing debt and deficit crisis affect our credit
    rating?
        Ms. Madni. Sure. Absolutely. I will take the first
    question, and then we will go from there. Keep me on track if I
    miss something from you.
        Mr. Onder. Yes, sorry about that.
        Ms. Madni. Yes. To go back to your question on Medicaid
    spending after OBBB, following the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,
    I would just say that, to describe Medicaid reforms included in
    that bill as cuts--that is just Washington math, plain and
    simple.
        Mr. Onder. That is right. Only in D.C. does continued
    increase in spending constitute a cut.
        Ms. Madni. Absolutely. In Fiscal Year 2024, we were
    spending $618 billion on Medicaid. A 31 percent increase over
    the budget window after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would
    get to $807 billion. That is actually nearly double what our
    Medicaid spend was from the pre-COVID level of $409 billion.
    That is your first question.
        Mr. Onder. Incredible. It is just factually wrong that we
    cut Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Bill
        Ms. Madni. Correct That is correct.
        Mr. Onder. No matter what the Democrats tell us, no matter
    what the hospital lobbyists tell us--yes.
        Ms. Madni. If you believe that math is math then you are
    right.
        Mr. Onder. Yes. Right.
        Ms. Madni. That it is also important that we talk a little
    bit about the other part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
    because I was criticized by your colleague and I didn't have a
    chance to respond here.
        When I say that I reject the premise that the tax cuts
    included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act don't increase the
    deficit, what I was trying to tell the Congressman is that
    those are not new tax cuts.
        Mr. Onder. Right.
        Ms. Madni. These are things that the American people are
    already experiencing.
        Mr. Onder. Right. What the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was
    to prevent a tax hike on the American people.
        Mr. Onder. Exactly. I think sometimes--to some extent, we
    Republicans that are messaging largest tax cut in American
    history, that is not exactly true. What we did is prevented a
    multitrillion-dollar tax increase, which is what my Democrat
    colleagues seem to advocate.
        Ms. Madni. That is correct, sir.
        Mr. Onder. OK.
        Ms. Madni. Then you asked me as well--I recognize you only
    have a few seconds left.
        Mr. Onder. Yes. Go ahead.
        Ms. Madni. You asked me as well about how our interest
    payments are negatively impacting our standing in terms of our
    credit. Well, that couldn't be more clear. You pointed out that
    our interest payments are outpacing our payments for defense.
    They are outpacing our economy. They are outpacing everything
    that is sustainable. We are making a $1.22 trillion interest
    payment in the next fiscal year, and that alone, as I mentioned
    at the beginning of this Congress, is larger than the GDPs of
    every country in the world except for 16, excepting the United
    States, of course. That is going to naturally have an impact
    when credit rating agencies are considering whether or not we
    can actually meet our obligations.
        Mr. Onder. No wonder young people can't afford to buy homes
    because they are competing with the Federal Government for
    borrowing.
        Ms. Madni. Precisely.
        Mr. Onder. Thank you very much for your testimony. I yield
    back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Missouri. I now
    recognize the gentlelady from Vermont.
        Ms. Balint. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        We are talking today about a constitutional requirement
    that spending has to equal revenue, but what Republicans are
    not saying--but which we all know--is that this means you are
    going to have to cut Social Security, Medicare, food
    assistance, and other programs that regular people rely on. As
    a Member of the Budget Committee, I have spent three years--
    three years--on conversations like this and all the while
    watching Republicans continue to balloon the national debt to
    finance tax cuts for people who don't actually need them. Can
    we all finally admit once and for all that tax cuts do not
    trickle down? All you have to do is ask regular people who
    can't afford their groceries right now.
        Mr. Duke, thanks so much for being here. I want to talk
    about what Republicans mean when they talk about a balanced
    budget amendment. From my perspective, they mean that you are
    going to have to make steep cuts to benefits, while rewarding
    the wealthy with additional tax cuts. A balanced budget
    amendment always sounds so simple, but the Federal budget is
    not actually like a household budget. It is not. It doesn't
    matter how many times we say it. It is not.
        Mr. Duke, is it possible that this proposed constitutional
    requirement would endanger Social Security?
        Mr. Duke. Absolutely it would.
        Ms. Balint. Tell me a little bit more. How would it do
    that?
        Mr. Duke. We have the baby boomers. They worked for a bunch
    of years. That created surpluses into the Social Security and
    Medicare trust funds, right? Now, we are drawing them down as
    they are retiring, and those trust funds are scheduled to
    exhaust in the 2030s. A balanced budget amendment would apply
    to the whole government. Those accumulated surpluses from 10-15
    years ago wouldn't count anymore, right?
        Basically, what would need to happen for Social Security
    and Medicare to continue to pay 100 percent benefits is you
    would need to run a bigger surplus in the rest of the
    government, right? Which is really, really, really hard to do
    and frankly not realistic, right?
