[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 119 (Monday, August 1, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H5870-H5876]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to take this 
moment to just thank God that Gabby Giffords has returned to this 
floor. You know, it so happens that just a few feet from here was the 
last time I had seen Gabby, when she left the floor prior to this 
tragic attack on her.
  It just occurs to me that once in a while in this life we find an 
example where tragedy is transcended by the human spirit and triumph 
and the grace of God, and this is one of those days. I just 
congratulate her with everything in me that she has come back. She has 
the prayers of the entire delegation, and I know the entire Congress, 
as she goes forward to complete recovery.
  We are all very, very grateful today. This is a wonderful celebration 
for every Member of this Congress. It is a celebration for just the 
cause of this Republic, because we believe that everyone has the right 
to have the freedom of speech and to peaceably assemble, and this is 
what she was doing when she was attacked. For her to come back this way 
as she has is a triumph of the first magnitude, and we are all so very, 
very proud of her, and welcome her back with all of our hearts.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I have another subject tonight that I want to talk 
about, and that is the recent challenges that we have faced over the 
debt limit raising and the effort on the part of many of us to place a 
balanced budget into the bill that went across to the Senate that would 
have required a balanced budget to be in our Constitution, because, Mr. 
Speaker, some of us believe that it is the only way that we are going 
to finally, in this country, deal with the challenges of deficit 
spending and with the burgeoning debt that threatens to crush this 
country in a way that no military power has ever been able to do.

                              {time}  1940

  Mr. Speaker, some of us have talked about this difficult problem for 
a very long time, and it seems that over and over again history repeats 
itself, and we never really deal with it like we should.
  But this time, Mr. Speaker, we have placed something before the 
American people that I think they are going to hang on to, and I 
believe that there is great hope in the coming months that we will 
continue to strive for this balanced budget amendment, and I hope that 
the people of America are paying attention because we cannot repeal the 
laws of mathematics. This challenge will damage this country in the 
most profound way if we don't deal with it while we can.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just say this: That all financial budgets will 
eventually balance, that's a fact. No individual, no family, no 
business, and no government can indefinitely continue to spend more 
money than they take in without someone having to make up the 
difference, Mr. Speaker, and that includes the budget of the United 
States Government.
  Neither Mr. Obama nor congressional Democrats can repeal this law of 
mathematics. The Federal budget of the United States Government will 
eventually balance, as all of them do, whether it's a person or a 
government or a business, when they continue to spend money that they 
don't have, someone, sooner or later, has to make up the difference. 
The question with our Federal budget is whether the White House and 
those of us in this body will balance this budget ourselves by wise 
policy or national bankruptcy and financial ruin will do it for us.
  From the day Barack Obama has walked into the White House he has, 
with breathtaking arrogance, Mr. Speaker, absolutely ignored economic 
and financial reality. It took America the first 216 years of its 
existence to accumulate the debt that Barack Obama has accumulated in 
the short 2\1/2\-year span of his presidency.
  During this short time in office he has increased our Federal debt by 
nearly $4 trillion, Mr. Speaker. And just to put that nearly $4 
trillion in new debt in perspective, let me just put it this way. If 
all of a sudden a wave of responsibility swept through this Chamber and 
we stopped all deficit spending and began to pay installments of $1 
million per day to pay down the nearly $4 trillion debt that Barack 
Obama has created in just 2\1/2\ years, it would take us more than 
10,000 years to pay off just Mr. Obama's accumulated debt in 2\1/2\ 
years. It would take us more than 10,000 years, Mr. Speaker, to do that 
if we paid it off in a million dollars a day, and that's if we don't 
have to pay one dime in interest in the process.
  But you see, Mr. Speaker, we are not paying Mr. Obama's debt down at 
$1 million per day; we are going deeper into debt, more than 4,000 
times that much every day, and that's under Mr. Obama's own projected 
deficit and deficit projections. And then when speaking of the effort 
to reduce the deficit, the President has the hubris to tell 
conservative Republicans to take a balanced approach and to eat our 
peas.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, if there's anything more catastrophically out of 
balance in our Federal budget it is the arrogance to competency ratio 
of this White House. We have watched as President Obama ran up a 
trillion-dollar deficit for the first time in history and then broke 
that record the very next year, and then say that we would have, 
according to his own projections, a trillion dollar-plus deficit for 
``years to come.''
  We have watched as the Obama administration promised that if we would 
just allow them to spend $800 million on their stimulus package, the 
economy would rebound and unemployment would never reach 8 percent. 
Well, of course, that didn't happen, and then we watched this 
administration bring us ObamaCare, or the health care takeover by 
government.
  And, Mr. Speaker, let me just suggest to you that at the time of that 
debate there was a lot of discussion over what private employers would 
do to their own insurance plans in the face of this government takeover 
of health care. Some people thought well, 5 percent, maybe 10 percent 
of the health care plans in the private sector would be dropped by 
corporations, would be dropped by employers.
  But, Mr. Speaker, that projection is a little bit further off than we 
thought. The polled people that have answered the question of whether 
or not they would drop their health care plans, being employers, they 
have said that as many as half of them would do that now. Mr. Speaker, 
the reason I mention that is because if that's true, the cost of doing 
that, the cost of absorbing that to the Federal Government will be 
another $2 trillion on top of the trillion dollars that was already in 
the bill. So ObamaCare itself could cost us $3 trillion and, Mr. 
Speaker, that's just in the next 10 years.
  So I would just say to you, Mr. Speaker, this administration has 
really done for deficits and debt what Stonehenge did for rocks. There 
is no one that has pressed this deficit spending more than the Obama 
administration. Mr. Speaker, the people have awakened, and they are 
tired of Mr. Obama telling them that 2 plus 2 equals 13.

