[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 177 (Friday, November 18, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H7841-H7874]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       PROPOSING A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to section 2 of House Resolution 
466, proceedings will now resume on the motion to suspend the rules and 
pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 2) proposing a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as amended.
  The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. When proceedings were postponed on Thursday, 
November 17, 2011, 2 hours and 42\1/2\ minutes of debate remained on 
the motion.
  The gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) has 1 hour and 27\1/2\ 
minutes remaining, and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) has 1 
hour and 15 minutes remaining.
  Without objection, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) will control 
the time of the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas.


                             General Leave

  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all 
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend 
their remarks and include extraneous material on House Joint Resolution 
2, as amended, currently under consideration.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Yesterday, we began debate on the balanced budget amendment, debate 
that I hope culminates today with a bipartisan two-thirds vote in its 
favor. The American people of all political stripes and from all walks 
of life demand we pass this amendment. Recent polling by CNN indicates 
that a constitutional amendment to require a balanced Federal budget 
garners more than 70 percent support among men, women, whites, 
nonwhites, every age group, every income level, and people from every 
region of the country. Why do Americans overwhelmingly support a 
balanced budget amendment? Because they understand that unending 
Federal deficits wreck our economy and steal prosperity from future 
generations.
  President Obama has set the wrong kind of new record. The national 
debt has increased faster under his administration than under any other 
President in history. This runaway government spending paralyzes the 
job market, erodes confidence among America's employers, and has caused 
the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression.
  The balanced budget amendment is not an untested idea. Forty-nine 
States

[[Page H7842]]

have some form of a balanced budget requirement. We are overdue to 
adopt a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We must stop the 
flood of deficit spending that threatens to drown future generations of 
Americans in a sea of debt.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I welcome the continuation of this discussion about an incredibly 
important proposal.
  We gather here today to determine whether we should add one more 
amendment to the 27 amendments to the Constitution that have been 
enacted since the last part of the 18th century when our country was 
formed. I was reviewing something that a former chairman of our 
committee said in the 104th Congress, and I refer to the distinguished 
gentleman from Illinois, Henry Hyde, who said in effect that he 
realized that the Republican Congress when he was there would not be 
able to balance the budget without using retiree funds in the Social 
Security trust fund. I think I'm being assured in this debate that that 
will not happen in the present time.
  Here's what Henry Hyde said: ``If you exclude receipts from the 
revenue that are received by the Social Security System from computing 
the total revenues of the government, if you take it out of the 
equation, then the cuts that are necessary to reach a balanced budget 
become draconian. They become 22 to 30 percent, and you know that we 
cannot and will not cut programs that we want to subsist and continue 
by 22 to 30 percent.

                              {time}  1010

  ``You have to compute Social Security receipts in determining the 
income of this government so that the cuts you make to balance the 
budget are liveable and not impossible.''
  Henry Hyde was right then and his statement is correct now. Under the 
proposal that we are discussing today, our Nation's savings--the money 
taken out of every American's paycheck could be looted, in effect, to 
pay for other things and to balance the budget, and it would take the 
trust out of the Social Security Trust Fund.
  The Ryan budget would cut Social Security's service delivery below 
current maintenance levels by more than $10 billion over 10 years, 
including a $400 million cut in 2012. This sort of drastic cutting will 
prove devastating to seniors as more aging boomers retire to rely on 
field office services, initial benefit claims, processing, disability 
determinations, and hearing decisions over the next 10 years.
  So I appeal to the kinder nature of my friends in the House. Please 
recognize that Henry Hyde was correct then and he is correct now, that 
we cannot achieve what this amendment proposes to do without going into 
Social Security receipts. And I think that that would be objectionable 
and unwise on the part of all of us here, and that would be 
unacceptable to the citizens of our country.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman 
from Ohio (Mr. Gibbs).
  Mr. GIBBS. Mr. Speaker, as a member of the Balanced Budget Caucus, I 
rise in strong support of the balanced budget amendment we are going to 
take up on the House floor today.
  I've heard many of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say 
this is not the time to take this up, but now is exactly the time we 
should be taking this up.
  In 1995, a balanced budget amendment passed the House with bipartisan 
support, only to lose by one vote in the United States Senate. Then, 
the national debt was $4.8 trillion. This week, the national debt hit 
$15 trillion. We have added $10 trillion to our debt in 16 years. That 
is $10 trillion in debt that threatens our job growth, our national 
security and our sovereignty, and our Nation's children. And that's $10 
trillion in debt that could have been avoided had the balanced budget 
amendment passed.
  We simply must stop spending money we don't have if we are going to 
give our economy a chance to grow and create jobs. Past attempts like 
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, the Balanced Budget Enforcement Act, and Pay-As-
You-Go requirements have failed to bring Federal spending under 
control. America needs a permanent, long-term solution. We must hold 
Congress' feet to the fire and pass a constitutional balanced budget 
amendment today.
  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman 
from New York, Jerry Nadler, become the manager of this amendment from 
this point on.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from New 
York will control the time.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I my consume.
  This amendment, while superficially appealing, is one of the most 
damaging things we could do to the Constitution of the United States. 
And, yes, it is true, if you ask people do they think we should have a 
balanced budget, they say yes; and if you ask people do you think we 
should have an amendment requiring a balanced budget in the 
Constitution, they say yes. But if you ask them do you think we should 
have an amendment requiring a balanced budget in the Constitution if it 
meant a cut in Social Security, they say no; if it meant a cut in 
Medicare, they say no; if it meant a cut in other essential services, 
they say no.
  And when you probe further, you find that this is a very damaging 
provision. For a number of reasons, economists tell us that, in a 
recession, you want to increase the government spending temporarily. 
You have to increase it because unemployment insurance payouts go up, 
food stamp payouts go up; and if you decrease the spending, it reduces 
the amount of products that people want in society, it reduces the 
amount of money in circulation, and it makes the recession into a 
depression.
  In good times, you should run a surplus; in recession, you should run 
a deficit. Over a long period of time, the budget should be balanced. 
But if you attempt to balance the budget during a recession, you 
generate a much worse loss of jobs. And that's why you don't want 
this--or you shouldn't want this.
  Secondly, this amendment is not self-enforcing. All it says is 
outlays shall not exceed receipts, and Congress can pass appropriate 
legislation.
  But what does that mean? It means that if outlays exceed receipts or 
if someone thinks that the estimates are wrong and outlays are going to 
exceed receipts, then you go to court, and then a court has to decide 
whether that's correct. A court has to decide whether the estimates are 
correct. And if the court decides the estimates are not correct, then 
the court has a choice. It can say, ``This is political. We're going to 
exercise judicial restraint,'' as the gentleman from Virginia said 
yesterday, in which case it won't enforce the amendment and the 
amendment is meaningless; or the court will say, ``Okay, we'll order a 
tax increase'' or ``we'll order an expenditure cut,'' in which case you 
have those judges making political decisions, which I don't think we'd 
want to see.
  Thirdly, a balanced budget amendment starting where we are now with a 
huge deficit that's been accumulated over a few years means that you're 
going to have to make drastic cuts in Social Security and Medicare and 
veterans' benefits. Some people say on the other side of the aisle, 
well, that won't be true because they don't count; but, yes, they 
count.
  The amendment says ``outlays.'' Outlays are defined as all 
expenditures other than debts. Social Security is not a debt; the 
courts have held that. Medicare is not a debt; there's no contractual 
right. This means that if you're going to reduce outlays, Social 
Security is right in it. And if you're not going to reduce Social 
Security, you've got to reduce a lot of other things by much more. So 
this is a dagger pointed at the heart of Social Security and Medicare 
and veterans' benefits.
  Now, we're told that the only way we can get our budget into balance 
is by this amendment. Well, the fact is that's not true. The reason we 
have the problem we have now is because of years of reckless Republican 
Presidents and administrations.
  When President Clinton took office, we had a huge budget deficit--
$300 billion a year. The forecast was for 500 and 600 billion by the 
mid-nineties. Within a few years, we had turned that around. Congress 
made decisions to turn that around followed by the President's 
recommendations in 1993 and a smaller one in 1997. That one the 
Republicans held with, with Speaker

[[Page H7843]]

Gingrich. As a result of those decisions, by the time President Clinton 
left office and President Bush assumed office, we had a huge surplus. 
And the question was: What are we going to do when we've paid off the 
entire national debt by 2012? That was what was going to happen.
  What changed that? Two huge tax cuts for rich people, pushed through 
by the Republicans and President Bush. And we said, at the time, that 
that would generate tremendous deficits. In fact, the reason they were 
set to expire in 2010 was because the CBO said that after 2010 they 
would generate tremendous, ongoing deficits, which they are doing.
  Secondly, we had two unfunded wars. For the first time in American 
history, we didn't raise taxes to pay for wars. Thirdly, we doubled the 
Pentagon budget, not including the wars. And fourth, we had a recession 
starting in 2008 during the end of the Bush administration.
  Now, some people say, well, it's the Obama administration, the 
unfettered spending of the Obama administration. Nonsense. The amount 
of money being spent on non-defense discretionary spending--that is, 
all spending other than defense--veterans' benefits, Medicare, Social 
Security, and interest on the debt, is the same today, the same, not a 
penny more, adjusted for inflation and population growth, as it was in 
2001. And in 2001, we had a huge surplus.
  Where did the surplus change to a deficit? Wars, tax cuts, and 
increased Pentagon spending.

                              {time}  1020

  Now, what can we do about this? So the problem is not spending alone, 
the problem is that we're not taxing the rich and the corporations 
enough. In 1970, corporations paid 30 percent of all Federal income tax 
receipts from corporate income taxes. Today, it's 8 percent. We've let 
the corporations get away with murder--the big businesses, with Exxon 
paying no taxes on profits of $6 billion, General Electric paying no 
taxes, getting a refund. That's our problem. But we don't want to deal 
with that, we want to pass a constitutional amendment.
  Now, if we pass this constitutional amendment, it would mean that any 
time we went into a recession, it would drive it into a depression. It 
would mean we would have to make huge spending cuts now. It would mean 
we would have to decimate Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits. 
It makes no sense at all.
  If this were in effect now--we were told by the macroeconomic 
analysts that if this amendment went into effect for next year, it 
would increase unemployment by 15 million people. So I urge that we not 
pass this amendment, and instead we do the hard work of increasing 
taxes on corporations and rich people, of getting discipline into our 
expenditures. But the first thing to do is jobs. If we got unemployment 
down to 5 percent, where it was in 2007, that by itself would reduce 
unemployment by 40 percent.
  In a recession, first you take care of the jobs. When you're back 
into better times, then you can start thinking about balancing your 
budget, and that's when you ought to do it; not force cuts in 
expenditures or increasing taxes during a recession, which just makes 
the recession much worse and the unemployment much worse, which is what 
this amendment would do.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Paulsen), a member of the Financial 
Services Committee.
  Mr. PAULSEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the balanced budget amendment.
  Since our country was first founded, the issue of debt and government 
spending has been at the forefront of the minds of our political 
leaders, our national security advisors, our business owners and 
citizens alike. It's obvious that our $15 trillion national debt is not 
a Republican problem, it's not a Democratic problem; it's an American 
problem.
  Mr. Speaker, our economy has stumbled. Families are making tough 
decisions, cutting spending and living within their means. However, one 
thing that hasn't changed is the way that government spends the 
people's money. We must work together now to resolve our spending-
driven debt crisis because the simple truth is that Washington must 
stop spending money that it does not have.
  Our debt crisis is a legitimate threat to our Nation's security and 
our future. A nation that does not control its debt does not control 
its destiny. In order to give our children and grandchildren that 
secure future and economic stability we need a balanced budget. We need 
this balanced budget amendment because it is a fundamental reform that 
will absolutely produce results.
  It's time to pass a balanced budget amendment to get government 
spending under control.
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Buchanan), a member of the Ways and Means Committee.
  Mr. BUCHANAN. Mr. Speaker, this is an historic opportunity. For the 
first time in 16 years, the House will vote on a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution.
  Just this week our national debt surpassed $15 trillion. For too long 
Republicans and Democrats have turned a blind eye to our government's 
financial mess. Washington needs to make the tough choices necessary to 
balance the budget for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
  The Federal Government has balanced its budget only five times in the 
last 50 years. This is unacceptable. The first bill I introduced in 
Congress was the constitutional balanced budget amendment in 2007. It 
simply requires the Federal Government to live within its means.
  Forty-nine out of 50 States, including my home State of Florida, have 
to balance their budgets. Florida, the last 4 or 5 years, has had tough 
revenue years like everybody else, but they've balanced their budget. 
In fact, when we got downgraded by the S&P, that same week Florida got 
upgraded by their credit rating.
  Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, may have put it 
best when he said ``the biggest threat we have to our national security 
is our debt.'' And Erskine Bowles, cochair of the President's debt 
commission, said ``the debt is like a cancer; it's going to destroy the 
country from within.'' They're right. And the time is right for 
Congress to ratify a balanced budget amendment and send it to the 
States.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would simply point out that when S&P 
downgraded our debt, they were so well respected that the interest 
rates went down and the price of our bonds went up. So much for S&P.
  I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Kind).
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire, does the majority side have an 
extra minute that they could spare?
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I will yield the gentleman an extra 
minute.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Wisconsin is recognized 
for 3 minutes.
  Mr. KIND. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the balanced budget 
amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, I do believe that this Congress needs rules, it needs 
rules in budgeting. But I can't help but believe today that the easier 
and more practical response to the huge budget deficits that we face is 
going back to a tried and true method called pay-as-you-go budgeting 
rules.
  Pay-as-you-go budgeting was a simple concept--you've got revenue 
reduction, spending increase, you've got to find an offset in the 
budget to pay for it. It was a rule that was in place in the 1990s that 
led to 4 years of budget surpluses. We were actually paying down the 
national debt rather than adding to it.
  Unfortunately, when President Bush took office, along with the 
Republican majority in Congress they immediately repealed pay-as-you-go 
budgeting rules which enabled them to support two wars that went unpaid 
for. They had two tax cuts that went unpaid for that primarily 
benefited the most wealthy in this country, and you may recall that the 
main justification for those tax cuts was their fear that we were going 
to pay down the national debt too fast. It was laughable then as it is 
laughable today. And then they supported the largest increase in 
entitlement spending since Medicare was created in 1965 with a new 
prescription

[[Page H7844]]

drug bill that was not paid for. And these are ongoing financial 
obligations right now, adding to the fiscal woes that we're trying to 
climb out of as a Nation.
  But I know that the majority today does not embrace pay-as-you-go 
budgeting, even though it worked in the 1990s, even though it helped 
create 27 million private sector jobs during that period and left an 
era of budget surpluses. So the next best thing we have to instill some 
fiscal discipline in this place is through a balanced budget amendment, 
going through that laborious process of trying to find two-thirds in 
the House and the Senate and then three-quarters of the States to 
embrace it. And if that's what it takes to get our fiscal house in 
order, to check against unbridled tax cuts that aren't paid for, or new 
increase in spending that goes unpaid for, then it's a risk worth 
taking because we are jeopardizing the future of our Nation, our 
children's future with these ongoing budget deficits, and steps need to 
be taken right now.
  There is a legitimate concern, however, that Members on my side of 
the aisle have been expressing--the three-fifths vote in order to 
increase the debt ceiling. We saw how perilously close we came to 
defaulting on our Nation's obligations over the summer. And I fear that 
through this amendment a minority in this body could literally hold the 
rest of our Nation hostage or paralyze the functioning of our 
government or lead to the default on our obligations. I still think 
that's a legitimate concern that's not addressed through this 
amendment. In fact, it makes that probability more likely, and it's 
something that we're going to have to address as we move forward.
  But today, I think, given the lack of options that we face and the 
dire situation that we have with the budget deficits and the lack of 
progress, unfortunately, with the supercommittee that we've seen over 
the last couple of months, that the balanced budget amendment seems 
like the most practical approach given the political realities.
  I urge and encourage my colleagues to support it.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Frelinghuysen), a member of the 
Appropriations Committee.
  Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of the bipartisan Balanced 
Budget Act of 2011 and urge its adoption.
  My colleagues, government at all levels is mired in debt. 
Mismanagement and overspending have left our Nation on the brink of 
bankruptcy. Why? The math is simple. The Federal Government takes in 
approximately $2.2 trillion every year but spends over $3.5 trillion. 
To sustain the operations of government, we borrow 42 cents of every 
Federal dollar we spend.
  The implications are obvious: We're hurtling down a path toward the 
most predictable financial disaster in the history of the planet. 
Enough is enough. The American people want us to begin to live within 
our means. They need a permanent fiscal solution.