        Ms. Balint. Yes.
        Mr. Duke. Social Security just can't have its trust fund.
    That basically moves the problem we were going to face 10 years
    from now about Social Security and Medicare trust funds
    exhausting from the 2030s to now.
        Ms. Balint. Yes. it is very serious. I can think of a
    simpler way to protect essential programs like Social Security.
    Is it true that we could just raise taxes on billionaires and
    corporations?
        Mr. Duke. That certainly would be one way to--
        Ms. Balint. It is an option, right?
        Mr. Duke. Yes. It certainly is an option.
        Ms. Balint. It is an option. It is on the table. We already
    have that power. Is that right?
        Mr. Duke. According to Article I, yes.
        Ms. Balint. Yes. Exactly. According to Article I, I am
    going to get to that in just a minute.
        What worries me so seriously about this conversation is
    that this whole concept of a balanced budget amendment requires
    us to actually support the Constitution that we have. You can't
    have this amendment if you don't have respect for the
    separation of powers, if you don't have respect for the powers
    of the purse, if you don't have respect for the Constitution as
    a whole, and under this Republican government, none of these
    things currently exist.
        My Republican colleagues have completely given up Congress'
    Article I powers, letting the President do whatever he wants.
    They have stepped back and let the Executive Branch run wild.
    We have invoked the Founders a lot today, and I can tell you
    they would be disgusted by the Majority's willingness to cede
    their power to this President.
        President Trump and congressional Republicans have
    completely abandoned constitutional governance by three coequal
    branches. They have allowed the President to illegally refuse
    to spend money as directed by Congress. They have conducted
    absolutely zero oversight of misconduct and open corruption
    across the agencies and the White House. We just spent a month
    out of session because the Speaker would not stand up to our
    President and protect our Article I powers.
        Why do I care so much about the Article I powers? It is not
    because of our power. It is because we represent the people. We
    represent the people who want us to pass those policies that
    actually benefit them, and we don't have that right now. This
    whole conversation about going through this rigamarole of an
    idea that has a snowball's chance in hell of ever coming to
    fruition--when we could actually spend our time here protecting
    our Article I powers.
        I appreciate you being here. I appreciate all the
    witnesses. I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Vermont. I will now
    recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin.
        Mr. Grothman. First, I would like to thank you very much
    for holding this hearing. We are kind of in the middle of
    appropriation bills here, and it is shocking to the degree
    which my colleagues think that we are running huge surpluses
    rather than we have to deal with deficits. It would be nice if
    we get a balanced budget out of this, but at a minimum, we can
    educate our colleagues as to what a dire situation we are in.
        Ms. Madni, I will ask you a few questions as to where this
    ship is headed. Do you know approximately right now--maybe it
    is unfair to ask you without checking there--the percentage of
    our budget that is borrowed?
        Ms. Madni. I am sorry, sir. What? The percentage--
        Mr. Grothman. The percentage of our budget that is
    borrowed.
        Ms. Madni. That is powered?
        Mr. Grothman. Borrowed.
        Ms. Madni. Borrowed. Oh, borrowed. I apologize. I couldn't
    quite hear you. Far too much. If you just look at our interest
    payments, that is really what you need to start thinking about.
    In terms of what we are borrowing--
        Mr. Grothman. I think we are borrowing--
        Ms. Madni. --our deficit spend is $1.9 trillion.
        Mr. Couchman. About a quarter of revenue is borrowed.
        Mr. Grothman. Right. Twenty-six percent, which is kind of
    shocking. Do you know how much we are spending on--the
    percentage of all our budget--how much is already not on new,
    neat stuff but just paying interest on the debt we have?
        Ms. Madni. The percentage for interest only, you are
    saying?
        Mr. Grothman. Yes. Percentage of--
        Ms. Madni. Yes, sir. The percentage that we are paying on
    interest is 13 percent.
        Mr. Grothman. OK. About a seventh of our budget already is
    going not to Social Security or tanks or wasting money on a
    Truman Scholarship program. I was just in a different hearing.
    What a waste of money. Already 14 percent is interest.
        Could you guys--any one of you--jump forward and tell me--
    obviously, if you were an individual, you couldn't keep
    borrowing 26 percent of every dollar you spend. Obviously, if a
    seventh of what you are spending is already interest, you would
    just--they would send you to debt counseling or something or
    another.
        How long can we go at this rate, and what is going to
    happen when we can't go any longer?
        Ms. Madni. We will start entering a fiscal spiral in the
    2030s if we continue down this path. You mentioned earlier
    appropriations and the fact that we are underway in that full-
    year discussion right now.