[[Page H5871]]

  So as we now find ourselves raising this debt ceiling yet again, in 
the process, some of us as conservative Republicans wanted so badly to 
give the American people and the States of this Nation the historic 
opportunity to adopt a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution to 
put this country back on the track of fiscal sanity once again.
  So we placed a balanced budget amendment requirement in two separate 
pieces of legislation and passed them through this body and sent them 
over to the Senate only to have Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats refuse 
to even allow them to come up for a vote, either one of them. They 
simply refused to vote on it.
  In both instances, Mr. Speaker, President Obama's contributions to 
the process were threats to veto both plans sight unseen.
  Mr. Speaker, I wish I could just get this one question answered, if 
nothing else that they would answer, I just wish the administration 
would answer this one question: What is it, what is it that the 
President and Democrats find so radical about a balanced budget 
amendment?

  This is something that 49 States have and every family in America has 
to have sooner or later, a simple balanced budget amendment that says 
we cannot go into debt in an infinite way that threatens not only our 
children's future--you know, we used to talk about how this threatened 
our children's future, Mr. Speaker, and I will tell you, being the 
father of two little twins that are going to have their third birthday 
before long, that has great pull in my soul, that I don't want to see 
this crushing debt placed on their shoulders.
  But I would say to you, Mr. Speaker, that now we are starting to face 
a challenge that is going to come in this generation and this time, and 
it may not be so far off. Greece has set an example for the world as to 
what can happen when people simply don't pay attention to their fiscal 
challenges.
  But the failure of both, and the failure of cooperation and the 
failure of leadership from Democrats on this issue, has been baffling 
to me, Mr. Speaker. Unbelievably, it has been 822 days since Senate 
Democrats proposed, not passed, but merely even proposed a budget. An 
individual practicing such irresponsibility, living without a budget 
while paying for everything with borrowed money, would meet certain 
financial ruin. Why do we believe our Nation will fare any better under 
the same preposterous policy?
  Now Mr. Obama and the Democrats have falsely said that the balanced 
budget amendment is a Republican plan to destroy Social Security and 
Medicare. What a false, terrible, despicable thing to say. The truth is 
the balanced budget amendment is the only honest chance of reforming 
and saving those programs and our country from bankruptcy and economic 
failure in the future, Mr. Speaker.
  And throughout this process, Mr. Obama and the liberal media have 
sought to force tax increases upon the people and the job creators of 
this Nation by suggesting that Republicans were not willing to address 
the revenue side of this equation. That isn't true either, Mr. Speaker.

                              {time}  1950

  Just because Republicans are not willing to increase job-killing tax 
rates in this country doesn't mean we don't understand the revenue side 
of this equation. We just know that increasing the rate of taxes will 
decrease the productivity of this Nation and we will ultimately 
decrease the revenue that comes into this government.
  It is the economic equivalent of putting dirt in ice cream. It is a 
disastrous recipe to embrace in the name of balance. But I hear it over 
and over again--balance, balance. There is nothing more balanced, Mr. 
Speaker, than a balanced budget amendment to our Constitution.
  History and experience has demonstrated time and again that the best 
way to increase the amount of revenue coming in to this government is 
to get out of the way and let the people and the private sector 
increase the number of quality jobs for the American people. This has 
always resulted in the increased productivity and the broadening of the 
tax base in this amazing Nation.
  Mr. Speaker, we don't need higher taxes, we need more jobs and more 
taxpayers. Mr. Obama and the Democrats have constantly said that we 
need to take, again, this ``balanced'' approach, which is a code for 
increased taxes. But, Mr. Speaker, again, the truly balanced approach 
to this problem is a balanced budget to the Constitution, and by 
passing a balanced budget amendment we can restore hope and confidence 
in capital markets inside the United States and all over the world 
because they will see that in the long run America is going to make it.
  It may take the States 6 or 7 years to fully ratify this 
Constitutional amendment to balance the budget. But we owe it to the 
States and to the people to give them this chance to save their Nation. 
In the meantime, we can work here to expand the economy and balance 
this budget so when the amendment finally is ratified, we will all be 
ready to go forward as a nation to embrace greater days than we have 
ever seen. And we have a rare opportunity, Mr. Speaker, that may never 
come again of doing something truly historic that will save this Nation 
and its people from economic ruin.
  This battle is not over. The American people are beginning to realize 
that they are already paying a very high price for electing Barack 
Obama to the presidency. If they make the profound error of reelecting 
him in the next election, our families and all Americans will face an 
economic, a constitutional and a national security crisis that will 
dwarf the challenges that we face in these moments. If Democrats and 
the President are not willing to give the people this chance by helping 
Republicans pass a balanced budget amendment in the Congress, the 
resulting consequences will be theirs alone, Mr. Speaker, and I believe 
the people will hold them accountable for whatever financial disaster 
may follow.
  Now long ago, Mr. Speaker, Thomas Jefferson said, ``I wish it were 
possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be 
willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration 
of our government; I mean an additional article taking from the Federal 
Government the power of borrowing.''
  He said that right after the Constitution itself had been finished. 
He just wanted one more amendment. And, unfortunately, as you know, he 
turned out to be right. But his contemporaries failed to listen to him 
about the balanced budget amendment.
  I will just say to you, Mr. Speaker, it is not too late for those of 
us in these moments to listen to his words. I believe the American 
people are listening today, and I believe that they call upon their 
leaders now to do something truly historic and pass a balanced budget 
amendment to the United States Constitution in the days ahead. And God 
help us to do it, Mr. Speaker.
  Let me just say, Mr. Speaker, that I know that this has been a 
challenging week, and I believe our leadership on the Republican side 
of this House has done everything possible to try to work with the 
President and to work with the majority leader of the U.S. Senate. And 
they have had an extremely significant challenge. We sent twice to the 
other body bills that would have raised the debt limit but in the 
process also have required a balanced budget amendment to be inserted 
into the Constitution, or at least sent to the people so that they 
could decide. But this is the one thing that they took from us in the 
process. And, Mr. Speaker, I truly believe that we had a golden 
opportunity to truly change the way that America goes forward, and we 
failed that opportunity. But I would also say that I think there is 
still hope to do it in the next few months. Part of the equation that 
we have under this legislation is to require a balanced budget 
amendment vote in both this Chamber, in the House of Representatives, 
and in the U.S. Senate. And I hope so much that we do that while we can 
and that the people of this country will let their Representatives and 
Senators know that they are tired of this deficit spending and tired of 
this fiscal irresponsibility and saying, in our lifetime, we will have 
a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and we will make sure 
that our children can walk in the light of freedom and economic hope as 
we have. I hope that happens, Mr. Speaker.
  With that, I would yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