                              {time}  1030

  Spending cuts are important; but what Congress passes today, another 
Congress and even the same Congress can undo tomorrow. The only 
effective way to control spending is through an amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution.
  Balancing budgets is not an untested idea. Over 49 States currently 
abide by some sort of balanced budget amendment. Let's pass a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution today. Let's get the job done.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Doggett).
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, while this House does sometimes act in ways 
that border on the insane, applying this constitutional straitjacket is 
hardly the appropriate treatment. It basically imposes the tyranny of 
the minority. Two-fifths of the Members of this House can block action. 
And America has seen how well that works across the Capitol in the 
United States Senate, where a three-fifths rule already applies, and 
too often has rendered the Senate largely impotent, unresponsive to 
public demand for action on key national issues, unable to overcome the 
threat of a Republican filibuster.
  Today's proposal would broaden that impotence to both sides of the 
Capitol. On a critical budget question, if we take a vote in this House 
and 260 people vote in the majority, and 175 vote in the minority, the 
minority rules. Democracy loses.
  Of course, there is a major exception to this proposed new rule, and 
it is an exception that may well eat the entire rule. So long as a 
majority of the House determines, probably through the fine print of 
some huge, voluminous piece of legislation, that the country faces an 
imminent and serious threat to its national security, well, in that 
case this purported constitutional amendment is totally nullified. What 
year, since 9/11, would a majority of this Congress have been unwilling 
to make such a finding and render the proposal meaningless?
  A constitutional amendment is not a path to a balanced budget. It is 
only an excuse for Members of this body failing to cast votes to 
achieve one.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. DOGGETT. I voted for a balanced budget. I voted for a balanced 
budget when I voted against launching an unnecessary war on borrowed 
money. I voted for a balanced budget when I voted to reject the 
distorted Republican theology that when the question is taxes, less 
always means more. It's political alchemy. It's like turning hay into 
gold. The more the tax cut theology is proven wrong over and over and 
over again, the more the Republican faithful demand another tax cut to 
drive us deeper into debt.
  This is the kind of extremism that causes a stage full of Republican 
Presidential hopefuls to declare that they would reject any budget 
agreement that cut spending by $10 if it raised taxes by even $1. A few 
months ago, such irresponsibility took us to the brink of default and 
jeopardized our economic recovery. They just could not overcome their 
ideological restraints.
  Don't jeopardize our economic future. Don't play games with veterans 
and retirement security and law enforcement just because Republicans 
cannot accept the economic reality, as they often cannot except basic 
science.
  Reject this misbegotten amendment.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from California (Mr. Denham), a member of the Energy and Commerce 
Committee.
  Mr. DENHAM. I rise in support of the balanced budget amendment.
  Just this week the national debt exceeded $15 trillion. That's the 
bottom line: $15 trillion, and a balanced budget amendment would hold 
government accountable.
  Now, some say that that accountability will tie the hands of Congress 
in yet one more way. Some say that this is going to create a greater 
debate between revenues and spending cuts.
  Well, I'd agree on both. The same way that every American family has 
to balance their budget every week, every month, every year, the same 
way that I, as a small business owner, have to pay my bills every week, 
every month, every year, we owe this country the opportunity to not 
only see a balanced budget, but a bipartisan effort here in Congress.
  If you want more job creation, we have to have certainty. Before a 
company is going to go out there and hire new employees, they need 
certainty, not only to see that our country is on the right path, not 
only to see that we're actually going to reduce our debt, but also 
taking a look at our credit rating to make sure that we actually are 
creditworthy and have a long-term plan. That type of certainty will 
create jobs in this country. That type of certainty is what's needed 
with a balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that families are able to 
borrow to pay for the car and to pay for the mortgage. Under this 
amendment the Federal Government would never be able to borrow. It's 
quite different.
  Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Boswell).
  Mr. BOSWELL. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.J. Res. 2. An 
amendment to the Constitution of the United States requiring that the 
Congress pass a balanced budget is something I've

[[Page H7845]]

long supported and will continue to support. I'll try to tell you why.
  I greatly respect and I hear Mr. Conyers and my friend, Mr. Nadler. I 
understand their strong feelings, and I would concur with many of them.
  I'd like to thank the gentleman from Virginia, my good friend Mr. 
Goodlatte, for his efforts to bring this bipartisan resolution to the 
floor. I also want to thank him for resisting the efforts of some in 
his party to enshrine the disastrous fiscal policies of the Tea Party 
into our Constitution.
  My colleagues, our budget is broken. After years of special interest 
handouts on both the revenue and spending ledgers, we now have a system 
that requires us to borrow over $1 trillion just to meet our basic 
obligations.
  Why? Why do we borrow? Has anybody in this body ever really asked 
this question?
  It seems we borrow because there is not the political will in this 
body to make the difficult decisions in our country that we need to do. 
We're elected leaders. We're elected to lead. But when it comes to the 
long-term fiscal imbalance our Nation faces, many in this body seem to 
be more interested in securing the next election than securing the 
safety and soundness of our fiscal future.
  And no one party's at fault. Both parties are responsible for the 
financial mess we're facing. Our national debt did not reach its 
current level overnight, although we seem to have amnesia, what 
happened in September of '08 when Secretary Paulson came to talk to us 
about the sky was falling. But the problem has been decades in the 
making, with the current economic climate making the issue that much 
more visible.
  These are serious times, and serious times call for serious people to 
make serious decisions; and we know what these decisions must be. We 
cannot cut our way out of this mess, and we cannot and should not tax 
our way out of this mess. We need, quite simply, a balanced approach 
that gets us to a balanced budget.
  If I could tell you a situation in my home State, when I was 
appropriations chair, we were faced with a budget that was breaking the 
constitution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. BOSWELL. And so we decided to take it on. We were breaking our 
constitution in the State, and we took it on. And we worked with 
downtown, we worked with everybody across the State, and we came up 
with a solution and it's working. There's money in the bank in Iowa. 
The unemployment rate is around 6 percent, and that's something we need 
to be striving to achieve here. We can do it.
  What we have left out in this that we need to consider as we go 
through the steps is how do we include the revenue side of it. We had a 
revenue piece. But it's working. And it'll work here.
  We can do this. Let's work together. I urge an ``aye'' vote.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Costa).
  Mr. COSTA. I rise in support of the bipartisan balanced budget 
amendment. I want to thank my colleagues, Congressman Goodlatte and 
others, who have worked on this effort, and really urge my colleagues 
that this is the time that we need to come together to act on behalf of 
the better interest of our Nation.
  Clearly, a majority of the citizens I represent in the San Joaquin 
Valley agree that Washington needs to get its fiscal house in order.
  We all want a balanced budget, but too few are willing to make an 
agreement that will move us toward that goal. That's why the passage of 
the constitutional amendment requiring the Federal Government to live 
within its means is an important step. But it is only a step.
  To balance our budget, Members of both parties still have to come 
together to set priorities and, yes, make compromises and shared 
sacrifices to produce fair, balanced budgets each year. And never has 
the need been ever so clear.
  Our national debt recently surpassed the GDP for the first time since 
World War II. Each American's share of the debt is now greater than 
their average salary. Congress could have acted sooner, but we haven't; 
and we can no longer afford to wait.

                              {time}  1040

  The bipartisan passage of this balanced budget amendment is an 
important and necessary step toward a sound fiscal future, and as a 
cosponsor, we should pass this measure. But we also should reach a 
larger agreement with the supercommittee that's fair and balanced on 
entitlement reform and revenues. If we do so, we will begin to restore 
the confidence by the American public that we can work together to get 
our economy back on track and create the jobs that all Americans want.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield 4 minutes to 
a member of the Ways and Means Committee, the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Neal).
  Mr. NEAL. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, earlier this week Bruce Bartlett, a former Reagan 
adviser, who recently testified before the Ways and Means Committee, 
commented about the Republicans' balanced budget amendment. He stated:
  ``The proposal that Republican leaders plan to bring up is, frankly, 
nuts. The truth is that Republicans don't care one whit about actually 
balancing the budget. They prefer to delude voters with the pie-in-the-
sky promises that amending the Constitution will painlessly solve our 
budget problems.''
  Mr. Speaker, the mystical date here is January 19, 2001. Bill Clinton 
says goodbye and leaves a surplus not subject, by the way, to opinion 
today but subject to fact of $5.7 trillion. So the decision is made to 
cut taxes in 2001 by a trillion dollars. The decision is made in 2003 
to cut taxes by $1.3 trillion, and then subsequently to engage in a war 
in Iraq based upon the faulty premise of weapons of mass destruction.
  Now, our Republican friends often come to the microphone and say 
things like, well, we all spent too much money. No, I didn't spend too 
much money. I voted against the war in Iraq. I voted against the Bush 
tax cuts. I voted against their prescription benefit proposal.
  Our friend from New Jersey a moment ago said the math is clear. But 
for Republicans, why is the math only clear when Bill Clinton is 
President and Barack Obama is President? They ran these deficits 
through the roof. There is no escaping that conclusion.
  The budget has been balanced five times since the end of World War 
II, four of those times during the Clinton Presidency. Twenty-two 
million jobs were created during those years. This is the equivalent of 
using a Luger to clean the wax out of our ears.
  This proposal is beyond the pale. They ran across the country for the 
last 2 years with the Tea Party-types saying, Have you read the bill? 
Yes, we've read the bill, and we've come to the conclusion this is a 
reckless pursuit of defying our constitutional responsibility when 
we've already demonstrated that we can accomplish these ends without 
disturbing the Constitution that they attempted during the campaign 
cycle to merit.
  Let's honor the Constitution, the Tea Party said. And today what do 
they propose? Disturbing the Constitution after their financial 
malfeasance for 8 years.
  This argument they bring to the floor today is a political gimmick. 
George Bush, Sr., lobbied me on the amendment many years ago when it 
failed, and respectfully I pointed out to him that it was nothing more 
than political theater. When President Bush, Jr., invited me to the 
White House to discuss his tax cut proposal in 2001 a matter of days 
after his assumption of the Presidency, he said this is the people's 
money. And he's right.
  But guess what? It's the people's responsibility to honor those 
veterans hospitals for 35,000 men and women who have served us 
honorably in Iraq and Afghanistan who are going to need our care for 
decades to come. It's the people's responsibility on Social Security, 
the greatest antipoverty program in history. It's the people's 
responsibility on Medicare, which has added years to life and life to 
years.
  This proposal today overdoes it. There are enough men and women of 
goodwill in this institution to assemble for the purpose of getting on 
to a balanced budget without taking this pursuit of dishonoring our 
Constitution when we should be doing this on our

[[Page H7846]]

own right now as the law has prescribed.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman 
from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio), a member of the Transportation Committee.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. I thank the gentleman, and I particularly want to thank 
Mr. Goodlatte for his extraordinary leadership on this issue. We both 
supported a virtually identical amendment in 1995.
  Now, when I first came to Congress, I did not support a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. I said things similar to my good 
friend and colleague Mr. Neal from Massachusetts: It's a gimmick. We 
don't need it. People will come together. We can make these decisions.
  It didn't take me long in observing the Congress to realize that 
there's an infinite capacity in this Congress to kick the can down the 
road. And the problem is that can's getting pretty darn heavy to kick 
down the road, and it's going to land on the next generation with full 
force--$15 trillion of debt. For the first time since World War II, 
this year our deficit exceeds the gross domestic product.
  Now, we're going to have to force people to make tough decisions. 
That's a conclusion I came to when I changed and I supported the 
amendment back in the mid-nineties.
  Now, just think about it. It passed the House, failed by one vote in 
the Senate. And had that become the law of the land, today we would be 
paying down the last of the debt. We might still be in this hole 
economically that we're in, but we would actually then perhaps have the 
capacity and the will to go out and borrow a couple of hundred billion 
dollars to rebuild the Nation's crumbling infrastructure. We could 
afford it. But in this environment with this amount of debt, that's a 
very tough sell around here.
  This is an honest balanced budget amendment. It does not prejudice 
the debate between taxes--and there are many on that side who object to 
any new taxes or revenue--and spending cuts--and there are many on my 
side who object to many spending cuts. It does not discriminate. It's 
fair. It's evenhanded.
  There were many on the Republican side who preferred one that would 
have tied the hands of Congress, said, No, you need a 66 percent vote 
to have taxes; no, you have to be limited to 18 percent of GDP. But, 
no, they brought forward something that is fair, and it would be 
something that would force Members of Congress and future Members of 
Congress to make the tough decisions that we have to make.
  A lot of talk about Social Security. I'm an expert on Social 
Security. Social Security is the largest creditor of the United States 
of America, $2.66 trillion. We have to have the capability to redeem 
that debt to pay future Social Security benefits in the not-distant 
future when we have to draw on what's called a trust fund. It's not a 
trust fund. It's government bonds. It's debt. And if we keep adding to 
the pile of debt, will we have the capability to repay those Social 
Security bonds?
  And there's a long-term problem with Social Security. I have a bill 
to fix that. Lift the cap on wages. I didn't notice that--many on my 
side have been down here carrying on about the attack on Social 
Security in this bill; they're not on my bill. Because that's a tough 
thing to say, we're going to make people over 250 pay the same amount 
of tax as people who earn less than 250.
  That's a solution long term. But short term we've got to worry about 
being able to redeem those bonds and pay promised benefits of Social 
Security.
  And then a lot of talk about the debt limit. Well, when we're in 
balance, you're going to have to have a 60 percent vote to deficit 
spend, and you would need a 60 percent vote for an increase on the debt 
limit. I would say that they could be done at exactly the same time. It 
requires the same number of votes. Is someone going to vote today to 
say we're in balance, to vote in deficit to deal with the economic 
situation today, perhaps to fund infrastructure investments, and then 
vote later on today against raising the debt limit by that same amount? 
That would just vitiate their earlier vote. So I don't think that 
that's a real threat.
  If you vote ``no,'' you're assuming that we have an infinite capacity 
to borrow money to pass on to future generations and still meet our 
obligations to the American people. I don't believe that. We need 
limits. We need to be forced to make tough decisions, and this would 
force future Congresses to make those tough decisions.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that if this amendment 
passed, we would never be able to borrow money to do the infrastructure 
that we need.
  I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Garamendi).
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I suspect we're about to enter into a west coast 
debate here. My good friend from Oregon brings a perspective a little 
north of California, and I would like to bring to this discussion a 
perspective of California.

                              {time}  1050

  For more than 30 years, California has lived under a constitutional 
amendment much like this constitutional amendment--a constitutional 
amendment that in the State of California requires a supermajority vote 
for raising taxes and for the budget itself. It's very similar to what 
is required here. The only difference is, in California, it was two-
thirds; here it's 60 percent.
  One only need look at the extraordinary dysfunction that California 
has endured in the intervening 30 years since that constitutional 
amendment went into effect. It has become a situation in California 
where we went from the very best--the very, very best--education system 
in this Nation, both K-12 and higher education; the best infrastructure 
in this Nation; and the most robust economy in this Nation to one in 
which we've had perpetual political gridlock because of the 
supermajority requirement.
  So I bring to this House my own 35 years of experience with a 
constitution that does impose a supermajority but that has simply not 
worked to the benefit of the State of California. To visit such a thing 
upon the United States, in my view, in my experience of 35 years in 
public life in California, would be a great disaster for the United 
States, one in which we would have perpetual gridlock.
  Already in this House this year, my Republican colleagues are very 
upset about the United States Senate not being able to do anything 
because of the 60-vote requirement. The Republicans keep talking about 
the 19 jobs bills that are over there that are tied up. It's the 60-
vote requirement that has tied them up in the Senate. Last year it was 
the Democrats who were complaining about the Senate not being able to 
move because of the 60-vote requirement in the Senate.
  Do we want that also here in the House? I would hope not.
  I would ask us to back away from what is politically expedient. We 
all understand this. We've all been in this a long time. We understand 
the political expedience about the sound bite, about the way in which 
it appears. We are taking action to solve the deficit. Please, look at 
California. Look at what has happened to California over the last 35 
years.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. GARAMENDI. I would also ask you to take a look at the fact that, 
even with that supermajority vote, California has perpetually run a 
deficit because it could not bring into balance the revenues and the 
outlays because the outlays were required by the reality of the 
economy, by the reality of the people.
  This is a very, very important vote, and I bring to this House my 
experience of what a supermajority vote has meant to the State of 
California.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Louisiana, Dr. Fleming, a member of the Armed Services Committee.
  Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I've listened carefully to the debate today, and I've listened to the 
other side.
  Mr. Speaker, this body is hopelessly addicted to excessive spending 
and budget deficits--hopelessly. On the other side, those who argue 
that we should not have a balanced budget

[[Page H7847]]

amendment are hopelessly in denial, just like drug addicts are in 
denial about their addictions. We have 535 Members, if you include the 
Senate, who compete with one another to see how much money we can 
spend, and we have an executive branch that does the same. Republican 
or Democrat--it doesn't matter--we all do the same thing. There is 
absolutely no control--or governor, if you will--on our excessive 
spending.
  Let's put this in perspective.
  In the 235 years since the founding of this great country, we have 
added $10.6 trillion to the national debt. In the 2\1/2\ years of this 
Presidency, we have increased that by 50 percent, an addition of $5 
trillion. We just passed the $15 trillion debt level. At the current 
rate--and this is not just a projection; this is set in stone--by the 
end of the first term of President Obama's, we will have increased the 
national debt by 70 percent. This is just in that one term of 4 years.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot do this based on our willingness to balance 
the budget. We are incapable of doing that. We are addicted to 
spending. We are in denial about this, and it's time that we do 
something. I stand in support of H.J. Res. 2, a balanced budget 
amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Frankly, I would 
like to see a more restrictive form, a more severe form that controls 
the possibility of added taxes, but I will vote for this.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. FLEMING. Just in closing, I would like to say that it does some 
wonderful things.
  It prohibits a debt increase without a three-fourths vote, and it 
requires the President to submit a balanced budget each year. Our 
Senate over there has yet to pass a budget resolution in 3 years. It 
also provides for a waiver in a time of war.