        One thing to keep in mind--of course, appropriations are
    only 27 percent of our Federal budget, but even within that,
    the Senate's proposed appropriations bills right now--the
    remainder of them that were not already enacted--are $50
    billion or more--because we haven't seen the full text of all
    them--than what the House appropriations bills propose. That
    alone is something that you could do to deal with immediately
    the trajectory that we are on.
        Obviously, $50 billion is not going to resolve our
    trillions of dollars that we are currently in the hole for just
    this year, $38.4 trillion overall, but it is important to start
    building that muscle memory among your colleagues.
        Mr. Couchman. To build on that, the point of budgeting is
    to look at everything and see how we can do better, but that is
    not what Congress does. Congress does appropriations. It is
    important, but it is 26 percent of spending. We need to be
    looking at all spending, all revenue, including tax
    expenditures, getting all the Committees involved like
    Wisconsin does.
        Mr. Grothman. Just so you know, Mr. Couchman, I believe
    irresponsible people around here like to rattle on about all
    the mandatory spending, and they are right except for the
    reason they rattle on about it. It is because they specifically
    don't want to do what they should do on discretionary spending.
        Mr. Couchman. Look at everything.
        Mr. Grothman. Yes. Exactly. I am trying to think.
        Mr. Walker. Congressman, can I provide something that would
    be helpful?
        Mr. Grothman. Sure.
        Mr. Walker. What I found that resonates with the public is,
    if you take the financial statements from the U.S. Government
    as of September 30, 2024--if Uncle Sam was a person, you drop
    eight zeros, and here is what you get: $50,000 in revenue,
    $74,000 in expenses, $24,000 in the deficit, $1,240,000 in
    total liabilities and unfunded promises, $57,000 in assets,
    underwater $1,183,000. Would you lend money to that person?
        By the way, the crisis is coming way earlier than the 2030s
    from--based on prime economists on both sides of the aisle.
        Mr. Grothman. I was standing on the floor a couple weeks
    ago, and one of my colleagues who is a conservative by any
    standard, I had thought--I still think he is--thought that this
    was inevitable. Eventually, the U.S. is just going to have to
    throw up their hands. Can we get out of this, do you believe,
    given the people that are in Congress are pretty motley crew?
        Mr. Couchman. There are an extraordinarily number--or an
    extraordinary number of talented people on both sides that are
    being held back by a broken process, and if we fix the process,
    then we will get much more from Congress. Article I--Congress
    should be the strongest branch. It is not. It is not coequal
    branches. This is supposed to be the dominant branch, and it
    has been curious to hear so many Members of Congress talking
    about Presidents. Why not talk about this institution and
    fixing this institution?
        Mr. Grothman. Well, this institution is horrible. They are
    horrible.
        Mr. Couchman. Well, let's make it better.
        Mr. Grothman. It is not the process. It is the people, I
    believe.
        Ms. Balint. You are part of it.
        Mr. Walker. Not without a constitutional amendment. You
    won't solve this problem without a constitutional amendment.
        Mr. Grothman. OK. Thank you for giving me an extra 50
    seconds.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin, and I
    believe the gentlelady from Vermont has some consent requests.
        Ms. Balint. I do. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the
    record three tweets, the first from Mr. Kurt Couchman: ``The
    claim that Trump's tariffs didn't cause inflation makes no
    sense.''
        Also, from Kurt Couchman, ``President Trump's steel and
    aluminum tariffs are terrible for the metal-using industry jobs
    in my rural Pennsylvania hometown.''
        A retweet, ``It would be great if the Supreme Court saves
    Trump and the GOP from themselves and kills the President's
    ability to drive up costs on consumers by ending his
    unconstitutional tariffs.''
        Thank you. I ask unanimous consent to enter them into the
    record.
        Mr. Roy. Without objection, those will be entered into the
    record. I now recognize the gentlelady from Pennsylvania, the
    Ranking Member, Ms. Scanlon.
        Ms. Scanlon. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Clearly, we have
    structural issues here with our debt, with our budgets. I
    wanted to focus on the revenue side because that is a side that
    doesn't seem to get enough attention, and I would start with
    something that you talked about, Mr. Duke.
        In this big bill that passed last summer, our colleagues
    across the aisle have justified it as being necessary to avoid
    a tax cut on the American people, when we know that most of it
    was going to wealthier folks. You mentioned that if there had
    been a cap on who got those--or a floor on who got those tax
    cuts, it could have had a very different impact. Can you talk
    about that?
        Mr. Duke. Absolutely. The full cost of the tax cuts that
    passed were about $4.5 trillion, but extending the expiring tax
    cuts was four trillion. That is the pile we are working with
    here. The cost of extending them for households making under
    $400,000, on the other hand, was less than half that amount
    according to analysis by the Treasury Department, right?