[[Page H5872]]

  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I thank my good friend for yielding and for 
taking time on this truly historic day, an opportunity for this Nation 
to begin--just begin--to move things in the right direction from a 
fiscal standpoint here in our great country.
  The debate over the last, oh, 3 to 4 months has been very loud, 
sometimes it has been acrimonious. There are many people across this 
great country who just are confounded by the laborious nature with 
which it takes to make any changes here in Washington at all, and I 
share that frustration and share that anger and share that concern 
because we've been moving in the wrong direction for a long, long time 
as it relates to spending at the Federal level.
  And so, as the gentleman from Arizona so appropriately said, what we 
need to do is decrease spending in the short term, we need to put some 
controls on spending in the mid term, but in the long term, as we have 
discovered and as the American people know so well, it's going to take 
structural, fundamental change of the way that Washington does business 
in order to get our fiscal house in order and get us on that path to a 
balanced budget and pay off our debt.

  And the best way that I believe that that can occur is through a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States. And 
I don't say that lightly, understanding that there have been really 
very few times in which the Constitution has been amended. But I 
believe now in my fourth term that having recognized early on in my 
Congressional career that all of the inertia here in Washington is to 
spend money, everything, it all points towards spending money. The 
budget process that we go through, the folks through the Congressional 
Budget Office that try their best to do the work but the rules under 
which they determine whether or not something costs the Federal 
Government and this Nation something or whether it saves are so 
distorted that you can't get to the right answer. One cannot get to the 
right answer without structural change. And that's where the balanced 
budget amendment comes in.
  Today, what we did in the Budget Control Act is not all that any of 
us would have liked. In fact, the numbers are relatively paltry when 
you look at them compared to how much money this government spends. But 
what is true about this act is that it will allow us in this House of 
Representatives and in the Senate right down the hallway to say to the 
American people, we hear you, we want this government to be held 
accountable, and the best way to do that is by passing a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
  And so my friend from Arizona comes down this evening to highlight 
that wonderful change that we have the prospect for making in this 
Congress. This isn't 4 years down the road, 5 years down the road, this 
is in this Congress right now. And I know that if he could, he would 
urge the folks listening to this and Members of Congress to encourage 
all of their constituents and all the people across this land who so 
firmly believe, as I do, and as I know Mr. Franks does, that we need to 
put some controls, significant controls on how Washington spends money 
and that the balanced budget amendment is the best way to do that.
  I know that what you would do, what he would do, is to urge all 
Members to communicate to their constituents and to every single 
American to call their Representatives, to call their United States 
Senators and say, some time, because of the bill that we just passed, 
some time between October 1 of this year and December 31 of this year, 
every single American will have the opportunity to communicate to their 
Representative and their United States State Senator the urging that 
they would to encourage them to support a balanced budget amendment.