                             Point of Order

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, a point of order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his point of order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I would like to know if I can be against the 
balanced budget amendment without being compared to being a drug 
addict. Is that doable in this body to maintain some comity? I believe 
in helping my constituents, but my support of spending isn't tied to a 
drug addiction.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is not stating a point of 
order.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. It's not a point of order that the gentleman 
has made reference to those of us who are opposed to a balanced budget 
amendment as having been addicted to drugs? Is that a problem for the 
comity of this Chamber, Mr. Speaker?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is the gentleman demanding that the words be 
taken down?
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I am not prepared to go that far. I'd like 
to hear the gentleman's explanation.
  Mr. FLEMING. Mr. Speaker, I ask for regular order. This is 
ridiculous.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. The gentleman needs to be very careful 
because I can actually have them read that back to you again.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Louisiana will suspend. 
The gentleman from Illinois will suspend.
  The Chair asks again, Does the gentleman wish that the words be taken 
down?
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I withdraw my point of order, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. No point of order has been stated.
  Mr. FLEMING. In conclusion, let me say, when I talk about our being 
addicted to spending, I'm talking about everyone in Congress and the 
executive branch. I am not pointing fingers at any one group of people. 
I will say that those who are unwilling to do something about it, by 
supporting a balanced budget amendment, are in a clear state of denial.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 90 seconds.
  It is not true, as we have heard on this floor repeatedly today, that 
both parties are addicted to spending and that the deficit is equally 
the fault of both parties.
  It is the fault of George Bush. It is the fault of the Republican 
Congress. Under President Clinton, a Democratic Congress voted for tax 
increases and for spending cuts, and produced balanced budgets 4 years 
in a row of such a significance that we were going to eliminate the 
entire national debt by 2012. The Republicans came in and without 
Democratic support voted for huge tax cuts, for two unfunded wars, and 
for doubling the Pentagon's budget without increasing taxes to pay for 
it.
  That generated the huge deficit we have. The deficit was also 
generated by the fact that, because of, arguably, Republican 
deregulatory policies, we got into this huge depression caused by Wall 
Street, and that increased the deficit. In January of 2009, before 
President Obama took office, 1 month before, the CBO said that the next 
year's deficit would be $1.2 trillion without this President's having 
done a thing.
  The point, as I said before, is that nondefense discretionary 
spending--everything other than Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, 
veterans benefits, and interest on the debt--has not increased since 
2001 when adjusted for inflation and population growth. So that is not 
the source of our budget deficit. The source of our budget deficit is 
that we cut the taxes on the rich and the corporations and that we 
spent money on wars we didn't pay for.

                              {time}  1100

  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman 
from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman.
  In response to the gentleman from New York, I just want to point out 
a few facts: first of all, in the last 50 years, the budget has been 
balanced six times. Democrats have controlled the House of 
Representatives 37 of those years, and in only two of those years did 
they balance the budget. Four times when Republicans were in the 
majority, the budget was balanced: 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001.
  When those budgets were offered in this House, many Democrats voted 
in a bipartisan fashion for at least one of those budgets. The 
gentleman from New York voted against all four of the last balanced 
budgets that occurred in the time that he has been in Congress.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from 
Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. For fear of offending the training that my 
mother gave me, I will again say that I stand here unaddicted and 
recognize that there are those who are addicted to throwing the 
vulnerable on the trash heap of life. Time and time again, in those 
budgets that my good friend from New York (Mr. Nadler) voted against, I 
assume that he refused to throw the vulnerable on the trash heap of 
life.
  We come again to a time when we want to abdicate our responsibility 
under the Constitution. But, my friends, I want to remind you that time 
and time again the Republicans came back to that tired old formula, 
balanced budget amendment; and time and time again they were rejected.
  This Constitution is sacred. It has nothing in it about the balanced 
budget. Twenty-six amendments, and they have been rejected. Why? 
Because they don't want to do the job that the people of the United 
States have sent us to do. The job that says give and take on how we 
fund this government.
  Someone wants to talk about State governments. Yes, 49 States have a 
balanced budget amendment; but it is on the operations budget, not on 
the capital budget. The United States of America is responsible for 
disasters when they hit New York, Missouri, and Texas. The United 
States is responsible for lifting a military and providing for our sons 
and daughters on the front lines of Iraq and Afghanistan, World Wars I 
and II, Korea, and, of course, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, and many 
other places. Our States are not responsible for that.
  Balanced budget amendment, maybe we want to be able to follow the 
good work of our dear friends on the supercommittee. I have great 
respect for them. The headline says: ``Supercommittee Well Short of a 
Deal,'' because this is not the way we run a country.
  And I refuse to be called ``addicted'' without the explanation that 
my mother would want me to give. I am addicted to saving lives. I'm 
addicted to making sure that Social Security is not violently cut by 
the balanced budget amendment, Medicare being cut by

[[Page H7848]]

nearly $750 billion if this resolution were to pass, Social Security 
almost $1.2 trillion, veterans benefits $85 billion through 2021.
  So my argument is to be able to analyze what we're doing here, my 
friends. The Constitution gives this House the power of the purse 
strings; yet it will take a two-thirds vote in the middle of a crisis, 
a war, a disaster, the need to invest in our young people--numbers that 
Dr. Jeffrey Sachs said that we need for a legitimate apprentice program 
that leads young people from college or training into a job.
  Creating jobs invests in America. Would you understand that we have 
the lowest number of white males going to college, the lowest number of 
African Americans going to college, the lowest number of Latinos.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentlelady an additional 30 seconds.
  Ms. JACKSON LEE of Texas. I thank the distinguished gentleman.
  We need investment in human resources. And all we're doing today is 
denouncing and ridding ourselves of the obligatory responsibility that 
we have when we take an oath to this Constitution every 2 years.
  I don't want to be a spoilsport today. I believe we should tighten 
our belt. There are many ways of doing so, looking at the financial 
transactions on Wall Street or the Chicago commodities. Many ways to do 
it. But this is a stranglehold on our neck. I refuse to cut seniors, 
children, Social Security because you won't do your job. This is a bad 
amendment. I will not vote for it.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 2, 
``Proposing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States.'' While I support bipartisan efforts to increase the 
debt limit and to resolve our differences over budgetary revenue and 
spending issues, I cannot support a bill that unduly constrains the 
ability of Congress to deal effectively with America's economic, 
fiscal, and job creation troubles.
  In my lifetime, I have never seen such a concerted effort to ransom 
the American economy in order to extort the American public. While I 
support bipartisan efforts to increase the debt limit and to resolve 
our differences over budgetary revenue and spending issues, I cannot 
support a bill that unduly robs average Americans of their economic 
security and ability to provide for their families while constraining 
the ability of Congress to deal effectively with America's economic, 
fiscal, and job creation troubles.
  This bill would put our national security at risk. If our nation is 
under attack or needs to respond to an imminent threat, the last person 
I would consider contacting is an accountant. I would expect that this 
body would act swiftly and this mandate takes away that ability.
  We need to change the tone here in Congress. Federal Reserve Chairman 
Ben Bernanke said it best when he stated recently before the House 
Committee on Financial Services. ``We really don't want to just cut, 
cut, cut.'' Chairman Bernanke further stated, ``You need to be a little 
bit cautious about sharp cuts in the very near term because of the 
potential impact on the recovery. That doesn't at all preclude--in 
fact, I believe it's entirely consistent with--a longer-term program 
that will bring our budget into a sustainable position.''


           national security--veterans and military families

  I am outraged to find that revisions to this legislation include a 
provision that will hurt our veterans and military families and 
seriously compromise our ability to combat terrorism. As a senior 
Member of the Homeland Security Committee, I am deeply concerned about 
any measure that undermines the men and women of the Armed Forces or 
the safety and security of the American people.
  The Department of Defense (DOD) has already agreed to cut its budget 
by $450 billion over the next ten years. The Center for Strategic and 
International Studies predicts that further budget reductions, 
including those that would stem from a balanced budget amendment, will 
cause substantive modification to our defense strategy, capabilities 
and force structure.
  Enacting a balanced budget requirement would severely limit the 
ability of the Armed Forces to procure the equipment necessary to keep 
our troops safe, and prepare them for potential combat. A balanced 
budget amendment would dramatically constrain discretionary budgets, so 
much so that procurement, research and development, and the acquisition 
of new technologies would have to be zeroed out of the DOD budget.
  These deep cuts to research and development and procurement would 
threaten the safety of the men and women of the Armed Forces. For 
example, the constraints caused by a balanced budget amendment would 
seriously endanger the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey program, as well as 
the intended order of 340 F-35B Joint Strike Fighters. The effects of a 
balanced budget amendment would hinder the Navy's planned expansion 
from 287 to 320 ships.
  This bill will deeply impact the Defense Industrial Base (DIB), a 
group of companies and contractors that supply equipment and technology 
to the Armed Forces. The budget reductions caused by a balanced budget 
amendment would deeply impact modernization and procurement. In fact, 
Army Secretary John McHugh recently said that to facilitate any further 
budget cuts, ``you'd probably have to take some 50% out of 
modernization.''
  The DIB has resulted in the development of the most advanced military 
force the world has ever seen. However, large cuts in procurement 
funding would seriously compromise our ability to develop some 
essential future capabilities. Moreover, the downsizing that a balanced 
budget requires would leave a large number of highly skilled and 
professional workers unemployed in an economy unlikely to absorb them 
for quite some time.
  Passing this legislation will not, as many of my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle believe, result in a more stable budget. An 
amendment requiring a balanced budget will render discretionary 
budgets, particularly the DOD and national security budgets, much less 
predictable. The Departments of State, Defense and Homeland Security 
will have to compete for their shares of the national security budget, 
and furthermore, a likely response to a balanced budget amendment will 
be an increased reliance on emergency, ad hoc appropriations.
  A provision of H.J. Res. 2 requires legislation to spend money that 
will take the budget out of balance due to a military conflict or 
national security need. As it stands, this bill will require a Joint 
Resolution from both houses of Congress with the specific dollar amount 
being spent.
  In order to spend more than has been appropriated, agencies tasked 
with defense and national security will need approval from Congress. 
This increased reliance on emergency appropriations will have 
detrimental effects on the sound functioning of our defense and 
national security institutions. The more these institutions are forced 
to rely on emergency funding, the more unpredictable their budgets will 
become.
  This legislation would allow a military conflict or threat to 
national security to take the budget out of balance. However, in order 
to authorize additional funds for military engagement or threats to 
national security that require action, Congress would need to pass 
legislation citing a specific dollar amount.
  As a senior Member of the Homeland Security Committee, I know that 
the threats against the nation are constantly changing and ever 
present. We cannot ask those responsible for protecting this nation to 
ask Congress for a specific amount of money every time there is a 
threat to our national security that requires action. Should we ever 
experience another attack on American soil, we cannot expect out first 
responders to wait for authorization before intervening.
  Mr. Speaker, I am incredibly disheartened to see my colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle champion this legislation, legislation that has 
so many negative impacts on our veterans and military families. The 
permanent budget cuts necessitated by a balance budget amendment would 
require the DOD to drastically curtail the number of active duty 
service members, retirement benefits, and healthcare benefits for 
veterans and military families.
  There are currently 22.6 million veterans living in the United 
States, and all of them deserve the retirement and healthcare benefits 
that were promised to them. In my home State of Texas we have nearly 
1.7 million veterans, and 18th District is home to 32,000 of them. Of 
the 200,000 veterans of military service who live and work in Houston; 
more than 13,000 are veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan. We should 
not compromise the benefits for one of these patriotic Americans with 
this harmful legislation.
  There has been a theme this Congress of focusing on cutting programs 
that benefit the public good and for the most at need, while ignoring 
the need to focus on job creation and economic recovery. Debate of this 
balanced budget amendment is wasting a tremendous amount of time when 
we should be focused on paying our nation's bills and resolving our 
differences!
  As I mentioned, a balanced budget is not something that should be 
mandated in our Constitution, nor something that should be 
automatically required every year. In particular, during economic 
downturns, the government can stimulate growth by cutting taxes and 
increasing spending. And in fact, the cost of many government benefit 
programs is designed to automatically increase when the economy is 
down--for example, costs for food stamps (SNAP) and Medicaid increase 
when more people need to rely upon them.

[[Page H7849]]

  These countercyclical measures lessen the impact of job losses and 
economic hardship associated with economic downturns. The resulting 
temporary increases in spending could cause deficits that would trigger 
the balanced budget requirements at the worst possible moment.
  A constitutional amendment requiring Congress to cut spending to 
match revenue every year would both limit Congress's ability to respond 
to changing fiscal conditions and would dramatically impede federal 
responses to high unemployment as well as federal guarantees for food 
and medical assistance.
  H.J. Res. 2 would amend the Constitution to require Congress to 
balance the budget each year. It would also impose new procedural 
hurdles to raising the debt ceiling, and require the President to 
submit a balanced budget each year.
  The thresholds proposed in H.J. Res. 2 are completely unrealistic. 
Even during Ronald Reagan's presidency--before the baby boomers had 
reached retirement age, swelling the population eligible for Social 
Security and Medicare, when health care costs were much lower--federal 
spending averaged 22 percent of GDP. This would impose arbitrary limits 
on government actions to respond to an economic slowdown or recession.
  Cutting spending during a recession could make the recession worse by 
increasing the number of unemployed, decreasing business investment, 
and withholding services needed to jump-start the economy. As written, 
this bill would render Social Security unconstitutional in its current 
form. By Capping future spending below Reagan-era levels would force 
devastating cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Head Start, 
child care, Pell grants, and many other critical programs.
  Only five years in the last fifty has the federal government posted 
an annual budget surplus; all other years the government has been in 
deficit. Even the House-passed Republican budget resolution, which 
requires immediate and sustained drastic spending cuts, never reaches 
balance in the ten-year window required by H.J. Res. 2--indeed, it is 
not projected to be balanced for several decades, only reaching balance 
by 2040.
  Because this proposal makes it so much harder for Congress to 
increase revenues than to cut spending, it in essence forces the 
President to match those same restrictions in his budget. In other 
words, H.J. Res. 2 is a political ploy designed to force the President 
to submit a budget that reflects the Republican priorities of ending 
the Medicare guarantee while cutting taxes for millionaires.


                       social security & medicare

  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, H.J. Res. 
2's balanced budget requirement could result in Medicare being cut by 
nearly $750 billion, Social Security almost $1.2 trillion, and 
veterans' benefits $85 billion, through 2021 assuming that the spending 
cuts would be distributed evenly across the government. These cuts 
would devastate millions of seniors, veterans, children and the 
disabled.
  These cuts would have a devastating effect on the millions of aged, 
disabled, veterans, children, and others who depend on Social Security. 
The BBA would have the foreseeable effect of plunging millions of 
Social Security beneficiaries into poverty and making for a very bleak 
future for most others. Over two-thirds of seniors and 70 percent of 
people with disabilities depend on Social Security for half or more of 
their income. Close to half--47 percent--of all single (i.e., widowed, 
divorced, or never-married) women over age 65 rely on Social Security 
for 90 percent or more of their income.
  Seniors are spending more on their health care costs, and Americans 
in general are making less. The face of poverty is a child's face. If a 
private employer attempted to do what is being asked of us here today, 
which would be to use their pension plans in a manner that H.J. Res. 2 
would deal with Social Security that would be against the law.
  Furthermore, the need to raise the debt ceiling has no correlation to 
whether future budgets are balanced; increases in the debt ceiling 
reflect past decisions on fiscal policy. And as demonstrated by this 
year's current disagreement about whether and when to raise the debt 
ceiling, Congress does not need to impose further barriers to its 
consideration. Treasury has warned that failing to raise the debt 
ceiling and the resulting government default, which would be 
unprecedented, could have catastrophic impacts on the economy. Interest 
rates would rise, increasing costs for the government and potentially 
on American businesses and families.
  Any cuts made to accommodate a mandated balanced budget would fall 
most heavily on domestic discretionary programs; the immediate result 
of a balanced budget amendment would be devastating cuts in education, 
homeland security, public safety, health care and research, 
transportation and other vital services.
  The Founders purposely made the Constitutional amendment process a 
long and arduous one. Having a Constitutional balanced budget amendment 
is not a novel idea. Balanced budget amendments have made it to a floor 
vote in the Senate five times, and in the House four times, according 
to CRS. The Senate barely passed a version in 1982, but it failed to 
gain the necessary two-thirds majority in the House. The House passed a 
version in 1995, but it failed in the Senate.
  Do my Republican colleagues really expect Congress to capriciously 
pass an amendment altering our nation's founding document on such short 
notice; an amendment that will fundamentally change our country without 
reasonable time for debate; without the opportunity for a hearing or 
questioning of witnesses; without any reports as to what impact it may 
have?
  By tying the fate of whether the United States pays its debt 
obligations to the historically prolonged Constitutional amendment 
process, the Republicans who support this bill have demonstrated, at 
this critical juncture in American history, that they are profoundly 
irresponsible when it comes to the integrity of our economy and utterly 
bereft of sensible solutions for fixing it.


                      Potential Impact on Medicare

  Medicare covers a population with diverse needs and circumstances. 
Most people with Medicare live on modest incomes. While many 
beneficiaries enjoy good health, 25% or more have serious health 
problems and live with multiple chronic conditions, including cognitive 
and functional impairments.
  Today, 43% of all Medicare beneficiaries are between 65 and 74 years 
old and 12% are 85 or older. Those who are 85 or older are the fastest-
growing age group among elderly Medicare beneficiaries. With the aging 
and growth of the population, the number of Medicare beneficiaries more 
than doubled between 1966 and 2000 and is projected to grow from 45 
million today to 79 million in 2030.