        Offsetting the $4 trillion of costs would be really, really
    hard to do. The $1.9 trillion, there are ways you can do that
    on the revenue side too. That makes the job a lot easier. It is
    just making sure that the two-percent of households making over
    $400,000 don't get a tax cut. It would have made the job a
    whole heck of a lot easier.
        Ms. Scanlon. It is certainly not chump change.
        Another thing that we have seen under this administration--
    and it was mentioned by one of our colleagues--is the purported
    savings by DOGE, but one of those big DOGEisms has been to
    radically cut the IRS--the IRS which has a return on investment
    of $5-$12 for every dollar spent there--and the laying off of
    people who were supposed to go after the big dollar tax cheats.
    Can you talk about how that would have an impact on our
    revenue?
        Mr. Duke. Yes. You spelled it outright that we could have
    the perfect tax system that basically took care of our fiscal
    trajectory in the Internal Revenue Code, but if there aren't
    the people to enforce it, it doesn't matter because nobody is
    going to pay their taxes, right?
        The key thing is having the IRS, and that was a key
    investment made under the Biden Administration to increase IRS
    staffing, especially with a focus on households making over
    $400,000 and large corporations. They have been systemically
    laying off those units that go after those groups. That just
    obviously mechanically will make it easier for those groups to
    just not pay the taxes they owe. That increases the deficit.
        Ms. Scanlon. Shockingly, they canceled the folks who were
    going to go after the big spenders.
        Programs like Social Security and Medicare are part of
    America's contract with our citizens and part of a long-held
    promise we have made to our country's seniors that people will
    contribute their wages over a lifetime and earn benefit that
    will be available when they become older or if they are
    disabled.
        Can you talk about how the balanced budget amendment that
    is being proposed--amendments that are being proposed might
    threaten those Social Security benefits?
        Mr. Duke. Right. Social Security and Medicare outlays are
    part of the government, right? It is just part of it. Balanced
    budget amendments would basically treat those payments as part
    of the Federal budget as a whole and so would be limited.
        Now, we actually don't know a lot of the enforcement
    mechanisms behind a lot of these amendments, so it is hard to
    say exactly what would happen. The key thing is that those
    programs are drawing down their trust funds they accumulated
    when the baby boom was working, and unless we are running a
    large enough surplus in the rest of the government, they would
    not be able to tap those reserves to pay out the benefits owed
    to people, right?
        I guess you could just make massive cuts to other parts of
    the government to keep those parts flowing. That is very
    unlikely. They would be just as much at risk as the rest of the
    government.
        Ms. Scanlon. Of course, the fact that the tax cuts we have
    seen over the last couple of decades have radically increased
    income inequality, that also has undermined our Social Security
    system because there are caps on who has to contribute. Once
    again, folks on the lower end of the economic scale are paying
    proportionately more than folks on the upper end.
        I did want to request unanimous consent to enter into the
    record an article entitled, ``How DOGE's Cuts to the IRS
    Threaten to Cost More Than DOGE Will Ever Save.''
        Mr. Roy. Without objection.
        Ms. Scanlon. OK. Thank you, and I would yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the Ranking Member. I will now recognize
    the gentleman from Texas for five minutes.
        Mr. Gill. Thank you, Chair Roy. Thanks for holding this
    hearing and especially for your fights over the past several
    years to promote fiscal prudence in Washington and very boldly
    standing up for the American taxpayers. We really appreciate
    that.
        It is not surprising to me that our colleagues across the
    aisle are not in favor of a balanced budget amendment. It would
    obviously stop them from spending money on their top
    priorities, which we have learned this year are things like
    transgender surgeries for foreigners, DEI scholarships in
    foreign countries, Left-wing media outlets like NPR and PBS, it
    would stop them from funding the NGO industrial complex that is
    facilitated mass migration into our country, and all the
    various other wasteful government programs that we have been
    fighting to slash over the past year since I have been in
    Congress at least. Those are precisely the types of programs
    that I would like to see cut and why, among other reasons, that
    a balanced budget would, in fact, be prudent.
        Every dollar that we spend right now above what we take in
    at revenue is money that our children and grandchildren are
    going to have to pay back, and I for one don't want to and I
    don't think that it is in any way moral to saddle my children,
    my son or my daughter, with the debt to finance ridiculous
    programs as we have been.
        With that said, I want to thank the witnesses for being
    here. I really appreciate y'all's time.
        Ms. Madni, I agreed that--with you that achieving a
    balanced budget requires a significant decrease in spending. Do
    you know what the deficit was in 2019?
        Ms. Madni. I am sure that you have it in front of you, sir,
    so I am going to concede--
        Mr. Gill. The $984 billion. Do you know what the deficit is
    now?
        Ms. Madni. It is not good.
        Mr. Gill. Not good. A lot more than that, isn't it?