                              {time}  2000

  That's when this vote is going to occur. It's not going to occur 
tomorrow or in the month of August or September. But what the bill 
provides is for the wonderful enthusiasm and the heartfelt patriotism 
and concern that the American people feel about this great country.
  Now is the time to communicate to their Representatives, to support a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If 
we are able to get this to happen, if we are able to make this become 
an amendment to the Constitution, frankly, the problem itself will 
begin to take care of itself because the rules will begin to say we 
cannot spend more than we take in. Just like every family in this 
country does and every business in this country must do, and that is to 
say we cannot spend more than we take in.
  I just had to come down and commend my good friend from Arizona, in a 
time when there is a lot of calamity around this town, to take the time 
to say this must be highlighted on this day because this is the 
beginning of the next 61 days that the American people must act to let 
their Representatives know, support a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman so much. Mr. Price is 
the chairman of our Policy Committee, and no one has written more 
cogently and with more commitment on the balanced budget amendment than 
this man. I am so grateful that he is here and has been such a voice on 
this.
  I ask the gentleman, do you think the American people know that we 
passed two pieces of legislation over to the Senate with requirements 
for a balanced budget amendment, and the first thing they did, the 
Democrat leader there, just took those out or simply refused to vote on 
them? Do you think they know that?
  Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I don't believe so, because I think if the 
American people knew that, they would be loudly protesting the lack of 
leadership and responsibility that the Senate has taken its job. That's 
the importance of this vote today, because the majority leader in the 
United States Senate cannot turn this vote away. This vote will happen. 
It will happen sometime between October 1 and December 31 of this year. 
Not next year or 2013 or 2014--this year.
  We have the opportunity to be able to send to the States a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution in this calendar year, and I'm so 
proud of the work that the gentleman from Arizona has done, and our 
colleagues have done, to highlight this issue and ensure that it was 
included in this piece of legislation. And I look forward to a very 
positive vote come October, November, or December of this year. But it 
won't happen without the engagement of the American people.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman so much.
  Let me yield to the gentleman from South Carolina. I am glad that you 
came to the floor, sir.
  Mr. DUNCAN of South Carolina. I want to thank my colleague from 
Arizona for taking on this very important issue. What a great evening 
to talk about America living within its means. We are $14.3 trillion in 
debt, and we're spending $1.5 trillion more than we are bringing in as 
a Nation. The piece of legislation that we passed this evening and is 
now residing over in the Senate includes what I think is the most 
important language within that legislation, and that is a vote on a 
balanced budget amendment.
  I was a small business owner for 16 years. When I did my budget every 
year, I had to think about what my revenues were for the past year and 
what my revenues were going to be for the coming year, and I had to set 
a budget based on that. I couldn't just hope that there was a money 
tree out in the backyard and continue spending money that I didn't 
have.
  Americans have been engaged in this process of the debt ceiling 
debate, and we are urging them to get involved in this process of a 
balanced budget amendment. Once that requirement and that amendment 
does pass both the House of Representatives and the United States 
Senate, it will be sent to the States to be ratified. At that point in 
time, Americans from all across the land will be able to rally their 
State legislatures, their general assemblies, to take up and ratify 
this important amendment to the United States Constitution.
  Many of my constituents--the gentleman from Arizona doesn't know 
this. Many of my constituents know that I carry a United States 
Constitution with me in my pocket. In fact, I read from that very 
podium in the well. On the second day as a Member of this 112th 
Congress, I read from the United

[[Page H5873]]

States Constitution, something I don't take lightly. But in order for 
this government to survive, and survive fiscally, is to get our fiscal 
house in order. And the secret to doing that is really to pass a 
balanced budget amendment, to require Washington to live within its 
means the way families and small businesses and large businesses have 
to do all across this great land.
  You know, when I was a small business owner, occasionally I had to go 
borrow money. But I had to put a plan together for that banker on how I 
was going to pay that back. Hopefully, we have begun to do that through 
this week of debate. But a balanced budget amendment, a requirement for 
the United States Government to balance its checkbook. The most, I 
guess, simplest thing that American families and small businesses do is 
sit down with that checkbook register and make sure that they haven't 
spent too much money, to make sure that they live within their means.
  So we have got that opportunity. I am proud that this was included. I 
am proud that I stand with 87 members of our freshman class that really 
helped, I think, leadership see that this was a vital component to this 
piece of legislation. I commend the House leadership for including it. 
I commend the House leadership for making sure that its inclusion in 
this bill that we sent over to the Senate this evening was there.
  So I want to urge the American people to get behind this, to contact 
your Senators, contact your House Members. As we heard recently from 
the gentleman from the Atlanta area of Georgia say, this vote will take 
place sometime between October and the end of the year. So during that 
process and leading up to that process, contact your Senators and 
contact your House Members and say: Government should have to live the 
way I operate my household, the way my wife and I have to sit down at 
our kitchen table and balance our budget. Balance Washington's budget. 
Let's get our spending under control. The time is now.

  I brought my little boy, Parker Duncan, who is 10 years old. He is 
sitting on the House floor with me today because I teach them, my 
children, the value of not spending more than you bring in. And they 
say: Dad, can we have that baseball? Can we have that item? I say: Son, 
we don't have the money in our budget this week or this month to 
purchase that. But let me make plans so that we can purchase that in 
the future.
  We live within our means. Am I perfect? No. I have debt, but we have 
a plan to pay back that debt.
  The future of our children and our grandchildren is at stake. America 
knows. America got engaged in this, they got engaged in the last 
election cycle, and they know that Washington cannot keep spending more 
than it has.
  So I commend my colleague from Arizona for taking on this very, very 
important issue to make Washington live within its means, to live 
within its means, not to spend money that it doesn't have. Let's rein 
in our fiscal house. Let's get our house in order, and let's create a 
way to start paying back that enormous debt. We can do that with a 
balanced budget amendment.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Members are reminded to address their 
remarks to the Chair and to not refer to guests on the floor of the 
House.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the Speaker, and I understand that the 
gentleman from Illinois would like me to yield to him for a question.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me for 
a question, but first, I just want to indicate to Mr. Duncan's son that 
we're going to do everything we can to get him a baseball even if his 
dad is a little slow this month.
  My question is about the balanced budget amendment, if the gentleman 
from Arizona would share with us how that would work. I have heard a 
number of Members come down and talk about the idea that we are going 
to vote on it, that it needs to happen. But at least as I understand 
it, the interpreter of the Constitution, obviously, would be the 
Federal courts in that if Congress were unable to achieve a balanced 
budget in any fiscal year, a lawsuit could be brought under the 
balanced budget amendment that would throw the process into the Federal 
judiciary, allowing Federal judges then to determine what constitutes 
balance or imbalance.
  If the gentleman would take some time to share with us how, from his 
perspective, that would work.