                                POVERTY

  We are constantly discussing cutting the budget, reducing our debt. 
Any yet, there has not been a single strong job creating measure 
purported by my Republican Colleagues. Instead time and again there is 
legislation brought before this body to delay having a real debate on 
job creation. The poorest among us are being asked to bear the brunt of 
this legislation; cuts to Medicare, Cuts Social Security . . . who do 
you think these programs serve. We would be asking the poor to pay more 
for health insurance, to pay more for medical expenses, to pay more for 
housing. I ask my colleagues a simple question?
  Currently more Americans are in need of jobs than jobs are available. 
Without focusing on creating jobs and advocating for job growth, what 
will happen to those individuals who are unable to find work, are 
seniors, are disabled, are children? What about veterans who find their 
pensions cut? When all these cuts to essential and vital programs occur 
in order to support this proposed constitutional mandate, what will 
happen to these individuals; how will they pay housing, health, and 
basic life necessities?
  I am, as we all are, deeply troubled by the report issued by the U.S. 
Census Bureau. 1 of every 6 Americans is living in poverty, totaling 
46.2 million people, this highest number in 17 years. In a country with 
so many resources, there is no excuse for this staggering level of 
poverty.
  Children represent a disproportionate amount of the United States 
poor population. In 2008, there were 15.45 million impoverished 
children in the nation, 20.7% of America's youth. The Kaiser Family 
Foundation estimates that there are currently 5.6 million Texans living 
in poverty, 2.2 million of them children, and that 17.4% of households 
in the state struggle with food insecurity.
  In my district, the Texas 18th, more than 190,000 people live below 
the poverty line. We must not, we cannot, at a time when the Census 
Bureau places the number of Americans living in poverty at the highest 
rate in over 17 years, cut vital social services. Not in the wake of 
the 2008 financial crisis and persistent unemployment, when so many 
rely on federal benefits to survive, like the Supplemental Nutrition 
Access Program (SNAP) that fed 3.9 million residents of Texas in April 
2011, or the Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) Program that provides 
nutritious food to more than 990,000 mothers and children in my home 
state.
  The Census Bureau also reported there are 49.9 million people in this 
country without health insurance. This is an absolute injustice that 
must be addressed. We can no longer ignore the fact that nearly 50 
million Americans, many of them children, have no health insurance.
  Texas has the largest uninsured population in the country; 24.6% of 
Texans do not have health care coverage. This includes 1.3 million 
children in the state of Texas alone who do not have health insurance, 
or access to the healthcare they need.
  It is unconscionable that, despite egregiously high poverty rates, 
Republicans seek

[[Page H7850]]

to reduce spending by cutting social programs that provide food and 
healthcare instead of raising taxes on the wealthiest in the nation, or 
closing corporate tax loopholes.
  Balanced budget amendments have made it to a floor vote in the Senate 
five times, and in the House four times, according to CRS. The Senate 
passed a version in 1982, but it failed to gain the necessary two-
thirds majority in the House. The House passed a version in 1995, but 
it failed in the Senate.

                               National Education Association,

                                Washington, DC, November 15, 2011.
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative: On behalf of the 3.2 million members 
     of the National Education Association, we strongly urge you 
     to VOTE NO on the constitutional balanced budget amendment 
     scheduled for floor debate this week. While we understand the 
     need to get our nation's fiscal house in order, such 
     proposals are not the right mechanism. The effect would be 
     devastating for public education and retirement security, 
     undermining economic recovery and jeopardizing our future 
     strength as a nation. Votes associated with this issue may be 
     included in the NEA Legislative Report Card for the 112th 
     Congress.
       Overall, a balanced budget amendment could result in the 
     largest cuts in federal spending in modern history. In fact, 
     it simply will not be possible to achieve the spending levels 
     required under any balanced budget amendment without massive 
     cuts in education, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and 
     other programs that meet crucial national needs.
       Educators understand that Congress must work to ensure 
     America's long-term economic prosperity and that we must 
     address the nation's serious fiscal challenges. However, 
     cutting education funding and slashing programs that serve 
     children, seniors, and working families is not the answer. 
     Claims that families and states balance their budgets are 
     erroneous. Most families have mortgages and car loans, and 
     take on other debt to provide for their children's futures. 
     In addition, while many states must balance their operating 
     budgets, they take on debt for capital costs and job-creating 
     projects such as building roads, bridges, and schools.
       NEA members see first-hand every day the struggles of many 
     of their students and their families. A balanced budget 
     amendment will make their struggles even harder--essentially 
     abandoning them while continuing to cater to the wealthiest 
     in our nation.
       Mandating a balanced budget would constitute exceedingly 
     unwise economic policy. It would risk tipping a faltering 
     economy into recession and slowing economic recovery. It 
     would determine spending levels for decades and tie future 
     Congress' hands. And, it would render impossible the sorts of 
     investments necessary to continue economic recovery and grow 
     the skilled workforce necessary for future economic strength.
       A balanced budget amendment would decimate public education 
     and other programs that ensure a competitive workforce and 
     future economic vitality. We urge you to vote NO.
           Sincerely,
     Kim Anderson,
       Director, Center for Advocacy.
     Mary Kusler,
       Manager, Federal Advocacy.
                                  ____

         Executive Office of the President, Office of Management 
           and Budget,
                                Washington, DC, November 15, 2011.

                             (House Rules)

                   Statement of Administration Policy


           H.J. Res. 2--Proposing a Balanced Budget Amendment

               (Rep. Goodlatte, R-VA, and 242 cosponsors)

       The Administration strongly opposes H. J. Res. 2. We do not 
     need to amend the Constitution for only the 28th time in our 
     nation's history to do the job of restoring fiscal 
     discipline. Instead, it requires us--as members of both 
     parties have done in the past--to move beyond politics as 
     usual and find bipartisan common ground to restore us to a 
     sustainable fiscal path.
       H. J. Res. 2 would impose serious risks for our economy in 
     several ways. It risks accelerating economic downturns by 
     requiring the government to raise taxes and cut spending in 
     the face of a contraction, which would accelerate job losses. 
     The President proposed a balanced approach to restore fiscal 
     sustainability and in a way that doesn't slow the Federal 
     Government's ability to initiate actions that help stabilize 
     the economy and keep future recessions from becoming worse. 
     By contrast, under H. J. Res. 2, a minority in a single house 
     of Congress could block the will of the majority and the 
     Executive to waive its provisions when our country faces a 
     downturn. If H. J. Res. 2 had been in effect in recent years, 
     such a minority in one house would have been able to prevent 
     efforts to override the requirement for tax increases or 
     spending cuts, risking an even deeper contraction and pushing 
     the economy into a second Great Depression. Further, H. J. 
     Res. 2 ducks responsibility and does not take the Nation's 
     fiscal challenges head-on. Rather, it could inevitably result 
     in handing the hard decisions that our elected 
     representatives in the Congress should be making to the 
     Federal Courts.
       In addition, absent a willingness to raise substantially 
     higher revenues than in the House Budget Resolution by 
     closing tax loopholes or asking the most fortunate to pay 
     more, H. J. Res. 2 would undercut the Federal Government's 
     ability to meet its core commitments to seniors, middle class 
     families and the most vulnerable, while reducing our ability 
     to invest in our future. This could result in severe cuts to 
     programs like Medicare and Social Security that are growing 
     due to the retirement of the baby boomers, putting at risk 
     the retirement security of millions of Americans, and it 
     could result in significant cuts to education, research and 
     development, and other programs critical to growing our 
     economy and winning the future.
       H. J. Res. 2 is not a solution to the Nation's deficits. 
     The Administration is committed to working with the Congress 
     on a bipartisan basis to achieve real deficit reduction. The 
     President laid out a set of recommendations to the Joint 
     Select Committee to achieve over $4 trillion in balanced 
     deficit reduction, including the deficit reduction already 
     locked in by the Budget Control Act. The President urges the 
     Committee to meet or exceed its mandate for deficit 
     reduction.

  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Virginia (Mr. Hurt), a member of the Financial Services Committee.
  Mr. HURT. I rise today in support of a balanced budget amendment to 
the United States Constitution, offered by my friend from Virginia (Mr. 
Goodlatte). I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia for his 
leadership on this important legislation; and as a cosponsor of this 
measure, I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this balanced budget 
amendment.
  Our Nation's staggering debt and reckless borrowing illustrate the 
urgent need to implement real institutional change in Washington. For 
far too long, Members of both parties have routinely chosen the 
politically expedient course over what is in the best interest of our 
Nation, casting aside any spending pledges or statutory caps and 
pushing our Nation further along on a careless spending binge with 
devastating consequences for the people of Virginia's Fifth 
Congressional District and all across our country.
  We, as a Nation, now face a $15 trillion debt that nearly equals the 
size of our entire United States economy. We are running a $1.3 
trillion deficit, and we are borrowing over 40 cents on every dollar we 
spend. This dire debt crisis not only threatens our economic recovery 
by stifling job creation, but it also threatens the very future of our 
country.
  Given the seriousness of our current fiscal situation, Congress' 
abysmal record of fiscal management, it is critical that we put 
institutional spending reforms in place that will force the government 
to live within its means, just as families, businesses, and State 
governments do in Virginia and across the country. By passing a 
balanced budget amendment, Congress will be required to spend no more 
than it takes in, reining in out-of-control spending once and for all.
  As I travel across Virginia's Fifth District, I continually hear from 
my constituents--Republicans, Democrats, and independents--who say that 
if we are serious about turning our economy around, and if we are 
serious about preserving this country for our children and 
grandchildren, we must put an immediate end to Washington's out-of-
control spending.
  I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this bipartisan measure so 
we may implement the structural framework necessary to put our Nation 
back on a path of fiscal sustainability for the sake of future 
Americans.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott).
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, we've heard a lot about the 
Members on the other side of the aisle trying to take credit for the 
fiscal responsibility in the 1990s. I think we need to review what 
actually happened during those years.
  I came into Congress in 1993, and the first tough votes we had to 
cast were on the budget. We passed a tough budget. It passed by one 
vote in the House and a tie-breaking vote by the Vice President in the 
Senate. Not a single Republican voted for that tough budget. In fact, 
it's that budget that we are

[[Page H7851]]

talking about that laid the groundwork for the fiscal responsibility 
for the 1990s.
  And on that vote, when the last vote was cast by Marjorie Margolies-
Mezvinsky from Pennsylvania, the Members on the other side of the aisle 
did not congratulate her for casting the tie-breaking vote to pass the 
bill. They started chanting ``Bye-bye, Marjorie,'' and she was defeated 
with that vote in her next election. In fact, she was defeated along 
with almost 50 Members of the Democratic Party who voted for that 
budget.
  In 1995, when the Republicans came in with a majority, they tried to 
dismantle the budget. And in fact, President Clinton vetoed all of 
those budgets that they had offered; and we shut down the government, 
rather than dismantle that plan. Finally, when the deficit had gone 
from $290 billion down to less than $25 billion, then the Members on 
the other side of the aisle joined on as we crossed the finish line.
  Well, that's like showing up for the ribbon-cutting after you have 
voted against the stimulus bill. All of the tough votes had been cast. 
All of the hard work, all of the political damage had been suffered. 
And now all of a sudden, they want to come in and take credit. What 
they can take credit for is President Clinton vetoing their bills.
  If you want to know what would have happened if they had been signed, 
we found out in 2001. Because as Chairman Greenspan had to answer 
questions as to what's going to happen if we pay off the national debt 
too quickly--we were on chart to paying off the national debt after the 
first tax cut--that was the last time you heard anybody talking about 
paying off the national debt.
  Two tax cuts not paid for, two wars not paid for, prescription drugs 
not paid for, and now we find ourselves in the ditch.
  Balancing the budget is arithmetic. You've got to pass some unpopular 
votes. You've got to raise taxes and/or cut spending, and you're going 
to make some political enemies doing either one.

                              {time}  1110

  This legislation doesn't help us make those tough choices. In fact, 
it makes it even more difficult. People say we need a constitutional 
amendment to force us to balance the budget. This legislation doesn't 
force us to do anything. It makes it more difficult. Read the bill. If 
we want to pass something--we had a hearing on it a couple of days ago 
when the former Governor of Pennsylvania said that the balanced budget 
provision in the Pennsylvania State Constitution was a good idea, and I 
asked him what provision in this legislation can be found in the 
Pennsylvania Constitution; none of them. None of the provisions of H.J. 
Res. 2 can be found in any State constitution other than the title. And 
so here we are talking about the title but not the provisions of the 
bill.
  The major provision in this bill is a three-fifths requirement to 
pass a budget that's not in balance; which, incidentally, would cover 
every budget that we considered this year.
  Now, I think it is fair to say that the most fiscally conservative 
budget on the table was the Republican Study Group that got a few 
votes, not anywhere close to a majority. And if that's your goal, why 
would raising the threshold from a simple majority that you couldn't 
even get up to three-fifths make it more likely that you could pass 
that tough kind of budget?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Yoder). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Once you have ascertained that even the 
Republican Study Group budget would require three-fifths, any budget, 
responsible or irresponsible, could pass with the same three-fifths. In 
fact, you could cut taxes with three-fifths. You could raise spending. 
You could have a totally irresponsible budget with three-fifths. So why 
is it more likely that you're going to be fiscally responsible with 
three-fifths when you've never been able to get even a simple majority, 
when three-fifths--last December we passed an $800 billion tax cut, 
putting us $800 billion further in the ditch. We got three-fifths for 
that, but try to get three-fifths for a meaningful deficit reduction 
plan.
  This legislation will make it more difficult to balance the budget. 
All of this debate has been about the title, how nice it would be to 
balance the budget. But we ought to read the bill and point out that 
the provisions of this bill will actually make it more difficult, 
probably impossible, to ever balance the budget, and we will end up 
trying to get three-fifths vote, ending up with worse budgets than we 
would have under the present system.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman 
from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank the gentleman.
  I need to comment on the revisionist history that we are hearing.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact of the matter is that tough votes are made when 
Congresses make the decision to balance the budget. That decision 
wasn't made in 1993 when Democrats voted to raise taxes; it was made 
when we sent a budget to the President that he vetoed. The government 
shut down, and after that shutdown, then and only then did President 
Clinton get in favor of welfare reform and other things that led to a 
slowing of the rate of growth in government spending.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. He calls a ribbon cutting to show up and vote for 
budgets that are actually balanced. The gentleman from Virginia, my 
good friend, voted against all four--all four--of the budgets that were 
balanced in the 1990s and leading up to 2001.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to my friend and 
colleague from Texas (Mr. Canseco), a member of the Financial Services 
Committee.
  Mr. CANSECO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
  Today we are taking an important step towards changing the way 
Washington does business; and it couldn't come at a more opportune time 
as our national debt crossed the $15 trillion threshold this week, 
which means that now on average every American household's share of the 
national debt is $127,899. Our Nation is in the midst of a spending-
driven debt crisis. We have run three successive $1 trillion-plus 
deficits. We are borrowing approximately 40 cents out of every dollar 
the Federal Government spends; and the CBO estimates that, by the end 
of the decade, we'll be spending almost $1 trillion just to pay the 
interest on our debt.
  If we do nothing, the problem will get worse. We will continue 
spending, borrowing, and accumulating more debt, until one day our 
children and grandchildren and their futures are drowned in a sea of 
red ink. Our inability to get our fiscal house in order will leave them 
with a downsized American Dream.
  As a father of three children, this is something that I refuse to do. 
I am the son of Mexican immigrants who came to this Nation to provide 
their children with a better life and to live in a land where my 
opportunity would be limited only by how hard I worked and how big I 
could dream.
  I want to ensure that America remains a land of unlimited opportunity 
for our children and grandchildren. I don't want the legacy of this 
generation of Americans to be that we're the first generation of 
Americans to pass on a smaller American Dream to future generations.
  For too long, our Nation has spent far beyond its means. We have run 
up a national credit card, borrowing from our children's and 
grandchildren's future to pay for spending today. We need to cut up the 
national credit card and make sure the dire situation we have gotten 
ourselves into never happens again, and a balanced budget amendment 
will do just that.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains, please?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York has 36\3/4\ 
minutes, and the gentleman from Texas has 1 hour and 4\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. NADLER. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte) control the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?

[[Page H7852]]

  There was no objection.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 
1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise), a member 
of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. SCALISE. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding me this 
time to speak about this important issue. I really want to thank him 
for bringing this to the floor because this is one of those rare 
bipartisan pieces of legislation that Congress brings forward that is 
so critical to the future of our country. You know, a balanced budget 
amendment is an idea that is long overdue.
  If you look at where we are right now, some of the biggest challenges 
facing our country come from the fact that Washington continues to 
spend money it doesn't have. This Nation just passed the $15 trillion 
threshold in debt. Just in the last 2\1/2\ years since President Obama 
has been in office, another $5 trillion, mountains of debt that have 
been added to the backs of our children and grandchildren. It is 
irresponsible to keep dumping this debt onto future generations. It 
hurts America's ability to grow, it holds America's promise back, and 
it has got to stop.
  If you look at what is important about this debate, a balanced budget 
amendment will finally bring permanent accountability and force 
Washington to start living within its means, to tell Washington you 
can't keep spending money you don't have. And yet you listen to this 
debate and there are Republicans and Democrats supporting this concept 
that's long overdue to require a balanced Federal budget; but, of 
course, there are opponents as well. If you listen to what some of the 
opponents have been saying, they call it reckless. Forty-nine States do 
this, families all across the country balance their budget, and they 
call it reckless to live within our means.
  What I would finally say in conclusion is that we have got to put 
these reins on Washington spending. We've got to give this promise to 
the next generation. Stop playing politics. Let's pass this amendment.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would point out that the 49 States borrow 
for capital budgets. They have balanced budget amendments for operating 
budgets. This makes no distinction and would not let us borrow ever.
  I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds to point out 
that this does allow you to borrow; you just have to have a 
supermajority and a special reason to do so. And I point out that if 
the States had anything like the proportionate debt that is constituted 
by this government today of $15 trillion, they wouldn't be borrowing 
much money either.
  At this time, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Wisconsin (Mr. Duffy), a member of the Financial Services 
Committee.