        Ms. Madni. Yes. Absolutely, sir.
        Mr. Gill. Do you know how much it is?
        Ms. Madni. Yes. We are at $1.9 trillion.
        Mr. Walker. Estimated to be $1.8 trillion.
        Mr. Gill. There we go. $1.8 trillion?
        Ms. Madni. I think it is actually $1.9 now.
        Mr. Gill. Got it. During that time, we have seen spending
    balloon and revenue not being able to keep up, of course. That
    has resulted in nearly doubling the deficit in six years.
        One of the things that we worked on as part of the tax
    package that we passed earlier this year was reducing wasteful
    spending. We cut spending by $1.5 trillion, the biggest
    mandatory spending reduction in our country's history. I would
    love to hear your thoughts on the work that we did as part of
    that spending reduction. What portions of that do you think
    were the most beneficial?
        Ms. Madni. It is a little difficult for me to choose just
    one piece of it that was the most beneficial, but I do think
    that there were some significant wins. As we mentioned, we
    prevented a tax hike on the American people and specifically
    working families, so I would be remiss not to mention that. In
    terms of your question on cuts, we eliminated $1.5 trillion in
    Federal spending. That is going to reduce inflation
    significantly.
        One of the pieces of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that I
    am most in favor of is that we really started refocusing
    Medicaid on the vulnerable populations, and that included
    reforms that reduced the ability of Medicaid dollars, Federal
    dollars from taxpayers--of course, it is the taxpayer's money,
    not the government's--from going toward illegal immigrants. We
    also ensured that those who can work must work to access
    Medicaid dollars. That is really important not just in terms of
    our fiscal health as a Nation, but because these programs were
    designed as safety net programs for the most vulnerable, and
    this helps refocus them.
        Mr. Gill. Yes. There has been some talk and we discussed
    possibly doing a second reconciliation bill. What are a few
    policy ideas that you think we should particularly focus on if
    we do go in that direction?
        Ms. Madni. I will stick with the Medicaid theme for a
    little while, sir. One thing that we could do is lower or
    eliminate the Federal match assistance percentage floor. Right
    now, there is a statutory floor of 50 percent. We could reduce
    that so that States who under the formula would receive less
    from the Federal Government could. That could save us $400
    billion. We could also repeal the Medicaid FMAP increase to the
    States that initially declined expansion. That would save us
    over $13 billion.
        Another option would be reducing the enhanced FMAP match
    for expansion populations. That was from the Affordable Care
    Act. This, of course, is what gives the able-bodied, working-
    age adults $9 for every $1 for the traditional population. If
    we did that, it would save $700 billion.
        Mr. Gill. Thank you, Ms. Madni.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I now
    recognize the gentlelady from Wyoming for five minutes.
        Ms. Hageman. Well, thank you.
        First, I would like to correct one of the statements made
    by our colleague on the other side about who actually pays the
    income taxes in this country. The top 10 percent of earners
    bore responsibility for 76 percent of all income taxes paid,
    and the top 25 percent paid 89 percent of all income taxes.
    Altogether, the top 50 percent of filers earned 90 percent of
    all income and were responsible for 98 percent of all income
    taxes paid in 2021. It is very clear that the people who own
    the majority of the money are also the ones that are
    responsible for paying the income taxes in this country.
        The Fiscal Year 2025 national debt currently stands at
    around $1.78 trillion--that is what I was looking at just this
    morning--and the national debt is at $38 trillion and counting.
    In 2010, when I first started really kind of ringing the bell
    about the debt and the deficit, the debt was $10 trillion. We
    have added another 28 trillion, almost $30 trillion just in the
    last 15 years. The U.S. now spends 13 percent of its budget on
    interest on the national debt and more than current annual
    spending on Medicare or the national defense.
        Mr. Walker, understanding that the successful adoption of a
    balanced budget amendment to the Constitution would inevitably
    help rein in future annual spending, factoring in our existing
    deficit and debt, I believe, merits some additional attention.
    With our deficit just shy of the $2 trillion, how would the
    implementation of a balanced budget amendment need to approach
    this growing figure? What would we do with that growing figure,
    with the deficit?
        Mr. Walker. Well, first, I believe that the debt-to-GDP is
    too high right now to promote future economic growth,
    individual opportunity, et cetera. You need to do two things:
        (1) You need to limit how much debt as a percentage of the
    economy the country can take on, absent--limited in
    extraordinary circumstances--a credit card limit, all right?
        (2) Let's set a target for a lower debt-to-GDP that we want
    to get to in 10-15 years and have mechanisms that can get us
    there, if you will.
        The American people know that we have a problem here. They
    support that approach that I just articulated. In addition to
    that, they recognize the problem is both spending and revenue.