                              {time}  2010

  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman, and I'll take a shot at 
that.
  First of all, as the gentleman knows, there are many different kinds 
of balanced budget amendments that have been proposed. One of the 
commonalities of most of those is that they require that our projected 
spending meet our projected revenues, what we believe is going to be 
our receipts for the coming year. Now, it is true, as in all areas of 
the Constitution, that the Federal courts have exhibited great 
arrogance in coming into the area of legislation and trying to 
legislate from the bench by dealing with these issues under the 
pretense of considering the constitutionality of these issues. The good 
news with a balanced budget amendment is that there would be obvious 
language there that the courts would have before them that simply says 
that the Congress is required by the Constitution to balance our budget 
so that we don't deficit-spend.
  It is true that we are required in this body to have equal 
protection, for instance. We can't say that this one group deserves one 
protection and that this one group doesn't. Every once in a while, the 
Supreme Court injects themselves into that debate like they did in Roe 
vs. Wade, let's say. They simply said, when it comes to protecting the 
unborn, that they weren't persons under the Constitution and that we 
not only didn't have to protect them but that we couldn't protect them. 
That was arrogance beyond words. This is every time across the history 
of humanity. When the German High Tribunal injected itself even into 
the tragedy of the German system, they said that the German was 
``untermenschen,'' subhuman, and they took away their personhood; and 
the tragedy that followed is still one of the darkest stains that I 
know of on the human soul.
  So, yes, it is possible that the courts could try to intervene in 
this process and try to distort it, but ultimately, the ``balanced 
budget amendment'' concept is very simple. It would say, like Thomas 
Jefferson said, that the Federal Government simply would take from them 
the power of borrowing.
  Now, there was a balanced budget amendment that came before this 
floor about 15 years ago, and it received over 300 votes on the floor, 
many of them Democrat votes. I don't know how the gentleman from 
Illinois voted on that. That's not a question. I don't know. Yet that 
particular balanced budget amendment simply said that you could not 
deficit-spend without a super majority of votes that declared that 
there was either an emergency in dealing with our national security or 
that there was an act of war on the table to where we were having to do 
things to make sure that we protected the national security of this 
country, which is priority one.
  I'll let the gentleman ask me one more question, and then I'm going 
to yield to these other folks. I would just say this: Oftentimes, my 
friends on the Democrat side of the aisle say that a balanced budget 
amendment will require us to cut Medicare and cut Social Security and 
all of these things, and that presupposes that a balanced budget 
amendment will bring in less revenue to this government because of its 
constraints. First of all, when we deficit-spend, we're really just 
throwing the log up the trail. We're really not doing anyone any good 
in the long run because these programs become unsustainable over time.
  Here's the thing that I wish I could express and wish that my 
Democrat friends would do their own research on and ascertain whether 
they think it's true empirically in history, which is: When we have a 
balanced budget amendment, when people believe that they can project 
forward and know that this government is going to be secure, when they 
believe that we're not going to deficit-spend and take a lot of the 
capital out of the private markets and that we're not going to put 
burdens on the interest rates, one thing happens very clearly--it drags 
more people off the sidelines; it drags more entrepreneurs into the 
system; it causes

[[Page H5874]]

more people to put their capital at risk; it causes more people to put 
their lives and endeavors into an enterprise that results in 
productivity.
  The fundamentals of all economy is productivity, productivity, 
productivity, productivity. When we produce as a Nation, we raise the 
number of taxpayers, not the rate of taxes. We raise the number of 
taxpayers, and money from all corners comes into the coffers. That has 
happened many times. Even when we decrease taxes, that happens.
  So I am convinced that a balanced budget amendment is the surest way, 
not only to have the additional moneys necessary to make sure that we 
have all of the constitutional mandated and allowed activities of this 
Federal Government to do, including that it gives us more money for 
things like Medicare and that it gives us more money for things like 
Social Security, but to also put us on a fiscal path to security so 
that those programs won't eventually come into question and even 
bankruptcy.
  With that, I'd let the gentleman ask one more question.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I thank the gentleman for yielding and for 
allowing me to ask him one final question.
  Is there any concern that a balanced budget amendment would be 
legalizing the legislative process and politicizing the judiciary?
  What I mean by that is all Federal judges are, obviously, appointed 
by the President of the United States, and they go through a process in 
the Senate. Is there any concern that those Federal judges could be 
queried over what programs they support and what programs they don't 
support, and therefore, it would stand as a basis for their own, if you 
will, politicizing of the judicial process, which presently is not 
involved in the political process? Then, if you don't mind sharing with 
us, what are the ramifications?
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. I thank the gentleman.
  There are always these times when Democrats and Republicans can find 
common ground, and I think this is one of those moments when I take the 
gentleman's point and believe that he has a very good point.
  The truth is, as of late, in the last several decades, the courts 
have politicized, and they have brought into sort of the legalization 
process a lot of the activities that belong in this Chamber. I am 
convinced that, yes, there is every possibility that they may try to do 
that with a balanced budget amendment of the Constitution or with any 
other element of the Constitution because that's where things are 
headed.

