[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 14 (Thursday, February 6, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1101-S1102]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS

  The following petitions and memorials were laid before the Senate and 
were referred or ordered to lie on the table as indicated:

       POM-30. A concurrent resolution adopted by the Legislature 
     of the State of Iowa; to the Committee on the Judiciary.

                     House Concurrent Resolution 4

       Whereas, with each passing year this nation becomes deeper 
     in debt as federal government expenditures repeatedly exceed 
     available revenues, so that the federal public debt is now 
     approximately $4.9 trillion, or $19,000 for every man, woman, 
     and child; and
       Whereas, the annual federal budget has not been balanced 
     since 1969, demonstrating an unwillingness or inability of 
     both the legislative and executive branches of the federal 
     government to spend in conformity with available revenues; 
     and
       Whereas, knowledgeable planning, fiscal prudence, and plain 
     good sense require that the federal budget should not be 
     manipulated to present the appearance of being in balance 
     while, in fact, federal indebtedness continues to grow; and
       Whereas, believing that fiscal irresponsibility at the 
     federal level, which is resulting in a lower standard of 
     living and endangering economic opportunity now and for the 
     next generation, is the greatest threat which faces our 
     nation; and
       Whereas, Thomas Jefferson recognized the importance of a 
     balanced budget when he wrote, ``The question whether one 
     generation has the right to bind another by the deficit it 
     imposes is a question of such consequence as to place it 
     among the fundamental principles of government. We should 
     consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our 
     debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves''; and
       Whereas, the principal functions of the Constitution of the 
     United States include promoting the broadest principles of a 
     government of, by, and for the people; setting forth the most 
     fundamental responsibilities of government; and enumerating 
     and limiting the powers of the government to protect the 
     basic rights of the people; and
       Whereas, the federal government's unlimited ability to 
     borrow involves decisions of such magnitude, with such 
     potentially profound consequences for the nation and its 
     people, today and in the future, that it is appropriately a 
     subject for limitation by the Constitution of the United 
     States; and
       Whereas, the Constitution of the United States vests the 
     ultimate responsibility to approve or disapprove of 
     amendments to the Constitution of the United States with the 
     people of the several States, as represented by their elected 
     Legislatures; and
       Whereas, opposition by a small minority within Congress 
     and, on occasion, by the President, has repeatedly thwarted 
     the will of the people of the United States that a balanced 
     budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States 
     should be submitted to the States for ratification while 
     large majorities of both Houses of Congress already have 
     prepared considered, and voted for such amendment; now 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved by the House of Representatives, the Senate 
     Concurring, That the General Assembly of the State of Iowa 
     requests the members of the Congress of the United States to 
     expeditiously pass, and to propose to the Legislatures of the 
     several States for ratification, an amendment to the 
     Constitution of the United States requiring in the absence of 
     a national emergency that the total of all federal 
     appropriations made by the Congress for any fiscal year not 
     exceed the total of all estimated federal revenues for that 
     fiscal year; and be it
       Further Resolved, That the Legislatures of each of the 
     several States comprising the United States be urged to apply 
     to the Congress requesting the proposal for ratification of 
     such an amendment to the Constitution of the United States; 
     and be it
       Further Resolved, That copies of this Resolution be 
     transmitted to the President of the United States Senate, the 
     Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the 
     members of Iowa's congressional delegation, and the presiding 
     officers of each house of the Legislatures of each of the 
     other States.

[[Page S1102]]

       We, Ron J. Corbett, Speaker of the House and Mary E. 
     Kramer, President of the Senate; Elizabeth A. Isaacson, Chief 
     Clerk of the House, and Mary Pat Gunderson, Secretary of the 
     Senate, hereby certify that the above and foregoing 
     Resolution was adopted by the House of Representatives and 
     the Senate of the Seventy-seventh General Assembly.

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