    When you look at it, you have to look at it as a percentage of
    GDP. What percentage of spending to GDP? What percentage of
    revenue? The American people support a three-to-one ratio,
    three parts projected spending reduction to one part revenue
    increase, but they believe that both are necessary.
        Ms. Hageman. OK. Well, should the enactment of a balanced
    budget amendment then provide for a transition period to
    achieve a balanced budget over time, or could this be done
    immediately?
        Mr. Walker. No. It needs to have a transition. There is no
    question.
        Ms. Hageman. Do you know how long that transition should
    be?
        Mr. Walker. I would say 10 years as a general guideline.
    Kurt Couchman has said the same.
        Ms. Hageman. You also talked about exceptions. The COVID-19
    so-called public health emergency was initiated by HHS in
    January 2020. It was renewed 12 times, and it finally expired
    in May 2023. The COVID-19 national emergency was initiated in
    March 2020 and terminated in April 2023 following finally the
    passage of a joint resolution of Congress. According to the
    Treasury Department, from Fiscal Year 2019-2021, Federal
    spending increased by about 50 percent in response to the
    COVID-19 pandemic.
        I believe that the Democrats spent over $5 trillion while
    Joe Biden was in the White House addressing some of this.
    According to USAspending.gov, approximately $4.7 trillion in
    total budgetary resources was spent in response to COVID-19.
        Another point of contention for a balanced budget amendment
    is obviously the concept of exceptions, such as spending for in
    times of war, national security, natural disasters, and other
    emergencies.
        Mr. Couchman, one of my concerns is how those exceptions
    will be defined and implemented. Do you see that there could be
    potential abuse both by Congress as well as the White House by
    declaring national emergencies to circumvent any kind of budget
    constraints that we may adopt with a balanced budget amendment?
        Mr. Couchman. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,
    and so Congress can't be content to simply pass a BBA and
    assume that it will fix all the problems. I once believed that.
    I was naive and young, and I now believe there has to be a
    robust suite of statutory mechanisms to help Congress exercise
    its legislative powers to check and balance itself, but also
    the White House and, in some cases, perhaps the judiciary.
        One other quick note about a balanced budget amendment
    design. It is critical to avoid annual balance because tying
    your revenue and spending together so closely when revenue is
    so volatile will create all kinds of problems. In fact, the way
    that Mr. Duke described--but there are other BBAs that don't
    have that problem and also don't rely on defining spending as
    outlays, which is when money leaves the Federal Government. If
    you define it in general term, you can, through implementing
    legislation, avoid all the problems that Mr. Duke talked about
    with respect to business cycles and automatic stabilizers.
        Ms. Hageman. Have you identified those and written them
    down?
        Mr. Couchman. Yes, ma'am, and they have--a big piece of
    that has been introduced as legislation by Representative Tom
    Emmer and then-Senator Mike Braun.
        Ms. Hageman. Thank you. I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from Wyoming. I will now
    recognize the gentlelady from California for five minutes.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Before I begin, I want to make sure that the American
    people understand what we are talking about, that the deficit
    is simply the gap between what the government spends and what
    it brings in each year, and when that gap grows, we add to the
    national debt. Balancing the budget would mean closing the gap
    so we stop adding more debt.
        Republicans call themselves fiscal hawks, but the numbers
    tell a different story. Under President Trump's first term, the
    deficit jumped from $665 billion to $3 trillion--from a ``B''
    to a ``T''--and he has already added another $2 trillion this
    term. Republicans added $155 billion to the national debt in a
    single week. The national debt is now $38.336 trillion, driven
    by GOP tax cuts that will cost $3.4 trillion through 2034 and
    nearly $5 trillion if extended, and now we spend more than $1
    trillion a year just on interest. That is the real fiscal
    landscape that we are dealing with.
        Anyone who is managing their house budget would fall over
    backward if somebody was like, well, this is what you can't do.
    You have to cut. This is what we are continuing to do. Spend
    like it is water out of a tap.
        Mr. Duke, nonpartisan analysis shows that the Bush and
    Trump tax cuts are the primary drivers of long-term debt. It
    will cost $3.4 trillion through 2034 and nearly $5 trillion if
    extended. How central are these tax cuts to the debt trajectory
    we are on right now?
        Mr. Duke. Right. Basically, the debt would not be growing
    anymore if we had not--if we reversed those tax cuts or if they
    hadn't happened.