                              {time}  1120

  Mr. DUFFY. This was not the version that I supported. I wanted a 
version that had spending caps linked to GDP. But as this week we 
passed the $15 trillion debt mark, I thought it was important that this 
House come together and figure out a way to control the spending. If 
you look at our recent history, this House conference on the GOP side 
passed a budget this year that brought our country to balance. And all 
the Democrats across the aisle--not all--most of them voted no. They 
were offered a counterproposal that could bring our budget to balance.
  The Democrats in the Senate haven't proposed a budget in 900 days. We 
need to be serious about this debt. And, today, as we are $15 trillion 
in debt and we have historic interest rate lows, let's look out 10 
years, when the debt is $25 trillion and we go from historic low 
interest rates to historic norms. If we can't balance the budget today, 
is it going to be easier 10 years from now when it's $25 trillion and 
we have more people on Social Security and Medicare?
  My friends across the aisle like to pull up Social Security, 
Medicare, and the needy. And do you know what? I care about those 
constituents in my district as well. But we have to be honest about 
what we're doing. We are borrowing this money from China. We have given 
them an economic nuclear bomb. We are bankrupting this country and 
jeopardizing the freedom of our next generation.
  Let's make sure we pass this balanced budget amendment, and let's 
rely on the American people to fund the obligations that this House 
makes. With that, I encourage all of my colleagues to support the 
amendment.
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is now my honor to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Platts), chairman of the 
Government Organization Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government 
Reform Committee.
  Mr. PLATTS. I thank the chairman for yielding, and I especially thank 
him for his great leadership on this very important issue.
  I rise in favor of this legislation. The Federal Government is 
currently borrowing close to 40 cents of every dollar that it spends. 
Our $15 trillion national debt has grown to be as large as our entire 
economy. One of the most important actions that Congress can take to 
restore fiscal sanity to Washington for generations to come is to adopt 
a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution.
  I've cosponsored a version of a balanced budget amendment every 
session since first being elected to Congress, including the measure 
that we are debating here today. This proposal would impose a similar 
requirement for annually adopting a balanced budget, as currently 
exists in 49 States, recognizing a commonsense exception for defense 
under limited circumstances.
  The idea of a balanced budget amendment is not new. One of our 
Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, was a strong proponent of this 
idea. More recently, in 1995, as has been discussed, following passage 
by the House of Representatives, the United States Senate came within 
one vote of sending this version of the balanced budget amendment to 
the States for ratification. Since then, our total national debt has 
nearly tripled.
  A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution will help to restore 
fiscal integrity to Washington, boost confidence in the American 
economy, and stop Washington's practice of saddling future generations 
with insurmountable levels of debt. The adoption of a balanced budget 
amendment has the strong support of the overwhelming majority of 
Americans.
  Our constituents get it. We can't continue to spend money that we 
don't have. It's time for Washington to get it and to heed the will of 
the American people. We should pass this legislation and thereby allow 
our State legislatures the opportunity to ratify this commonsense 
addition to the United States Constitution.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Watt).
  Mr. WATT. I thank the gentleman for yielding time.
  I haven't heard this said since I've been sitting on the floor 
listening to the debate, but if anybody has said it, I want to express 
my agreement with them. We cannot continue to spend more year after 
year after year than we receive. That is unsustainable, and with that, 
I cannot argue. However, I disagree that we need a balanced budget 
amendment to make that point.
  I have no balanced budget amendment to operate my household. Some 
years I have borrowed money and gone in debt, and some years I have 
accumulated a surplus and paid down that debt. I'm sure that's the way 
every American citizen operates their life, trying to make responsible 
decisions and not hiding behind some subterfuge like a balanced budget 
amendment.
  Being responsible, I went into debt to go to college. It was a 
wonderful investment because I wouldn't be here today if I had not done 
that. And I paid that debt back in some years where I generated 
surpluses in my household--as a result of going to college. I went into 
debt to buy a house. It's been a wonderful investment. The house has a 
lot more value now than what I paid for it. It is part of my assets. 
And one of these days, I'm going to pay that debt off. But I'm still, 
if you count that, operating in a deficit situation. There are some 
years that I'm in surplus. There are some years that I'm in deficit. 
The one thing I do know, whether I'm in deficit or surplus, I count the 
income, and I count the expenditures.

[[Page H7853]]

  Balancing a budget is not just about how much you spend; it is also 
about how much you take in. And the government's only source of taking 
in money is tax revenues. So for somebody to come in here and lecture 
me about a balanced budget amendment, when they jumped up from 
discussions and said, I'm not going to talk about revenues in an effort 
to balance the budget, I'm just going to have you talk about 
expenditures--that is unacceptable to me.
  Let's grow up in this institution. Act responsibly and make tough 
decisions, and we can get out of this deficit situation, and we can pay 
off the debt. We have proved it. We proved it while I was here in this 
body. We got to the point that Chairman Greenspan at that time was 
saying, hey, I'm worried that you're going to pay off the national debt 
too fast and it's going to be deflationary. Republicans were not in 
control then. We didn't have a balanced budget amendment then.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.
  Mr. WATT. We didn't have a balanced budget amendment then. We acted 
responsibly, and not with a single vote from the people who are here 
lecturing us today and saying they need a balanced budget to stand 
behind. That's like standing behind my mother's skirt.
  Grow up. Make responsible decisions. Quit going into wars that we 
can't afford to pay for and not paying for them. Make some responsible 
decisions, and you won't need this skirt to stand behind. We don't need 
this. It's irrational. The American people know it's irrational because 
they know that balancing a budget is a function of income and 
expenditures.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the 
gentleman.
  If the gentleman's complaint is that there have been decisions made 
during Republican Congresses that he doesn't agree with that spent too 
much money, that didn't yield to balancing budgets, the gentleman is 
correct.
  But the gentleman neglects to point out that there have been many, 
many Democratic Congresses in the last 50 years, 37 of them, of which 
only two of them resulted in a balanced budget. That is not a good 
record either. In fact, during the 1990s, when we were fortunate enough 
to receive four balanced budgets, those balanced budgets were under a 
Republican Congress and a Democratic President.

                              {time}  1130

  In point of fact, it was only after there was a confrontation about 
the level of spending and a government shutdown that the necessary 
reforms were made to slow the rate of government spending so we could 
achieve those balanced budgets.
  The gentleman from North Carolina takes credit for his vote in 1993, 
which I did not agree with. I'm going to take credit for my four votes 
that were balanced budgets in 1998 through 2001, which he voted 
against. So we need bipartisan support for a rule in our Constitution 
that requires that the budget be balanced every year, except in times 
of national emergency when we should have bipartisan support to not 
balance.
  At this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman 
from Florida (Mr. Stearns), chairman of the Energy and Commerce 
Oversight and Investigation Subcommittee.
  Mr. STEARNS. I thank my distinguished colleague.
  You know, I say to my colleagues on the Democrat side, we can sit 
here and blame Bush; we can sit here, on our side we could blame 
President Obama; and we can have this high rhetoric talking about this 
issue but now is the time to get serious. But we are in a very 
precarious situation. This is all different with a debt to GDP ratio at 
100 percent.
  When you look at the statistics and you say, well, look, what's going 
to happen in this country in 10 years, in 10 years 95 percent of all 
Federal tax revenues will be consumed by payments of interest on the 
national debt and mandatory programs like Social Security. I think you 
would agree with that. Medicare and Medicaid are also there. This will 
leave just about 5 percent of our annual tax revenue available for 
funding national defense and other essential functions of the 
government. So this is an attempt here today, a very sober attempt, to 
control federal budgets and do this through a balanced budget 
amendment.
  Now, you make a valid argument about the difference of these 49 
States having an operational balanced budget, which is they don't have 
a capital outlay balanced budget. I understand that argument. But also, 
with this constitutional amendment, we are projecting an attempt to 
have a rainy-day fund, where we set aside money for these emergencies 
we all worry about. So you cannot hang your whole argument on the 
difference between the state operational budgets and a state capital 
budget and a federal budget as a reason for not voting for this because 
we are at such dire extreme situations.
  And talking about Founding Fathers, they understood the perils 
associated with debt. In fact, Thomas Jefferson said, ``The principle 
of spending money to be paid by future generations, under the name of 
funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.''
  We need to come together and understand that this is not business as 
usual like when we voted for the constitutional amendment some 16 years 
ago. This is a precarious moment in history. We do not think we can go 
forward without controlling our spending, and this is a legitimate 
attempt to do so. I think the high rhetoric on both sides of blaming 
different Presidents and talking about the past is gone. We're talking 
about the future.
  I urge you to support this resolution.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, either we will have the discipline to do 
what we have to or this amendment simply puts those decisions in the 
hands of a Federal judge, which we don't want to see, I don't think.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 1 minute to 
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hultgren), a member of the Agriculture 
Committee.
  Mr. HULTGREN. The time is now.
  This week we watched as our Nation's debt reached an unprecedented 
level--$15 trillion. This debt crisis was caused by past 
administrations and past Congresses who refused to say no more 
spending.
  Washington spends too much and is under water. Because of that, our 
national security and sovereignty and the standard of living for our 
children and grandchildren are in jeopardy.
  Mr. Speaker, the time is now for this Congress to pass immediate, 
bold and permanent spending reforms that will hold all future 
Congresses accountable for their spending. And now we have the 
opportunity to do just that by passing a balanced budget amendment to 
our Constitution. Let's forever change the way that Washington spends 
money and bring accountability back to Congress by passing the balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. We've come close before, but 
there's no more excuses. The time is now.
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Posey), a member of the Financial 
Services Committee and, as a realtor, may want to comment on some of 
the remarks made here today regarding the ability of people to borrow 
money under certain circumstances.
  Mr. POSEY. Well, first I will comment on the value of buying homes on 
credit. I think it's a pretty good idea; but when you go to get 
qualified for a home, the rule of thumb is that you should buy a home 
roughly not more than 2.5 times your annual income. If you compare that 
to our known debt of $15 trillion, our revenues of about $2.2 trillion, 
you would see that if our debt was a home loan, it would be 14 times 
our annual income. No lender would loan you money under those 
circumstances; they would say you are bankrupt far beyond any 
possibility of recovering. And that doesn't include the $60 trillion 
unfunded liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. So I 
don't know if that was really a very good analogy.
  Now, to my point, there is an old political axiom that says that 
anytime you promise to steal from Peter to pay Paul, one thing usually 
happens: Paul votes for you. Total revenues, as I just said in answer 
to the chairman's question, are about $2.2 trillion; total expenses the 
Federal Government spends, $3.6 trillion.

[[Page H7854]]

  Where does the money come from? Rather than balancing our budget like 
every hardworking American family, 49 other States, and virtually every 
local government in the country, Congress instead currently puts about 
40 percent of every what has been described as ``vote-buying'' dollar 
it spends on our kids' and our grandkids' credit cards, to the point 
where each American family's share of the national debt is about 
$125,000--actually, in excess of $125,000. It will be hard to stop the 
spending. It will be like taking drugs away from an addict.
  Since Congress--Republicans and Democrats--has not shown the 
political will to be accountable, I believe a voter-mandated, balanced 
budget constitutional amendment is the only hope this country has to 
preserve the American experiment at representative self-government. And 
I urge Members of this body to begin thinking about the next generation 
instead of the next election.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly).
  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, today this House will vote on 
the momentous issue of amending the Constitution of the United States. 
All of us should understand that this is no symbolic vote. This is not 
a routine legislative act. We are asked to consider amending the most 
sacred document of a free people with a provision not contemplated by 
the Founders.
  The argument is propounded that the times demand it, there is no 
other choice, and that public opinion favors it. But as legislators, we 
must hold ourselves to a higher threshold to amend the Constitution. Is 
the proposal essential? Did the Founders fail to consider the issue 
that now must be addressed in and only in a constitutional framework? 
Is there no legislative remedy? What are the negative and foreseeable 
consequences of such a constitutional mandate? And importantly, we must 
remember that, but for one, all constitutional amendments are written 
in indelible ink.
  Desirous of a balanced budget, like everybody else, I must 
regrettably oppose the proposed amendment before us. It does not pass 
the higher constitutional threshold we must insist upon. We balanced 
the budget just a decade ago for 4 consecutive years without such an 
amendment. It was a matter of political will, fiscal discipline, and 
successful economic growth.
  There is no evidence that says potential cannot be resurrected. There 
is ample evidence, however, that this institution lacks the will and 
courage to undertake the policy changes necessary.
  Political failure can and must be addressed here and, failing that, 
at the ballot box. The corrective is forging a political consensus, not 
amending the Constitution. In fact, to leap to the latter as an 
expedient is to admit the collapse of our democratic institutions and 
to abandon all faith in our collective ability to respond. I refuse to 
recant my faith in our ability to make the difficult choices necessary 
to achieve the desired goals of debt reduction and balanced fiscal 
performance.
  The proposed amendment also fails another test: do no harm.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman 1 additional minute.
  Mr. CONNOLLY of Virginia. Had this amendment been in place during the 
income contraction we just experienced, we would have abandoned the 
economic field to the Darwinian forces at work and guaranteed that the 
Great Recession became the second Great Depression, condemning our 
citizens to their own fate, one which would have been characterized for 
a generation with want, double-digit unemployment, and endemic poverty.

                              {time}  1140

  Why would any Member of this body consciously choose such a course, 
especially when there are alternatives, although painful ones? Perhaps 
it's easier to pander to the clamor of the moment or to seek out the 
seductively easy answers. Perhaps we seek to mask an ideological agenda 
to starve the government investments cloaked in the more respectable 
argument of a constitutional amendment made necessary to balance the 
budget.
  For me, the Founders' silence on this matter in the Constitution was 
intentional. They understood and expected that Congress would meet its 
duties and do its job.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. DesJarlais), a member of the 
Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
  Mr. DesJARLAIS. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, no one can deny that our Nation's on an unsustainable 
spending path that will lead this country to bankruptcy. Our national 
debt is now a staggering $15 trillion and rising daily.
  In the past 50 years, the budget has been balanced just six times, a 
losing record that has seen our deficit explode from $300 billion to 
$15 trillion.
  Congress has tried spending caps. Time and time again, one Congress 
sets them, just to see the next Congress undo them. That's why we must 
have this amendment. A balanced budget amendment will finally force the 
Federal Government to live within its means, not just this Congress, 
but for generations to come.
  Politicians love their polls, and a recent poll shows that 75 percent 
of Americans favor a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. If 
we, as Congressmen, are truly representing the people who sent us here, 
this is the day that we set partisan differences aside and listen to 
the people. Three-fourths of Americans want this. We only need two-
thirds of our Members to make this happen.
  It is no secret to anyone here that Congress suffers from a 90 
percent disapproval rating, and I believe it's because the American 
people are sick and tired of partisan politics and that their voices 
fall on deaf ears. Today we have a chance to show the American people 
that we are listening, that we do care about them, and that we do hear 
their voices.
  Republicans should embrace this bill; Democrats should embrace this 
bill; the President of the United States should embrace this bill 
because, clearly, the American people embrace this bill. It is a rare 
opportunity where we all win.
  Let us return to our districts with our heads held high, tell our 
constituents that their voices were heard, that we listened. Let's hug 
our children and grandchildren and tell them today we made history and 
we have taken a giant step toward securing their future. For the sake 
of this great Nation, do the right thing. Pass this resolution.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, how much time do we have, please?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York has 29 minutes. 
The gentleman from Virginia has 51 minutes.
  Mr. NADLER. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tipton), the chairman of 
the Agriculture, Energy and Trade Subcommittee of the Small Business 
Committee.
  Mr. TIPTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, generations of Americans from now will stand in judgment 
of the choices that we make today.
  In my district, as I've traveled and visited with people, from the 
farm and ranch community to small business owners to families around 
their kitchen tables, the message is clear: They're frustrated that 
Washington does not live under the same rules that they do.
  Those families gather each night to be able to balance their budget. 
Small businesses do it every day. Forty-nine of our 50 States balance 
their budget. And the question is always raised: Why doesn't Washington 
live under the same rules?
  We look at our European counterparts right now, Greece, Italy, 
struggling under their crushing debt. Will we follow that same path or 
will we pick a better way?
  Mr. Speaker, the time has come, the day has arrived, and the hour is 
now. We have an opportunity to stand up for the American people. The 
one thing that we can all understand as we debate the different sides 
of this issue is one important point that is not debatable--$15 
trillion in debt.

[[Page H7855]]

  Our children, our grandchildren, those of us today, we need to be 
standing up for responsibility. This Congress, at this time, has that 
opportunity. The choice we make here today does not end the debate. We 
return to our States, to the people who sent us here to make that final 
choice. I think the answer will be clear.
  The time has come for this Congress to embrace a balanced budget, to 
stand up and do what every American does every day. We need to pass 
this bill, and we need to pass it now.
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita), a member of the Budget 
Committee and a leader on this issue.
  Mr. ROKITA. I thank the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise today as a cosponsor of this bipartisan bill in 
full support of it.
  Rarely do we have a chance in this body to make fundamental 
difference. It's so easy, as I've learned in a short 10 months, for 
Members of this body to say ``no'' instead of taking a personal 
responsibility to make the tough decisions that need to be made. This 
morning we have that chance. I don't think this chance will come closer 
in our orbit for a very long time.
  If we can pass language out of this House this morning, the Senate 
has to vote on it. The Senate Majority Leader cannot table it. And 
because it's a constitutional amendment, it has nothing to do with the 
President. He can't veto it. He doesn't have to sign it. It goes right 
to the States.
  And why is that so important? Why is that so different? Because 
finally the people of this country, of the State of Indiana, of my 
beloved Fourth District, will have a chance to tell us, by ratification 
of this amendment, whether or not they want to live within their means 
instead of passing their bills from the Federal Government--spending 
that's occurring here, $8 billion to $12 billion a day more in debt--
whether they're done passing it on to their kids and grandkids. And I 
believe, speaking specifically to those of us who represent senior 
citizens, that most of them have grandchildren, and they don't want 
their bills passed on to them.
  Those that say no today, those that say no today are really saying no 
because they don't want to lose control. They don't want the people to 
decide. They'd rather have that in their hands. They'd rather keep 
kicking that heavier and heavier can down the road so that citizens 
like this, Teddy and Ryan and their kids, can pay the bill.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I yield an additional minute to the gentleman from 
Indiana.
  Mr. ROKITA. That's what this is about.
  Ladies and gentlemen of this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, there are two 
constituencies out there. Mr. Posey from Florida said it well. We're 
robbing Peter to pay Paul. And why that works around here is because 
Paul can vote for us.
  I ask every Member here today: Who stands for the constituency that 
can't directly vote for the next election? Who stands for their 
constituency that doesn't exist yet but will?
  Because of the decisions that are made here on this floor in this 
Federal Government in this town where too often up is down and down is 
up and black is white and white is black, we don't represent the 
constituency. We don't prioritize the right constituency at the right 
time. This is a chance to do this. This is a chance to not let us have 
that out anymore, to make us have the tax fight, to make us have the 
cut spending fight, but not allow the option of kicking the can down 
the road to make people who aren't here today pay for it.