  The answer to that is not to say, well then, we're just going to give 
up the Constitution to the judges. The answer is for us to fight back 
and say that they are not going to politicize our Constitution, that 
they are there to apply the Constitution as written, not to have a 
Constitutional Convention every time they sit down to a case where they 
rewrite the Constitution like they did with Roe vs. Wade, like they did 
with the Kelo case. The judges simply should interpret the law as 
written and not try to do our job as legislators.
  It is a serious problem, I would say to the gentleman, that concerns 
me greatly, but I will say this: We are seeing judges do these things 
anyway in States. Apart from a balanced budget amendment, they're 
saying, You're not equally applying your appropriations in a particular 
area, and we hereby order you to appropriate funds to this or that 
particular issue or cause or department. So I say to the gentleman that 
there is nothing that frightens me more than turning this entire 
Constitution, this entire Republic, over to an unelected judicial 
oligarchy. It's the most dangerous thing that we face because it 
abrogates the Constitution. I would say this President has put people 
in the courts who have no fealty or no respect for the Constitution 
whatsoever.
  I just had a case that I've been fighting for 14 years, and it went 
before the courts. It should have been a 9-0 case, but it was 5-4 
because these four justices were willing to say that every dollar in 
your pocket before you filled out a tax return was public money. Now, 
there was nothing constitutionally accurate about that, but they were 
willing to do it.
  So the gentleman is correct in being afraid of judicial activism and 
of the judiciary injecting itself into the Constitution, but they've 
done that with all amendments. At least with a constitutionally 
balanced budget amendment, we'll have the words clearly that we have at 
least the ability to fight back and to say to the judges that they have 
no right to abrogate these words.
  I hope that that makes a difference.
  With that, I thank the gentleman for his questions, and I would yield 
to the gentleman from Oklahoma such time as he may consume.
  Mr. LANKFORD. Thank you. I'm honored to get a chance to join in this 
conversation, which is really a conversation about a topic that's a 
very big deal to a lot of people.
  I was 18 years old, and I remember sitting down with my mom, working 
through how to be able to fill out the register on a checkbook and how 
to be able to balance it because I'm getting ready to leave for 
college, and it becomes an essential characteristic of people to be 
able to handle their finances when they walk away to school. I can 
remember well sitting there and walking through money in/money out, all 
of that process.
  It's such a simple process for us, so simple that, when I talk to 
people back home in my district in Oklahoma--Republicans or Democrats--
and I say, ``What is your opinion on a balanced budget amendment?'' 
it's that this is not at partisan issue. Just flat out, when we get 
away from programs, when we get away from all the ideas and say, 
``Should we balance our budget every year? Should we live in balance?'' 
I run into people who say, ``Yes, we need to balance our budget.'' When 
we get into conversations about the language, about exclusions, about 
all those things, those are legitimate conversations that I think we 
should have with the American people; but in reality, they come back to 
the same thing, that we should balance our budget.
  Now, I've seen statistics. As high as 80 percent of the American 
people are interested in having a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution, and I think there are multiple reasons for that. Some of 
them are fiscal. If I went to the American people and I said, ``I could 
provide to the American people in our budget for social programs, for 
tasks, for agencies, for all of our entitlement programs $220 billion 
more a year immediately into our Federal budget,'' everyone would say, 
``Great. How do we do that?''

                              {time}  2020

  I would say, we catch up on our budget and stop paying interest. 
Currently, we're paying $220 billion a year just in interest payments. 
Can you imagine what we could do with $220 billion more in our budget 
if we didn't have such a large debt that we're having to maintain with 
so much interest?
  The other side of that is, this debt is not forever. I interact with 
people all the time, and they will say words like sustainable, the debt 
is not sustainable, the debt is not sustainable. When I ask people, 
what does that mean to you to say the debt is not sustainable, very 
often they will just hesitate, and they will say, I think it just means 
we can't do this forever. And I would smile and say, I completely 
agree, we can't just keep borrowing this forever.
  But let me tell you what it means to me in this. At any given time in 
the world, there is only so much money at that exact moment--now, we 
know that wealth shrinks and grows over time as investment happens, but 
at any one instant in the world there is only so much money. And of 
that money that's there, there is only so much that is actually 
invested, whether that be in business or in bonds or in whatever it may 
be. You take that investment pie worldwide, and you've got a portion of 
it that's going to growing businesses, starting new businesses, 
investing in markets, and then you've got another group of sovereign 
debt that is actually paying for countries and their debt. There is 
only so much money that can be invested in a moment. And at some point 
we start, as a country, taking on more and more money, which we're 
pulling out of the markets, and we're actually slowing down our economy 
by requiring more and more money to come to us to pay for our debt. So 
at some point we've got to stand up as a Nation and say, if we continue 
taking on this debt, we are purposefully killing the worldwide economy 
because

[[Page H5875]]