        One analysis by a former colleague of mine calculated that,
    of the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio in the 21st century,
    over half is attributable to the Bush and Trump tax cuts. Over
    half. The rest is emergency spending like COVID and things like
    that, but over half is attributable to those two policy
    choices.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. OK. Mr. Duke, while Republicans demand
    cuts to food assistance and healthcare and childcare and
    housing support, President Trump and his officials have spent
    $300 million on a White House ballroom, more than $220 million
    on golf travel, up to $45 million on a birthday military
    parade, and $473 million on National Guard deployments. Trump
    officials have also misused taxpayer resources, including a
    $60-million FBI jet that Kash Patel used for personal travel
    such as date nights and luxury hunting trips and a golf
    vacation in Scotland, and the Coast Guard purchasing up to $200
    million in Gulfstream G-700 private jets for Secretary Kristi
    Noem. These folks are not using their mileage points for sure.
        Given these expenditures, Mr. Duke, how would you
    characterize the fiscal priorities reflected in these decisions
    and, at the very least, are they putting American taxpayers
    first?
        Mr. Duke. Yes. The way I would think about it is that we
    have done--put into law enormous cuts to SNAP and Medicaid that
    help working families afford groceries and healthcare, right?
    The way it is framed is there was no other choice. Just these
    tax cuts and the bill they just did show that there was a
    choice and they decided to opt for that. Budgets are about
    priorities, and we can choose those priorities. Essentially, we
    have chosen tax cuts for the largest estates worth over $30
    million per couple over families trying to buy food and
    groceries.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Yes. Mr. Duke, Republicans also approved
    a $40-billion bailout for Argentina, including a $20 billion
    U.S. currency swap, even though Argentina has defaulted nine
    times. Like, a huge, bigly credit risk. What financial risk
    does that create for American taxpayers?
        Mr. Duke. I don't think it takes a financial wizard to know
    that investing in Argentina is not your best bet.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. A losing proposition. Absolutely. Thank
    you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
        Mr. Roy. I thank the gentlelady from California. I will now
    recognize myself for up to five minutes.
        First, I want to appreciate the witnesses. We have had a
    lengthy hearing with most of the Members of the Committee
    showing up, so I appreciate your time and your willingness to
    be here and for focusing on this issue.
        Now, I will note this has regrettably mostly turned into a
    Budget Committee hearing. Now, recognizing it is a balanced
    budget amendment question so it necessarily raises those
    issues, the question really before us is whether or not we
    should amend the Constitution of the United States to have some
    sort of structural changes to force Congress to be fiscally
    responsible, recognizing that both sides, as you just saw--in
    its normal, relatively petty way--point at each other for being
    the cause of our deficit woes. The fact of the matter is both
    sides--my Democratic colleagues and my Republican colleagues--
    past, present, and future--are responsible for this.
        Some reporting was done that when Mr. Musk came to visit
    the Republican delegation in December a year ago--almost to the
    date. Probably this week, I am guessing, if somebody Googles
    it--that Mr. Musk was talking about DOGE and talking about the
    savings, and many Republican colleagues went to the microphone
    and lauded the prospects of cuts and spending restraint. I
    stood up and I said, ``Mr. Musk, you are going to have no
    problem identifying things to cut. You are going to produce a
    great list, and we should do most of it.'' Your problem is
    going to be everyone standing right next to me here, meaning
    all of my colleagues. Now, I would have said that--it happened
    to be a Republican meeting. I would have said that about my
    Democratic colleagues as well.
        Because, as my friend from Kentucky said, we are
    constitutionally, as Members of Congress, hard-wired,
    unfortunately, to want to effectively buy people's votes with a
    never-ending array of spending programs, whether they are
    meritorious or not. I often have people who come into my office
    who ask for cancer subsidies. As a cancer survivor, I am
    sympathetic. I often and almost always tell them no unless they
    come in with a payment. Tell me how they are going to pay for
    it. What else are they going to cut?
        Same thing with my farmers. My farmers come in, and they
    are looking for something--for extensions in the farm bill and
    so forth, and I say, well, are you going to do anything about
    the 80 percent of the farm bill that is SNAP and the extent to
    which it is consuming the budget? Well, no, we can't. Well,
    then I am not going to support it. Members of Congress have got
    to actually--to the gentleman from Kentucky's point--do their
    job.
        The only thing I want to clarify here for the record
    because we are here trying to talk about whether we should
    amend the Constitution is--I just want to go down the witnesses
    and say--and I know the answer, but it is yes or no. Do you
    believe that the Constitution of the United States can and
    should be amended to provide a mechanism to ensure that we are
    not spending more than is coming in as a general matter?
        Mr. Roy. Mr. Walker, do you believe it can and should be?
        Mr. Walker. Yes, but I believe it ought to be debt to GDP.
        Mr. Roy. Mr. Couchman.
        Mr. Couchman. Yes, as nearly every advanced country has
    already done.
        Mr. Roy. Ms. Madni.
        Ms. Madni. Yes, absolutely.
        Mr. Roy. Mr. Duke.
        Mr. Duke. Should not.