                              {time}  1150

  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 3 minutes to 
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), who is not only the vice 
chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee but has been a great partner 
in this effort to pass a balanced budget amendment to the United States 
Constitution.
  (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. PENCE. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I rise today in support of H.J. Res. 2, a balanced budget amendment 
to the U.S. Constitution.
  This is a challenging time in the life of our Nation. Our economy is 
struggling under the failed economic policies of the recent past and 
under a mountain range of debt. We have an unchecked, spendthrift 
Federal Government that's placing a burden of insurmountable debt on 
our children and grandchildren. Washington, D.C. isn't just broke, it's 
broken. And the time has come to change the way we spend the people's 
money. And to do that in our national charter, the time has come for a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
  I want to take a moment to commend just a few people who brought us 
to this day. I want to commend Speaker Boehner and the Republican 
leadership for ensuring that for the first time in 15 years we would 
have an up-or-down vote in the House and in the Senate on a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution.
  But I also want to commend the gentleman from Virginia, Congressman 
Goodlatte, who throughout those last 15 years has been, as we say back 
home, like a dog with a bone on a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution. His tenacity, his commitment to this reform, not 
singularly but predominantly, has brought us to this day, and I commend 
him from my heart.
  Our Nation is sinking in a sea of debt. Just this week, we passed $15 
trillion in national debt. And the American people are tired of the 
same old arguments. They want solutions, not slogans. They want 
reforms, not rhetoric. The balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution is an authentic, long-term solution to runaway Federal 
spending, deficits, and debt by both political parties.
  The measure we bring to the floor today is a bipartisan measure. It 
is nearly identical to the version that last passed the House with 
bipartisan support. It requires simply that the Federal Government not 
spend more than it takes; it requires a three-fifths vote to raise the 
Nation's debt ceiling; and it requires any increase in taxes by a true 
majority rollcall vote.
  Now, while I support this historic version, this bipartisan version 
of the balanced budget amendment, I do regret it doesn't go further. I 
would that we had brought a version of the balanced budget amendment to 
the floor that included a cap on Federal spending, strict limits on the 
judiciary, and a higher hurdle for Congress to raise taxes on the 
American people.
  But while this version of the balanced budget amendment doesn't have 
everything I want, I believe it will move the debate forward.
  Adding to our national charter the expectation of the American people 
that this national government live within its means, that the income 
meet the outgo, would be a historic addition.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this bipartisan version of the 
balanced budget amendment. Let's send it to the Senate by the requisite 
supermajority, and then let's let the States decide whether the time 
has come to put in our national charter the requirement that this 
government live within the means of the American people.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from New 
York (Ms. Velazquez).
  Ms. VELAZQUEZ. I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding.
  I rise in strong opposition to this misguided amendment which will 
visit harm on working families, prevent government from responding to 
crises, and cripple the U.S. economy.
  Under this amendment, it will become difficult to raise the debt 
ceiling, putting our country at greater risk of default. It is alarming 
that so shortly after averting the most recent danger of a default, the 
authors of this amendment will endanger our Nation's credit so 
directly.
  Equally disturbing, should a war, domestic crisis, or natural 
disaster strike, our government could find its hands tied, incapable of 
responding swiftly. When crises occur, Congress must have the 
flexibility to respond.

[[Page H7856]]

  It is shortsighted and dangerous to cede this authority from the 
legislative branch. Not only will this amendment effectively slow our 
response to future catastrophe, but it will also undercut our current 
economic recovery, eliminating 50 million jobs.
  The fact is, if you like 9 percent unemployment, you will love this 
amendment.
  Mr. Speaker, our government has in the past been able to balance its 
books and create surplus. When President Clinton left office, we had a 
$5 trillion surplus. However, an unprovoked war, unpaid for, coupled 
with tax cuts for the wealthy erased this windfall and led to our 
current fiscal problems. If we truly wish to tackle the deficit, the 
most effective thing we could do is create new jobs.
  In the 1990s, economic prosperity helped drive deficits down. Rather 
than wasting this institution's time on a cheap political stunt which 
has zero chance of becoming law, we should create opportunity and work 
to restore the American dream. That is a deficit reduction plan all of 
us could support.
  Vote down this misguided amendment.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Ohio (Mr. Chabot), a distinguished member of the House Judiciary 
Committee.
  Mr. CHABOT. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, our national debt has reached a staggering $15 trillion. 
We're currently borrowing 43 cents on every dollar that's spent here in 
Washington. Think of it, 43 cents on a dollar. A trillion dollars had 
to be borrowed from China. Our very sovereignty is at risk when you 
look at numbers like that. It's outrageous.
  Our great Nation is on a dangerous path of fiscal irresponsibility 
directed by a reckless addiction to spending here in Washington. 
Research has consistently shown that the American people want a 
balanced budget amendment. In fact, a recent survey found that 81 
percent of those polled support the requirement that the Federal 
Government balance its budget each year, just like American families 
have to do.
  Today, each of us will have the opportunity to choose sides, casting 
an ``aye'' vote and standing with the American people on this issue, or 
casting a ``nay'' vote and opposing what the American people are 
demanding.
  The balanced budget amendment is a game-changer. It will hold 
Congress' feet to the fire, forcing us to live within our means just as 
every American family and every American business must do every year. 
It has become commonplace for Washington to spend money it doesn't have 
for projects it doesn't need. This is an unacceptable position for us 
to be in. Our constituents deserve better.
  Washington's spending binge has put a wet blanket over our economy. 
Small businesses are struggling to stay afloat, and according to the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics, a staggering 26 million Americans are 
unemployed, underemployed, or have given up looking for a job 
altogether.
  Small business owners tell me that the uncertainty that they're going 
through right now makes it so they won't hire people because they don't 
know how much money they're going to have. What we're doing here in 
Washington puts those small businesses at risk. That's why they're not 
hiring.
  Passing H.J. Res. 2, the balanced budget amendment, would be a huge 
step in the right direction, and in my opinion is the only thing that 
will actually work over the long run to get our spending under control 
here in Washington.
  You know, it's interesting. The President recently weighed in on 
this, and one of the things that he said about the American people is 
that they're lazy. I mean, what an incredible comment to make. That's 
absolutely not true. That's not what the problem with the economy is. 
The problem is that the government sector is sucking up so much of the 
funding now that the private sector has no funds to invest or go out 
and hire people and create jobs. That's the problem, not, as the 
President said, that the American people are lazy. That's absolutely 
not true. It's outrageous.
  This is not a Democrat or a Republican issue. This is an American 
issue. I had the opportunity to weigh in on this amendment back in 
1995, when it was last voted on here in Congress. I voted for it, 
alongside most of my Republican colleagues as well as 72 Democratic 
Members of the House. I would urge them to vote with us today. Let's 
pass this. It's in the interest of the American people.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, how much time does each side have remaining?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York has 31 minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from Virginia has 40 minutes remaining.
  Mr. NADLER. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman), the chairman of the Economic 
Opportunity Subcommittee of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee.
  Mr. STUTZMAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  It is a great privilege and honor to stand here today. In listening 
to this crucial and very timely debate on the floor, it is one that I 
believe Americans have been expecting for quite some time because 
Americans are looking to Washington to see if leadership is going to 
come forward and do what American families do every day, what small 
businesses do every day--make sure that they don't spend more money 
than they have.
  When our national debt tops $15 trillion, it's clear that we're 
broke. When the Senate refuses to pass any budget at all, something 
clearly is wrong. When each child born today inherits nearly $48,000 
worth of debt, something must be changed.
  My wife, Christy, and I have two young sons--Payton and Preston, who 
are 10 years old and 5 years old--and their lives are entirely in front 
of them. What we do today on this floor will determine the outcome for 
them and their families and for their children and their grandchildren.
  This has not been a problem that has happened just under the control 
of the Democrats and Barack Obama. This has happened over the last 30 
years under the control of both the Republicans and Democrats. That is 
why this amendment is so important.
  Now, we'd all like to stand here and say, We just need to do the 
right thing--and I agree with that. Yet the problem is, over the last 
30 years, Washington has not done the right thing. We have accumulated 
$15 trillion of debt. Debt is a disease which threatens to kill us.
  Today, we must act decisively, and we must act permanently and let 
the American people vote on our Constitution, allowing them to say to 
Washington, Enough is enough. Small businesses and families are waiting 
and watching to see if Washington is going to increase the takings on 
top of an enormous and convoluted Tax Code.
  I support this resolution, and I ask my colleagues to support it as 
well.
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey), a member of the House Energy 
and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I stand here in proud support of H.J. Res. 2.
  I was listening to arguments on both sides of the aisle, particularly 
from my colleagues the Democrats, in regard to the gentleman from North 
Carolina talking about the ability of individuals to balance their own 
budgets, and he made a very convincing personal argument.
  Yet I would like to remind him that 1995--I wasn't here then; maybe 
he was here--was the last time we had an opportunity to vote on a 
balanced budget amendment, some 16 years ago, and it failed by one 
single vote. The debt that this country has accumulated since that time 
is $9 trillion. The rest of us, obviously, need some constraints. We 
have proven that we do not have the discipline to balance the budget of 
this country--$9 trillion--and that's how we get to $15 trillion worth 
of debt.
  So I would say to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to please 
support this. This is an opportunity for us not only to show the fiscal 
responsibility that 75 percent of the country wants us

[[Page H7857]]

to show but also to show that spirit of bipartisanship and break the 
gridlock.
  I want to take just a moment, Mr. Speaker, to commend the gentleman 
from Virginia, Representative Goodlatte. As a physician Member, I 
sometimes think that there are too many attorneys in this body; but 
thank God for the gentleman from Virginia and for his ability and 
understanding of the Constitution. He has gone to the Democrat side and 
the Republican side, not just in this session, but for years, in 
promoting this balanced budget amendment and in bringing us all 
together in a bipartisan way to do something for the American people 
and for, as the gentleman from Indiana said, our children and our 
grandchildren.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I am happy to yield an additional 30 seconds to the 
gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  So without question, the time has come. This is my opportunity to 
cast a vote, the most important that I will have cast in 9 years. An 
opportunity like this just seldom comes. As I say, it has been 16 years 
since we have had this opportunity. Don't pass on this. Let's make sure 
that we do this in a bipartisan way because it takes a two-thirds vote.
  I do disagree with the naysayers who say, Well, this has no chance of 
passing. God help us if this has no chance of passing. This is the one 
thing that we can do for this country to get us back on the right track 
and to finally prove to the American people that we do have the 
discipline to protect their money and to protect our children and our 
grandchildren.
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Thompson), the chairman of the 
Conservation, Energy, and Forestry Subcommittee, my subcommittee on the 
House Agriculture Committee.
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from Virginia.
  It is no secret, Mr. Speaker, that Washington has a spending 
addiction. Congress has demonstrated, regardless of which party is in 
charge, that the out-of-control spending just does not stop. Each 
Congress, spending in budget reforms are enacted only to be revised or 
ignored by the next. Unfortunate as it is, this body has reliably 
circumvented any real budget process, even its own rules, in order to 
fulfill its spending addiction. Routine abuses and budget gimmicks, 
such as ``emergency'' designations, are designed to skirt budget 
enforcement rules and to disguise the real level of spending. Similar 
to rampant drug abuse in the 1980s, which led to addiction and violence 
at epidemic levels, our spending habits have led to a debt crisis that 
borders on an overdose.
  Our country needs urgent help, Mr. Speaker. It's time for 
intervention.
  That's why we're here today to consider H.J. Res. 2, a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution. Most importantly, the balanced 
budget amendment will discourage Congress from circumventing its fiscal 
responsibilities because a constitutional amendment cannot be revised 
or ignored. This measure is the only way to force the hand of Congress 
toward fiscal responsibility, ensuring that policymakers just say 
``no'' to reckless spending.
  Many economists and experts agree that the adoption of such amendment 
would begin to address this Nation's looming debt crisis and would lay 
a stronger path to long-term economic growth. The American people 
overwhelmingly back a balanced budget amendment. That's exactly why 
H.J. Res. 2 already has the strong support of a majority of my fellow 
Representatives, including 242 bipartisan cosponsors. Our constituents 
understand what it means to live within their means, and they expect 
nothing less from the Federal Government.
  No more denial, Mr. Speaker. It is time for this body to come clean. 
It is time for each Member to decide whether or not this country will 
continue down a reckless path of debt and despair or if it will quit 
living beyond its means--cold turkey. It's time to rid this Chamber of 
its reckless spending addiction. It's time for Congress to just say 
``no'' by voting ``yes'' on H.J. Res. 2.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from California (Ms. 
Linda T. Sanchez).
  Ms. LINDA T. SANCHEZ of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in 
opposition to H.J. Res. 2, the Republican plan to amend the 
Constitution to reduce government investments and codify economic 
stagnation.
  We can all agree that it's important to get the Federal deficit under 
control. However, the amendment Republicans are proposing is absolutely 
the wrong way to do it. It should all be very familiar to anyone who 
has experienced California's budget problems or who has even observed 
them from afar. It should be familiar because, just like in California, 
this legislation would require that a supermajority of both the House 
of Representatives and the Senate agree to any bill which raises 
Federal revenues.
  This not only means potential tax increases but also any bill that 
allows tax cuts to expire. In effect, the Republican majority is 
insisting that the only way the Federal Government can tackle its 
deficit is by reducing programs like Pell Grants, unemployment 
benefits, and infrastructure projects like Federal highways. These are 
the very programs that help people keep their heads above water during 
tough economic times or help them achieve the American Dream; and time 
and time again, the American people have said that cutting these 
programs is unacceptable.

                              {time}  1210

  I agree that we should look at ways to cut waste. However, it's 
foolish to insist on severe cuts to vital programs which help people 
during an economic downturn. Furthermore, the California experience has 
shown that it is practically impossible for 60 percent of a political 
body to agree on revenue increases, no matter how limited they are or 
how much sense they might make. California has tried this flawed plan; 
and guess what, it doesn't work. California's fiscal situation becomes 
increasingly difficult each year because of this supermajority 
requirement. Do we really want the same at the Federal Government 
level?
  I cannot and will not support legislation which would impose 
California's flawed fiscal system on the Federal Government. I urge my 
colleagues to learn from history, from a real-life example, my home 
State of California, and reject this crushing and foolish amendment.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond to 
the gentlewoman to say that 49 out of 50 States have a balanced budget 
requirement. And while she sites California as perhaps the worst 
example--and it may be the worst example--still, the fiscal situation 
of California is much better than the fiscal situation here in 
Washington. The $25 billion deficit that they have to deal with this 
year--and they have to deal with it--for a State that has one-eighth of 
the population of the country of America which, taken nationwide, would 
mean a $200 billion deficit nationwide. We have a $1.3 trillion 
deficit, more than six times as much. And this is good discipline. It's 
worked in the States. It will work here as well.
  It is now my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Flake), a member of the Appropriations Committee.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I doubt that I can match the volume that's 
been displayed today, using partisan accusations as to who's 
responsible for the budget mess that we're in. But I think that all of 
us, we Republicans, for example, in our candid moments, would admit 
that we were headed toward this fiscal cliff long before the current 
President took the wheel. But we're in this together. It has been 
decisions made by Republicans and Democrats to expand entitlement 
programs and to expand discretionary spending that have put us in the 
situation we're in today.
  I think we would also concede that any bout of fiscal discipline 
we've had over the past couple of decades has been caused by--or at 
least accompanied by--statutory spending caps that have been put in 
place. The problem is those only last for a few years, and then this 
body simply waives them.