we're taking money out of circulation, investment and pulling it into 
us. Forty-nine States have some sort of structure for a balanced 
budget. We should do that as a Federal Government. It is a commonsense 
thing.
  Now, again, we can come back and talk about what the language is. I'm 
a firm believer that no party owns the United States Constitution; that 
is by the American people. So it should be Republicans and Democrats 
together, sitting down in a commonsense way, both the House and the 
Senate, and saying we agree, we need to get around this, this is out of 
hand. So let's start working on the language on it together.
  So that becomes a key issue, but it sets up a couple of things that I 
think are really important. Number one is, it actually sets up 
deadlines. I have noticed as a freshman in this town that there are 
very few deadlines that ever occur here. Even when there is a budget 
requirement that the House and the Senate both have to do a budget each 
year, we just reject that and don't do it, and we'll do continuing 
resolutions and things. We don't like doing deadlines because it 
requires difficult decisions. A balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution creates a moment that we have to actually focus in on the 
fiscal house and force us into those tough decisions.
  It also creates a parameter that protects future generations. I am a 
firm believer that the reason we still have the freedom of religion in 
the United States is because it is in the United States Constitution. 
The reason we still have freedom of speech is because it is in the 
United States Constitution. And we all know that so many people in 
politics do not like what's written about them in the press, and many 
times in politics they push back on the press and try to limit the 
press. But we still have a free press because that is guaranteed in the 
United States Constitution. If we added in a balanced budget 
requirement for the Federal Government, it would give to our posterity, 
for centuries to come, the gift of a parent in the legislative room to 
say we are going to have a balanced budget, we are going to honor this. 
And that $220 billion a year that we've been throwing around and 
wasting on our interest would actually come back to reinvest into our 
economy. It's the right thing for us to do. It will require difficult 
decisions, I'm very aware, but it is absolutely the right thing to do.
  I am so grateful for the gentleman from Arizona for leading a 
conversation on the House floor on this very important topic, because 
in the months to come we're encouraging all of America, around kitchen 
tables, around the workplace, playing around and watching football--
which I'm very grateful is coming in the next couple of weeks to 
finally start football season again--around these gatherings of people 
to start having the conversation, do you think our Nation should have a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution? Let's initiate a 
conversation--I think I know where the American people already are, but 
let's give it a shot and find out for sure where their legislators are 
and so we can get that back out to the States and say, where are you, 
and where are we as a Nation?
  And so I appreciate so much the gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. And I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would just say, in listening to the gentleman from 
Oklahoma's comments, that he is one great encouragement to many of us 
because he is living proof that the cavalry has arrived, and he is an 
example of why this debate has changed. I am very grateful for his 
presence in the United States Congress, and I hope he is here a very 
long time.
  With that, I would seek to yield to the gentleman from Iowa for such 
time as he might consume, and I might ask the Speaker what the time 
remaining is at this point.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman has 13 minutes remaining.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. So I'm hoping I can yield to the gentleman 8 
minutes, or something along those lines.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for leading on 
this Special Order, and all my colleagues that have come to the floor 
to raise the issue of the balanced budget amendment.
  I wanted to just point a few things out as to where this sits. Now, 
the chairman of the Constitution Committee standing before me, Mr. 
Franks, has presided over the shaping of a constitutional amendment 
requiring a balanced budget. And I certainly favor the one that was 
authored by Bob Goodlatte and marked up in our full Judiciary 
Committee. It took three full days, and those days spanned over a 
couple weeks' period of time trying to find the time to get this to 
work out.

  And I want to express, Mr. Speaker, that a balanced budget amendment 
that is written by someone who doesn't believe in a balanced budget 
amendment probably isn't going to yield the result that we all want 
from that amendment. And the worst case scenario would be the drafting 
and the passage of a balanced budget amendment that would be the 
constitutional equivalent of PAYGO. You could draft a balanced budget 
amendment that would say, Thou shalt balance the budget, and not put 
provisions in there, such as a cap on GDP, or a supermajority required 
to raise taxes, or a supermajority required to raise the debt limit, or 
of course the cap, as I said. And if it were just the barest of bones, 
the bare minimum of a definition of a balanced budget amendment, then 
that could be a balanced budget amendment that would allow a majority 
vote of the House of Representatives and a majority vote of the Senate 
to waive the balanced budget amendment. That would be the amendment 
equivalent of PAYGO, pay-as-you-go, waive it or raise taxes in order to 
calculate that you balanced it. So I would caution that we need to do a 
prudent job of promoting a balanced budget amendment, continually 
defining that balanced budget amendment to be something that gives us 
fiscal responsibility.
  I will go more deeply into this perhaps in a half hour or so, but I 
wanted to also add that this legislation that has passed through the 
House of Representatives today--and I'm as joyous and delighted that 
Gabby Giffords was able to cast a vote on this bill today, as perhaps 
almost anybody in this place, save the folks that are closer friends 
and relations of hers, but what a day, what a day for this Congress to 
feel that emotion of her coming in this room and putting that vote up 
on the board and to hear that cheer go up when that light turned green. 
We are on opposite sides of the issue, but as I said, it is a deep 
feeling of just great pleasure and gratitude and thanks that she can 
come into this place and do that.
  But here's the point I wanted to make, Mr. Speaker, and that is that, 
if we do nothing, if we had not addressed this debt ceiling and dialed 
this spending curve down, in 10 years from now--this is what the lack 
of a balanced budget amendment will do: In 10 years from now, our 
national debt, our debt that we addressed today that's about $14.3 
trillion, would be $28 trillion in 10 years if we just go along 
business as usual and the projections of the March baseline are 
projected out for a decade as we do; $28 trillion in debt. If we accept 
the--I'll call it the Boehner proposal that passed the House here 
today, because the numbers in it actually reflect the first Boehner 
bill of last Friday. Then this bill that passed the House today, our 
national debt is still, if this bill effectively turns this spending 
increase down in the way it's supposed to, and the deficit down, we're 
going to be looking at $26 trillion in our debt anyway in 10 years by 
2021, $26 trillion.
  So we've gone from, when we got up this morning, projections of $28 
trillion in debt in 2021, in 10 years from now, dialed it down to $26 
trillion. If we just held the line on the Ryan budget, we would have 
dialed it down to $23 trillion, and I'm not satisfied with that. When I 
see a budget that came out that balances in 26 years--now we've backed 
up some on that--I think we need to be stronger, not weaker. I think we 
need to step up and advocate and take these next few months and do all 
we can to sell America on the idea, selling the people that don't 
believe we should ever live under a balanced budget that we must do so.
  And as I sat for those 3 days in the Judiciary Committee while we 
debated and marked up this balanced budget amendment that does these 
things that