        Mr. Roy. OK. Mr. Duke, you would maintain that position
    even if it were only tax increases that were suggested as the
    mechanism for ensuring that there was fiscal responsibility and
    that inflows and outflows were equitable?
        Mr. Duke. That's the job of Congress to do. I'm a 49ers
    fan, I wouldn't approve--that's the job of Congress to do. I'm
    a 49ers fan, I wouldn't approve of a law that said 49ers win
    the Superbowl this year.
        Mr. Roy. I always appreciate the consistency that you're
    saying that it shouldn't be put in place even for tax increases
    as opposed to spending restraint. What I would question, then,
    is--and I don't even debate the merits of whether or not
    Congress is shirking its responsibility on an annual basis. I
    would only point out that it has done so for effectively
    eternity.
        The question here is, on behalf of the American people,
    what do we do about it because as Mr. Massie said, ``well,
    elect better people.'' Well, we never have. We elect 435 people
    among Members of Congress who do the same thing every Congress,
    which is spend more money than we take in as revenues.
        My question is, again, do you not believe that there should
    be some mechanism, something in place, perhaps, for example, if
    you can't amend the Constitution, we don't think we should do
    that, then should we have statutory restraints that say the
    Members of Congress should not get paid, or Members of Congress
    shouldn't be able to hold chairmanships if they vote for
    budgets that are out of balance, or that Members of Congress in
    the NRCC or the DCCC can't raise money, with all their special
    perks and benefits to raise money for incumbent Members of
    Congress who are crapping all over the American people by
    mortgaging their children's future.
        Is there anything that we can or should do as Congress to
    restrain Congress from racking up deficits?
        Mr. Duke. Congress has to want it. Your colleague, Mr.
    Massie, laid it out, that it's on the Members of Congress to do
    it. For example, statutory PAYGO. Right. Where we have a law
    that says if you increase the deficit automatic across the
    board--it always gets waived.
        Mr. Roy. I get it, but we do this all the time. I'm not
    going to go too far over my time, I'm trying to be indulgent to
    some of my colleagues, so I'll give myself a few more seconds,
    but we've done that over and over and over and over and over
    and over again.
        Mr. Duke. That's my point.
        Mr. Roy. I know, but that's why we are here. I can sit here
    and I can ask these guys questions, I know what their answer is
    going to be, I know what your answer is going to be.
        The point here is we didn't have an actual debate about
    amending the Constitution to try to achieve something, or in
    the absence of amending the Constitution, is in something this
    body, the U.S. Congress can do to stop doing what we're doing,
    which is killing our country with interest piling up around the
    ears of our children. If answer is only that we've got to look
    in the mirror and be better, I agree, but we never do. We
    don't. Those of us that are dying on the Hill trying to fight
    on the spending restraint, it's literally like pulling teeth to
    get discretionary spending held flat while we try to grow the
    economy out of it and deal with the fact that mandatory
    spending has gone from, what, 4 percent in 1962 to, what, 24
    percent now of the overall GDP, and discretionary has gone from
    about 12 percent to 6 percent over that time. Mandatory
    spending is consuming it.
        Now, I've gone a minute over I would just say, look, I
    appreciate the witnesses coming in. I appreciate their
    expertise. I appreciate my colleagues. I would suggest that we
    have got to do something to stop mortgaging our children's
    future, and we've got to stop pointing across at each other and
    saying, well, you did it and you did it. It's just simply not
    true.
        My Democratic colleagues give Clinton credit for the 1990s,
    but want to ignore welfare reform and ignore the Republican
    Congress that came in 1994-1995.
        With that, I used up my time. Does anybody have any consent
    requests. The gentlelady from California.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. Well, I don't have a consent.
        Mr. Roy. No, well, that didn't--
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. I just want to say something to you.
        Mr. Roy. OK.
        Ms. Kamlager-Dove. OK. Yes. First, I just want to commend
    you on your comments and rules on the Score Act. OK.
        Second, I do want to say that I do think some districts try
    to elect better people. I do think that. I want to commend you,
    you mentioned petty in your comments, and I was thinking I want
    to commend you, Mr. Chair, for discouraging any petty, caustic,
    childish outbursts in this hearing. I just want to thank you.
        Mr. Roy. Well, I thank the gentlelady. I do think we owe it
    to the future generations to actually solve this problem, and
    we're not. If we want to amend the Constitution, let's have
    that debate. If we don't, let's come up with another solution.
        With that I will do whatever I'm supposed to do to conclude
    the hearing. This concludes today's hearing. We thank the
    witnesses for appearing before the Subcommittee. Without
    objection, all Members will have five legislative days to
    submit additional written questions for the witnesses, or
    additional materials for the record. Without objection, the
    hearing is adjourned.
        [Whereupon, at 12:10 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

        All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
    Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government can
    be found at: https://docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent
    .aspx?EventID=118721.

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