[[Page H7858]]

  So we need a backstop. We need a constitutional backstop that will 
force us to make decisions that we know have to be made. It is sad 
commentary on this body that we have to have a constitutional balanced 
budget amendment to force us to do our jobs of prioritizing spending, 
but I think with a $15 trillion deficit we can concede that we need it.
  So this won't make the decisions for us--we'll still have to make the 
tough decisions going ahead--but we need it, nonetheless.
  I urge adoption of this amendment.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, how much time remains on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from New York has 29 minutes. 
The gentleman from Virginia has 31\1/2\ minutes.
  Mr. NADLER. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time I am pleased to yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce), a member of the 
Financial Services Committee.
  Mr. PEARCE. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for bringing this 
forward to us.
  The American debt was downgraded about 2 months ago; that is, we're 
approaching junk bond status in the minds of certain debt raters. It's 
not just that we have a $15 trillion debt--that's significant--but we 
have no apparent means or way of paying it off.
  Our deficit--that is, the shortfall this year is $1.5 trillion, which 
will be added to that $15 trillion during the course of spending the 
money. This is not just that we are in debt. It's that we're broke. And 
also the raters have seen that we have gone to Social Security. Both 
parties for the past 70 years have taken every cent out of the Social 
Security lock box and spent it. So it's not just that we're in debt $15 
trillion; it's that we have taken everything out of the piggy bank and 
we've spent that.
  And to my friends who are saying we could continue to borrow money, 
that's also very inaccurate. We could borrow money when we ran deficits 
of $300 billion. That was the amount that we ran during the last year 
of President Bush, $300 billion. We can borrow that in the world. But 
when we went to the trillion-dollar deficits under President Obama, 
there is no nation in the world capable of lending $1 trillion. China 
cannot lend $1 trillion. Their total economy of $6 trillion. So the 
raters looking at our economy say, not only are they broke, but they 
have no apparent way to pay it back. It's time to say that to the 
American people.
  So this resolution is very simple. It simply says that Washington is 
going to do what you do as the American family. In order to pay off 
your bills, you tighten your belt, you live within your means. That's 
what we're suggesting with this balanced budget amendment, that we live 
within our means, that we do not spend money that we don't have.
  H.J. Res. 2 is a commonsense solution to a serious problem that 
America faces. I will support it and urge support.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. The Republicans call this bill a ``balanced budget 
amendment,'' but it is not balanced because it will blow a hole in the 
budget of vital programs that millions of Americans depend on. It's 
unbalanced, unneeded, and will undermine our struggling economy.
  Republicans want us to mangle the Constitution because they cannot 
manage this institution. This amendment is a means to an end. It's a 
means for Republicans to end Medicare, to end Social Security and 
Medicaid, to end every antipoverty program. And why? Because they 
harbor an ancient animosity towards all of those programs. And their 
plan is to leave them as debt-soaked relics of an era where we actually 
cared about poor people, the elderly in our country, because the 
Republican plan will cut critical health care and antipoverty programs, 
put them on a starvation diet, and leave vulnerable Americans with the 
crumbs.
  Our economy now has a 9 percent unemployment rate. You know what that 
means? It means that 46 million Americans today live in poverty. Do you 
want to know what poverty is in America in 2011? That's a family of 
four living on $22,000 a year. There are almost 9 million families 
living at or below the poverty line, including 15.5 million children. 
That means that one in five children in our country are living in 
poverty. Those are the programs that they want to cut here today, for 
the poorest children in America in 2011.
  There are almost 50 million Americans at risk of not having enough 
food. More than 16 million children are in danger of going to bed 
tonight without a meal. One in six seniors now live in poverty, 
dependent upon Medicare, dependent upon Medicaid, each of them now at 
grave risk because of the Republican plan here today. Their plan is 
really a Robin Hood in reverse--take from the neediest and give to the 
greediest. That is the plan.
  Now let's go back into the ``way back'' machine, all the way back to 
the year 2000, the last time we voted on a balanced budget here in 
Congress, 2000. Bill Clinton was President. It passed. The budget 
balanced. And the country was feeling good. The economy was booming. 
And then George Bush takes over in January of 2001. The Republicans 
controlled the House. The Republicans controlled the Senate. What do 
they do? Huge tax breaks for billionaires and millionaires, two wars 
which were not paid for, Iraq and Afghanistan, all on the Republicans' 
shoulders. And they then turn a blind eye as Wall Street turned the 
entire economy into a casino, which then cascaded into the biggest 
longstanding recession that we've seen since the Great Depression, 
descending upon the shoulders of whom? The poor, the sick, the elderly, 
the ordinary families killing themselves to pay for their mortgage each 
day.
  You don't need a constitutional amendment, ladies and gentlemen, 
Republicans, my good friends. You have a supercommittee meeting right 
now down the corridor. You know what you should do? Say: Take away 
those $40 billion worth of tax breaks for the oil companies. They don't 
need them. Take away the $700 billion in new nuclear weapons programs. 
We don't have any targets for those nuclear weapons. Kill those 
programs. Look at the tax breaks for the billionaires and millionaires. 
They don't need them. Cut them right now.

                              {time}  1220

  All of you have taken a pledge, no reductions in the tax breaks for 
billionaires. No reductions in defense spending. You've tied your own 
hands even as you, with crocodile tears, come out here and say how much 
you care about balancing the budget and how much you care about the 
American economy. The proof will come next week when you do not stand 
up in order to take the tough actions needed right now for the American 
people.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind Members to address 
their remarks to the Chair and not to other Members in the second 
person.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to address the 
Chair but in response to comments made by the gentleman from 
Massachusetts.
  We do need to look at that way-back machine. I hear the gentleman's 
complaints about decisions made by Republicans. In the last 50 years, 
and the gentleman has been here for many of those years, in the last 50 
years, this Congress has balanced its budget a mere six times. Thirteen 
of those years Republicans were in control of the House, and four of 
those years we had balanced budgets, including the year the gentleman 
mentioned.
  And in that year, the gentleman voted ``no'' on the balanced budget 
that was passed by this Congress that year. And the year before that, 
we had a balanced budget; the gentleman voted ``no.'' And the year 
before that, we had a balanced budget. And then in 1998, we had a 
balanced budget. And the gentleman voted ``no'' every single time a 
balanced budget was offered in this Congress. In fact, for the 37 years 
that Democrats controlled the Congress in the last 50 years, only twice 
did they do it.
  Now, I have to agree with the gentleman about something, and that is 
that Social Security and Medicare are endangered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds to say that 
Social

[[Page H7859]]

Security and Medicare are endangered. And do you know why they're 
endangered? Because we have a $15 trillion debt. And in all of those 
years that we didn't balance the budget, what did the Congress do? They 
went into the Social Security trust fund and took every penny of it and 
spent it on something else.
  And how ironic will it be that all that debt that we're transferring 
to the next generation, all of that debt will be on our children and 
grandchildren; and when they need Social Security and Medicare, it 
won't be there for them, not because of anything in a balanced budget 
amendment but because of the debt that we have accumulated.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, Social Security and Medicare will be there 
unless we pass this balanced budget amendment because this balanced 
budget amendment will cause the inability to pay for them. The trust 
fund is amply funded right now for Social Security.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Colorado (Mr. Gardner), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee.
  Mr. GARDNER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  My constituents have a very simple question for people participating 
in this debate today: What part of broke don't you understand? What 
part of the fact that we are borrowing 42 cents of every dollar don't 
you get? Do you know what happens to the everyday American if they 
borrow 42 cents of every dollar time after time after time? It's 
bankruptcy. They lose their homes. They lose their ability to provide 
food for their families. They go broke, just like this country is going 
broke today.
  Only Congress doesn't have to pay an overdraft fee. When we write 
checks for more money than we have, we're not paying an overdraft fee. 
You know what we're paying, we're paying interest. We're passing the 
buck. We're putting our future into great debt that they cannot sustain 
for current-day spending. We shouldn't be passing the buck. We should 
pass the BBA, the balanced budget amendment.
  I come from the State of Colorado, served in the Colorado State 
Legislature where we have a strong balanced budget amendment. And you 
know what that forces us to do? It forces us to make tough choices, to 
make the right decisions for the people of Colorado and to make sure 
that we are, indeed, balancing our budget.
  Sure, it means that there are some very difficult decisions that have 
to be made, but that's exactly what we were sent here to do. We weren't 
sent here to fiddle while the Treasury burns. We were sent here to 
solve one of the greatest challenges that this country faces, and that 
is growing, insurmountable debt and deficits.
  I would urge my colleagues to pass this resolution. This Congress 
cannot make choices on its own. We need the guidance of a balanced 
budget amendment to restrain the unrestrained fiscal mess that we have 
right now.
  In 1995 when we passed the balanced budget amendment, the debt has 
grown $9 trillion since then. Our experience in Colorado and the 49 
States that have a balanced budget amendment show that when we have a 
requirement forcing us to balance the budget, we will do just that. 
Don't pass the buck; pass the BBA.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).
  Mr. FATTAH. Since this is the Thanksgiving season, maybe rather than 
denigrating the inheritance of a child born in our country, we can 
celebrate it. The truth is not that as a young American you are born 
with all this debt. What you're born into is as a citizen of the 
greatest country anywhere in the world, the wealthiest, most powerful 
Nation in the world, made up of decisions that are being decried here. 
We could not balance our budget and win World War I or World War II, or 
build 40,000 miles of Federal highway or build the land grant college 
system.
  In my church, we borrowed a mortgage to build a church, and you pay 
for it over time. These 49 States that we hear, these imaginary 
balanced budget amendments, all of those States borrow money. They have 
a capital budget. They borrow money to build bridges and highways and 
roads. This nonsense that families don't borrow money to buy homes or 
cars, Republicans in the majority can do better than this. This is not 
a debate between Republicans and Democrats.
  We don't need a balanced budget. We need a budget as a country that 
retains our leadership position in the world. We don't want to have a 
balanced budget and a weak military. We don't want to have a balanced 
budget but not be able to take care of the needs that have propelled 
our country forward.
  We just honored John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, astronauts who led our 
way into space. We didn't do that on a balanced budget. We said that we 
were going to lead in terms of the race to the Moon, and we led. This 
country deserves better.
  Republicans who are here, let us address the real issue. The real 
issue is that we have a 70-year low in the amount of resources coming 
into the government because we've cut taxes. The gentleman says where 
can we borrow a trillion dollars from? Well, we can borrow it from the 
trillion dollars of tax expenditures we are going to provide this tax 
year, many to the wealthiest people of our country. We have the ability 
to pay our bills. We need to make the decision to do it and leave the 
Constitution alone.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston), the chairman of the 
Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee of the Appropriations 
Committee.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman from Virginia.
  An amendment to the United States Constitution should never be taken 
lightly. It is a sacred and profound document. Well, 15 years ago when 
Mr. Goodlatte and I and a number of others first came to town, we voted 
to amend that Constitution. We were joined not only by all of the 
Republicans but by 72 Democrats. Now some of those very 72 who voted 
``yes'' have changed their minds. We're hearing the same old arguments: 
Social Security and Medicare. When all else goes wrong in Democrat 
liberal land, you start scaring seniors, children, teachers, first 
responders, critical programs, and saying whatever the bill is, this 
bill threatens them. Well, the worst thing you could do to Social 
Security and Medicare is to go broke. And since that vote 15 years ago 
when it failed in the Senate by one single Member, we have accumulated 
$9.2 trillion in debt.
  Balancing the budget is what 49 States do, what every city does, what 
businesses and families do. It's a matter of survival. It's not a 
radical concept. Oh, don't the people in Greece wish that they had a 
balanced budget all those many years? And what of their Social Security 
and Medicare programs right now? What will happen to the seniors in 
Greece without those critical programs?

                              {time}  1230

  If their government had done the prudent thing, the right thing, just 
as we tried to do 15 years ago, what a different picture it would be in 
Greece. But Greece is not alone in trying to defy the laws of financial 
gravity. America seems to be doing it. For every dollar we spend, 40 
cents is borrowed. And yet we are choosing to ignore all the many red 
flags that are around us. But when the whole thing goes broke and melts 
down, won't our children say, What were you thinking?
  Mr. Speaker, this vote today is not about the next election. It is 
truly about the next generation. Vote ``yes.''
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from 
Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).
  Ms. MOORE. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 2, 
the so-called--so-called--balanced budget amendment.
  I also rise, Mr. Speaker, to point out the nefarious, cynical 
intergenerational warfare that has been raised as an argument for 
passing this misguided so-called balanced budget amendment, to say that 
we want to extract $2 trillion over the next decade from programs that 
benefit seniors, like Social Security and Medicare, and say we're doing 
it to keep from imposing a burden on our children and grandchildren, as 
if this balanced budget amendment benefited those children.
  Mr. Speaker, this program will devastate public education. It will 
devastate the Federal Government's current mandatory spending in Pell

[[Page H7860]]

Grants, a program that's designed to help us meet the global challenges 
of the future by educating our assets--our children.
  It's a program that in the next decade will take a half trillion 
dollars out of the Children's Health Insurance Program. It's a program 
that will exacerbate hunger that children face right now through WIC 
and our SNAP program, our food stamp program, and the earned income tax 
credit. We have now one in five children today that are going to bed 
hungry.
  So when we say we want to balance the budget, we are balancing it on 
the backs of our children. And those children that we are trying to 
save--or we say that we are trying to save--must be the children of 
those heirs, those 1 percent that we are now enriching.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Schilling), a member of the 
Agriculture Committee.
  Mr. SCHILLING. I would like to thank the gentleman from Virginia for 
giving me the time today.
  We continue to hear a common thread: Let's raise taxes on our job 
creators with no solution to our spending problems.
  I rise today as the people's House prepares to vote for an amendment 
to our Constitution that will require Congress and the President to 
balance the budget. I look forward to voting in favor of this amendment 
today. Fifteen years ago, an amendment nearly identical to this one 
passed the House with strong bipartisan support but failed by one 
single vote in the Senate. Since that time, our debt has tripled.
  Did you know that on Wednesday our national debt surpassed $15 
trillion? And it has been nearly 950 days since the Senate has passed a 
budget, not to mention the 20 jobs bills that are sitting over there 
that they've decided not to act upon.
  The American people deserve better. You deserve a credible plan to 
help get our fiscal house in order, grow our economy, and get folks 
back to work. It's clear, though, we cannot borrow or spend our way out 
of this mess. We also cannot afford to put off badly needed but 
difficult decisions. We need to tackle this unsustainable spending 
addiction head on.
  Since coming to Washington, my fellow freshman colleagues and I have 
helped change the way the conversation has been held here for years 
from ``How much can we spend?'' to ``How much can we save?'' This is a 
good start, but we can do much more to get our country on a better 
fiscal path and save the American Dream for our kids and our grandkids.
  We have the duty to leave our kids and our grandkids with a country 
better off than it is now. We have the opportunity here to 
fundamentally change the way Washington does business by supporting the 
balanced budget amendment. It's time for Washington to balance the 
budget.
  I'm pleased to vote in strong support of a balanced budget amendment 
and will continue working on ways to get our fiscal house in order, 
grow America's economy, and create jobs.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson).
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 2.
  It represents an attack on the middle class and the most vulnerable 
in our society by the Grover Norquist Tea Party Republicans. You see, 
there is no fiscal emergency, but the fiscal crisis has been 
manufactured by the Tea Partiers, along with Grover Norquist and the 
Republicans that represent them, for the purposes of tricking the 
American people into thinking that America can't pay its bills. We paid 
our debts, we can pay our debts, and we'll continue to pay our debts.
  Just like families of America who incur debt as a normal course of 
taking care of their families, we've heard a lot of analogies to the 
Federal Government should balance its budget like a family. But how 
many 99ers, how many families do you know that can go out and purchase 
a car for cash? How many of those 99ers, how many of those families out 
there working can afford to pay cash for a house? Everybody out there 
incurs debt for legitimate expenses, and this Nation has legitimate 
expenses that it has to pay debts for, like two wars, like a Medicare 
part D supplement, and like the Bush tax cuts that they don't want to 
expire.
  So what they're doing, ladies and gentlemen, is they are trying to 
enshrine in the Constitution what is already an unfair tax system, a 
system that favors the rich and balances the budget on the backs of the 
middle class. Those are the people that pay for America's expenses, not 
the corporations and wealthy individuals, many of whom do not pay one 
red cent in taxes--and you know it's true, and they know it's true.
  So, ladies and gentlemen, I rise in strong opposition. This is 
shortsighted, mean-spirited, unfair, and wrong for America, and I urge 
my colleagues to vote against it.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Walsh), chairman of the Small Business 
Economic Growth Subcommittee.
  Mr. WALSH of Illinois. A big thank-you to the gentleman from Virginia 
for taking a lead--a very strong lead--on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, like many of my fellow freshmen, I was sent here to 
Washington because we're broke. We have a government we can't afford. 
Like all of us, we were sent here, though, not just to cut spending. We 
were sent here, hopefully, to try to change the way this town does 
business so that we never get to this point again and so that our kids 
and our grandkids aren't stuck with a bill they'll never be able to pay 
off.
  As a freshman in Congress, the very first bill I introduced back in 
March was a balanced budget amendment, and it was a stronger balanced 
budget amendment than this. It included a spending limitation, and it 
made it more difficult for myself and my colleagues to raise taxes. I 
support this balanced budget amendment with everything I've got 
because, again, we have an opportunity to do something fairly historic, 
and this amendment will enable us to do that.
  I've learned in my year--almost a year--as a Congressman that there's 
plenty of hypocrisy in this Chamber on both sides of the aisle. The 
hypocrisy today is regrettably, Mr. Speaker, with too many of our 
Democratic colleagues who really would like to vote for this but they 
simply can't because of political reasons.