[[Page H5876]]

I said--a three-fifths supermajority to waive the balance, or three-
fifths to raise the debt ceiling, or two-thirds to exceed the 18 
percent GDP cap, or two-thirds to increase taxes, all of those things--
and it requires the President also to offer a balanced budget and 
allows a balanced budget requirement to be waived if we declare war or 
a national emergency that is significant--those things, if we don't do 
those things, then we end up with perpetual debt.

                              {time}  2030

  And the people on the other side of the aisle that debated against a 
balanced budget amendment completely convinced me that they never want 
to live under a balanced budget amendment unless it is a confiscation 
of all of the wealth of this land and put it back through the money 
machine here in Washington. It would suppress the economy, it would 
starve and eventually kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
  So $28 trillion is projected. That's the projected national debt in 
10 years. The bill that passed today takes it down to $26 trillion. 
Ryan took it to 23, so we lost a little bit of leverage here today.
  But the people on the other side, and the President has convinced me 
also, he never wants to live under a balanced budget and certainly 
doesn't want to have a Constitution that would order that that be so.
  So what do the American people have to say about people who are 
committed to deficit spending in perpetuity, what do they think 
happens, where do they think America goes if we take our hands off of 
the ``whoa back'' on the reins and the spending goes on and we borrow 
the money to fill all of the wants of the American people for now. And 
what happens to our children and grandchildren when they have to 
service that debt or when the roof caves in when no one will loan us 
money anymore and we became mega Greece?
  This has been an intense debate here all around this country. It came 
to a certain head today. It is a long ways from over. This is a start. 
It's not the end. It is just a start.
  I thank the gentleman from Arizona for yielding.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa. 
He happens to be one of my most beloved friends in this institution, 
and he is a true statesman. Mr. Speaker, sometimes I think it's 
important for us to examine that word ``statesman.'' It's often said 
that a politician looks to the next election whereas a statesman looks 
to the next generation. I so believe that that's important in this 
place.
  We need to realize that, as the older men around here, as it were, 
that we need to plant shade trees under whose shade we will never sit 
ourselves. We need to do those things for the next generations that 
will really make the difference.
  I want to, if I could, relate the timeless words of one of our 
Founding Fathers Samuel Adams. He said, ``Let us contemplate our 
forefathers and our posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights 
bequeathed to us from the former for the sake of the latter. The 
necessity of these times, more than ever, calls for our utmost 
circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance.''
  I think so much that those words are true, Mr. Speaker, because I 
truly believe that right now we are about planting trees under whose 
shade we will never sit ourselves.
  But I truly believe that if we work hard in these next few months to 
pass this balanced budget amendment, that we will do great things for 
this country and for its people because oftentimes I find people see 
the balanced budget amendment as a way to constrain our ability to meet 
the needs of government.
  Well, the fact is, Mr. Speaker, a balanced budget amendment will do 
several things. First of all, it will not only help government meet 
certain needs, it will help a lot of people no longer need government 
because it will expand this economy, it will help people gain jobs, it 
will help people become taxpayers, and as I said in my earlier 
comments, we don't need more tax increases, we need more taxpayers, and 
nothing will help this government in terms of the revenue it needs more 
than that.
  But ultimately, a balanced budget amendment will also cause a debate 
in this country as to what is government's role and what is the private 
sector's role because oftentimes the difference between this country 
and many other countries is that our Constitution changed down 
government, and our Constitution tries to magnify the individual. And, 
Mr. Speaker, I just think sometimes we forget what it's all about.
  I know there is a lot of sincere people on both sides of the issue. 
But I would just say tonight that we have a chance to move forward from 
this debate and realize that our eyes are open now, that we see the 
problem. And sometimes there is a moment in the life of every problem, 
Mr. Speaker, when it is big enough to be seen and still small enough to 
be solved. And I'm afraid that that window is closing upon all of us 
right now and that we have an opportunity to sow the seeds of ultimate 
success by putting a balanced budget amendment in our Constitution by 
putting it out to the States.
  We can't pass a balanced budget amendment ourselves. What we can do 
is we can put it out to the States and say you decide. Let the people 
of this country decide whether we need a balanced budget amendment or 
not. If we will do our part, they will do theirs.
  You know Fred Bastiat said many, many years ago, government is that 
great fiction through which everyone endeavors to live at the expense 
of everyone else. And it sounds real good, you know, this idea of 
deficit spending, this idea of socialized government sounds real good. 
But the truth is that while maybe free enterprise and market-driven 
freedom is sometimes the unequal distribution of wealth, socialism has 
proven time and time again across the centuries to be the equal 
distribution of poverty.
  Nothing has dragged more poor people out of poverty for longer 
periods of time than freedom and free enterprise, and the balanced 
budget amendment will reinvigorate that in this country, and it's time 
that we had it, and by the grace of God I hope that we proceed.
  I join with my friends on both sides of the aisle to say it's time to 
put this country back on track to the greatness that the Founding 
Fathers dreamed of so long ago and to understand on our parts that if 
we do what we can, that America's best days are still ahead.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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