                              {time}  1240

  I would implore my Democratic colleagues to just think about, again, 
what our kids and our grandkids will say--and we throw their names 
around here often--what they will say to us 20, 30, 40 years down the 
road when they know we didn't exhibit the courage we need to exhibit 
right here and now.
  I stand with my colleague from Virginia in full support of this 
balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from New York (Mr. Engel).
  Mr. ENGEL. I thank my friend from New York.
  I rise in strong opposition to this piece of legislation.
  With all due respect, I always enjoy listening to my Republican 
friends lecture us about fiscal responsibility. May I remind them that 
when Bill Clinton left office we had record surpluses, and in 8 years 
of George Bush, record deficits. And may I remind my Republican friends 
that for 6 of those 8 years, during the Bush years, Republicans 
controlled both Houses of the Congress. So if we were going to do the 
right thing and attempt to balance our budget, we could have done so 
then. But what did we do then? We fought two wars on the credit card; 
we had tax cuts for the wealthy, which we're now paying for in terms of 
our deficits now; a prescription drug program unpaid for. And so it 
seems to me that if we have the resolve to do it--you know, I love 
people who have newfound religion, but when they controlled the place, 
we went from massive surpluses to massive deficits.
  Now, this Congress needs to work with the President in passing a jobs 
bill. This Congress should be passing a robust transportation bill. 
This Congress should get out of the business of attacking our labor, 
attacking seniors, and attacking women, and do what the American people 
want us to do: Put people back to work.
  A balanced budget amendment will ultimately lead to either draconian 
cuts in the social safety net for some of our Nation's most cherished 
programs

[[Page H7861]]

like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, or significant tax hikes 
on the Nation's middle class. This is nothing more than a gimmick to 
garner headlines while avoiding the tough decisions that the people 
have asked us to make. You know, there may be times in the future when 
we need to run a surplus, there may be times when we need to run a 
deficit to stimulate the economy. This amendment handcuffs us and puts 
us in a straitjacket where we have nowhere to move.
  I care and my constituents care very much about preserving Medicare, 
Medicaid, and Social Security. I think that if we're going to get our 
budget to balance, it's not only cuts in programs that we need, 
although my friends on the other side of the aisle fret about defense 
cuts. We need to cut spending, yes. We also need to raise taxes on 
those who can most afford to do it, the 1 percent. I think that's 
something we should consider.
  So while we think this is one size fits all, and we can all go home 
and say, well, we tried to save the Republic, what I think this does is 
handcuff us for generations to come, makes it impossible for us to 
stimulate the economy, and makes it impossible for us to continue those 
social service programs that the American people have come to rely on--
Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. I think we need to meet in a 
sensible center, not have something like this that's draconian.
  Let me finally say, what's truly absurd is that we require only a 
simple majority to send our men and women in uniform into harm's way, 
and yet the Republican majority would require a supermajority to raise 
the Nation's debt ceiling. We all saw how close our economy came to 
disaster with only a simple majority vote to raise the debt ceiling the 
last time.
  So I would say to my colleagues, vote ``no.'' Let's do the job that 
we were elected to do. Let's make the tough choices. We don't need a 
balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to my 
good friend from New York.
  I would just say to the gentleman that we do need to do the job, but 
you don't have to look ahead to wonder what's going to happen, all you 
have to do is look back. Over the past 50 years we've balanced the 
budget just six times and we've run up a $15 trillion national debt. 
Now, the gentleman has cited some criticism of Republican votes, but 
there are plenty of Democratic votes in the 4 years that the Democrats 
were in control of this Congress. Just recently we added $4 trillion to 
the national debt. Now, the fact of the matter is, over the 50 years, 
37 of those years Democrats have controlled the House of 
Representatives and only 2 of those 37 years was it balanced. So when 
the gentleman says that some years will run surpluses and some years 
will run deficits, that's very true, but the history has been almost 
all of those years will run deficits unless we have a discipline in our 
Constitution to require that we do otherwise.
  And I would also point out that in the 4 years since the gentleman 
has been here and I've been here we've had balanced budgets. The 
gentleman, for I'm sure reasons that he felt were very justified, voted 
against all four of the budgets that balanced in this Congress.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes to reply to what 
the gentleman just said.
  The fact is, the reason this country is in such deficit is because of 
a deliberate Republican crusade over the last 30 years to reduce taxes 
on the rich in order to deliberately create huge deficits, and to then 
use those deficits as the excuse to justify large cuts to gut Social 
Security and Medicare and Medicaid and education programs that they 
have never liked in the first place but could not justify cutting 
without it.
  Taxes used to be 18 to 19 percent of the economy, of GDP. Now they're 
about 14 percent of GDP, and yet the Republicans won't increase it 
because we have decreased the taxes on the rich and on the 
corporations. The country is not broke; we're just not taxing the 
millionaires and the billionaires the way we used to.
  And the fact is, you look at the history here. When Ronald Reagan 
took over as President of the United States, the entire national debt 
of the United States accumulated from George Washington through Jimmy 
Carter was less than $800 billion. Then you had 12 years of Reagan and 
the first Bush cutting taxes on the rich. When Clinton took over, you 
had a $4.3 trillion deficit, and it was expected to go much higher. We 
made the tough decisions; we voted for increased taxes in 1993 and for 
cutting the budget. And when Clinton left office 8 years later, the 
budget had been balanced. But from the time we made that vote in 1993, 
the deficit decreased every year until it became a surplus, then it 
increased every year. And when Bush II took over, we were looking at a 
$5.7 trillion surplus over the next 10 years, and we were going to pay 
off the entire national debt. Then we had those huge Bush tax cuts and 
the irresponsible, unpaid-for wars. And when Bush left office, we had a 
$9.5 trillion deficit--a turnaround of $15 trillion--and a recession, 
which causes the bigger deficits now.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.
  The CBO estimated, before President Obama took office, that the next 
year's deficit would be $1.2 trillion before he did anything. And I 
would remind us that nondefense discretionary spending in this country 
has not gone up by a nickel, adjusted for inflation and population 
growth, since 2001, when we had a huge surplus.
  The problem is that our taxes on the rich are too low. We cannot 
reach an agreement in the supercommittee because the Republicans will 
not tax the rich. That's the basic problem, and a balanced budget 
amendment will not solve that problem.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to the 
gentleman.
  First of all, let me just be very clear that when the gentleman talks 
about the sins that he wants to impose upon Republicans for not 
balancing the budget, I think that's a very good argument. But since 
this is a bipartisan bill and dozens of his colleagues will be voting 
for this, I think it's because those of us who vote for it recognize 
that this is true on both sides of the aisle, that there has been a 
lack of tough decisions that have led to balanced budgets.
  Every single year I vote for the toughest budget offered in this 
Congress. Those budgets never pass. Why? Because there's no requirement 
that they do so. So, what do we have? We have complaints on the other 
side of the aisle that this is a terrible plot on our part to bring 
about all kinds of harsh cuts. This balanced budget amendment doesn't 
make any distinction between whether you balance a budget by raising 
taxes or cutting spending. I'm going to do it to cut spending because I 
see lots of waste in our government. And I've voted for budgets that 
bring about a balance without raising taxes, but that is not the point 
here. The point is that it doesn't get done either way.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I yield myself an additional 30 seconds.
  As to the gentleman's complaint that this is all because we haven't 
taxed the rich, my goodness, in the last Congress, under the control of 
your party, you extended all of those tax cuts for everyone. And the 
fact of the matter is that the top 1 percent of American families pay 
38 percent--38 percent--of the personal income taxes in this country 
today.

                              {time}  1250

  That, by the way, is up from 34 percent in 2001. So all of this can 
be on the table when we have a discussion about how to balance the 
budget.
  All we're debating here today is the principle of whether or not we 
should balance the budget and looking at the past history where we have 
not, indeed, balanced it but six times in 50 years.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. West), who is not only a member of the 
House Armed Services Committee, but a great advocate for fiscal 
responsibility and a balanced budget.
  Mr. WEST. I want to thank my colleague from Virginia, and I want to 
say that I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 2, which is the balanced 
budget amendment.

[[Page H7862]]

  The United States of America has just topped $15 trillion in debt; 
$4.4 trillion of new debt has been added.
  In Greece we see a debt to GDP ratio of 128 percent. Mr. Speaker, in 
Italy it's 120 percent debt to GDP ratio. The United States of America 
is now at 101 percent debt to GDP ratio. It is about time now that we 
start to make a decision. Are we going to be fiscally disciplined? Are 
we going to have fiscal responsibility? Are we going to continue to 
bankrupt the future of our children and grandchildren because we were 
sent here to be elected officials, sent here to be leaders and we're 
afraid to make the tough decisions?
  Historically, we have shown that we are not going to make those tough 
decisions. Now, I've only been here for 11 months; but I will tell you 
that right now we have to do something different, and it has to start 
now. Or else what do I say, Mr. Speaker, to my two daughters, 18 and 
14? Am I going to say to them that I did not have the courage to stand 
here today and make the right decisions in order to ensure that they 
have a bright and prosperous future in the United States of America?
  It is not about raising taxes. In fiscal year 2011 we saw a 6.5 
percent increase in revenues in the United States of America; yet we 
still had a $1.3 trillion deficit, which follows on the heels of a 
$1.42 trillion and a $1.29 trillion deficit.
  Now is the time for a balanced budget amendment. If not now, then 
when, when we hit $20 trillion in debt?
  Mr. Speaker, I think that each and every one of us here today, when 
we cast our vote, there needs to be that little yellow Y next to our 
names because if it's a red N next to our names, we're telling the 
American people that we're not willing to stand up and make the hard 
decisions, we're not willing to make ourselves fiscally responsible. 
And I think that's absolutely reprehensible.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would note that the gentleman from 
Virginia has 15\1/2\ minutes remaining and the gentleman from New York 
has 13 minutes remaining.
  Mr. NADLER. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 2 
minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson), a member of the House 
Veterans' Affairs Committee and a great supporter of the balanced 
budget amendment.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I am indeed a great supporter of 
the balanced budget amendment, and I stand in strong support of it 
today.
  You know, it's amazing to me we still keep talking about the Bush-era 
tax cuts. Those same tax cuts are today's current tax law that have 
been affirmed by this Congress, this Senate, and signed into law by 
this President. So why we keep blaming financial woes on President Bush 
is beyond me.
  But let's make one thing perfectly clear. The American people are not 
taxed too little. The problem is that Washington spends too much. This 
has been going on for years, and it needs to stop now. We need a 
balanced budget amendment because Washington has clearly indicated its 
inability to discipline itself.
  This balanced budget amendment offers Congress and the President a 
very clear choice, either stand with the already overtaxed American 
families and small businesses who have to balance their budgets on a 
daily basis, or stand with the Washington establishment that always 
demands more of the American people, more of their hard-earned tax 
dollars without any accountability for how they spend their money.
  American families have to stick to a budget every month, so why 
should the Federal Government be any different? We can't keep 
mortgaging our children's future to China.
  It's time to take a stand, Mr. Speaker. The ``tax and spend and then 
blame the American people for not paying their `fair share' game'' must 
end, and it can end today. Passing the balanced budget amendment will 
help bring this country back to economic prosperity and end this game.
  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Jackson) for a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
enter into the Record a letter of national organizations opposing the 
balanced budget amendment. They include: the Children's Welfare League 
of America, the Children's Defense Fund, the Children's Dental Health 
Project, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund, Division of 
Early Childhood of the Council For Exceptional Children, the Easter 
Seals, Every Child Matters Education Fund, Families USA, the Forum for 
Youth Investment, the Foster Family-based Treatment Association, 
Horizons For Homeless Children, the National Association for Adults 
with Special Learning Needs, the National Association For Education of 
Young Children, the National Association of Elementary School 
Principals, the National Association of Private Special Education 
Centers, the National Association of School Psychologists, the National 
Association of Secondary School Principals, the National Black Child 
Development Institute, the National Partnership for Women and Families, 
the National School Boards Association, School Social Work Association 
of America, YouthBuild USA, the YWCA, the AIDS Alliance for Children, 
Youth and Families, the Alliance For Educational Excellence, the 
Association of Education Service Agencies.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Illinois?
  There was no objection.

     National Organizations Opposing the Balanced Budget Amendment

                                                November 16, 2011.

       Dear Representative/Senator: The 275 undersigned national 
     organizations strongly urge you to oppose any balanced budget 
     amendment to the United States Constitution.
       A balanced budget constitutional amendment would damage the 
     economy, not strengthen it. Demanding that policymakers cut 
     spending and/or raise taxes, even when the economy slows, is 
     the opposite of what is needed to stabilize a weak economy 
     and avert recessions. Such steps would risk tipping a 
     faltering economy into recession or worsening an ongoing 
     downturn, costing large numbers of jobs while blocking worthy 
     investments to stimulate jobs and growth and address the 
     nation's urgent needs in infrastructure and other areas.
       According to a new analysis of a balanced budget amendment 
     by Macroeconomic Advisers, one of the nation's preeminent 
     private economic forecasting firms, if a constitutional 
     balanced budget amendment had already been ratified and were 
     now being enforced for fiscal year 2012, ``the effect on the 
     economy would be catastrophic.'' The analysis reports that if 
     the 2012 budget were balanced through spending cuts, those 
     cuts would have to total about $1.5 trillion in 2012 alone, 
     which they estimate would throw about 15 million more people 
     out of work, double the unemployment rate from 9 percent to 
     approximately 18 percent, and cause the economy to shrink by 
     about 17 percent instead of growing by an expected 2 percent.
       Additionally, all versions of the balanced budget amendment 
     being considered also contain a Provision requiring three-
     fifths of the whole membership of both houses to raise the 
     debt limit, making risk of default more likely and empowering 
     a willful minority to hold the full faith and credit of the 
     U.S. hostage to whatever other political demands they may 
     have. The difficulty of raising the debt limit this summer 
     illustrates how hard it can be to secure the necessary votes 
     even when the consequences are so grave. Only two of the last 
     ten debt limit increases achieved a three-fifths vote, and in 
     those two cases, only because the increases were imbedded in 
     other must-pass legislation. In short, a balanced budget 
     amendment is a recipe for making recessions more frequent, 
     longer, and deeper, while requiring severe cuts that would 
     harshly affect seniors, children, veterans, people with 
     disabilities, homeland security , activities, public health 
     and safety, environmental protection, education and medical 
     research. It would almost certainly necessitate massive cuts 
     to vital programs including Social Security, Medicare, 
     Medicaid, veterans' benefits and lead to even deeper cuts 
     than the House-passed budget.
       A balanced budget amendment has no place in the 
     Constitution of the United States. Our Constitution has 
     served the nation well because it represents enduring 
     principles that are the foundations of our government. It 
     should not be used as a substitute for real leadership on 
     fiscal policy.
       We strongly urge you to oppose any constitutional balanced 
     budget amendment.
           Sincerely,
       9to5, National Association of Working Women, AFL-CIO, AIDS 
     Alliance for Children, Youth & Families, AIDS Community 
     Research Initiative of America, The AIDS Institute, AIDS 
     Project Los Angeles, AIDS United, Alliance for a Just 
     Society, Alliance for Excellent Education, Alliance for 
     Justice.
       Alliance for Retired Americans, American Association of 
     Colleges for Teacher Education, American Association of 
     Community Colleges, American Association of School 
     Administrators (AASA), American Association of University 
     Professors, American Association of University Women (AAUW), 
     American Counseling Association, American

[[Page H7863]]

     Dance Therapy Association, American Educational Research 
     Association, American Federation of Government Employees, 
     AFL-CIO, American Federation of School Administrators, AFL-
     CIO, American Federation of State, County and Municipal 
     Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, 
     American Jewish Committee, American Medical Rehabilitation 
     Providers Association (AMRPA),
       American Medical Student Association (AMSA), American 
     Network of Community Options and Resources, American Postal 
     Workers Union, AFL-CIO, American Psychiatric Association, 
     American Public Health Association, American Rights at Work, 
     American School Counselor Association, Americans for 
     Democratic Action, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination 
     Committee (ADC), The Arc of the United States, Asian American 
     Justice Center, member of Asian American Center for Advancing 
     Justice, Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum, 
     Association for Career and Technical Education, Association 
     of Adult Literacy Professional Developers, Association of 
     Assistive Technology Act Programs (ATAP).
       Association of Education Service Agencies (AESA), 
     Association of School Business Officials, Association of 
     University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD), Autism National 
     Committee, AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention, Bazelon 
     Center for Mental Health Law, Bienestar Human Services, Bread 
     for the World, Break the Cycle, Building and Construction 
     Trades Department, AFL-CIO, B'nai B'rith International, 
     Campaign for America's Future, Campaign for Community 
     Change.
       CANN--Community Access National Network, Center for Law and 
     Social Policy (CLASP), The Center for Media and Democracy, 
     Center for Medicare Advocacy, Center on Budget and Policy 
     Priorities, Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), 
     Children's Defense Fund, Children's Dental Health Project, 
     Cities for Progress, Institute for Policy Studies, Citizens 
     for Global Solutions, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics 
     in Washington, Citizens for Tax Justice.
       Clinical Social Work Association, Coalition for Health 
     Funding, Coalition of Labor Union Women, Coalition on Human 
     Needs, Commission on Adult Basic Education, Committee for 
     Education Funding, Common Cause, Communications Workers of 
     America (CWA), Community Action Partnership, Community Food 
     Security Coalition, Community Organizations in Action, 
     Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), Council for 
     Children with Behavioral Disorders.
       Council for Exceptional Children, Council for Opportunity 
     in Education, Council of Administrators of Special Education, 
     Council of the Great City Schools, CREDO Action, Defenders of 
     Wildlife, Democracy 21, Demos, Department for Professional 
     Employees, AFL-CIO, Direct Care Alliance, Disability Rights 
     Education and Defense Fund, Division for Early Childhood of 
     the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC).
       Easter Seals, Elev8 (Baltimore, Chicago, New Mexico, and 
     Oakland), Every Child Matters Education Fund, FairTest, the 
     National Center for Fair & Open Testing, Inc., Families USA, 
     Farmworker Justice, Feminist Majority, First Focus Campaign 
     for Children, Food & Water Watch, Food Research & Action 
     Center (FRAC), Forum for Youth Investment, Foster Family-
     based Treatment Association.
       Franciscan Action Network (FAN), Friends Committee on 
     National Legislation, Friends of the Earth, Gamaliel, 
     Generations United, GLSEN, Gray Panthers, Growth & Justice, 
     Half in Ten, Health & Disability Advocates, Health Care for 
     America Now, Health GAP (Global Access Project).
       HealthHIV, HIV Law Project, Horizons for Homeless Children, 
     Housing Works, Interfaith Worker Justice, International 
     Association of Fire Fighters, International Association of 
     Machinists and Aerospace Workers, International Brotherhood 
     of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers, 
     and Helpers, AFL-CIO.
       International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, 
     International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Society 
     for Technology in Education, International Union of Police 
     Associations, AFL-CIO, International Union, United 
     Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of 
     America (UAW), Jewish Council for Public Affairs, Laborers' 
     International Union of North America (LiUNA!), Latino 
     Commission on AIDS, The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights 
     Under Law, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human 
     Rights.
       Leadership Team, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, 
     League of Conservation Voters, League of Rural Voters, League 
     of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), League of Women 
     Voters of the United States, Learning Disabilities 
     Association of America, Main Street Alliance, Medicare Rights 
     Center, Mental Health America, NAACP.
       National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, National Active 
     and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), National 
     Alliance for Partnerships in Equity, National Alliance of 
     State & Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD), National 
     Assembly on School-Based Health Care, National Association 
     for Adults with Special Learning Needs, National Association 
     for Children's Behavioral Health, National Association for 
     College Admission Counseling, National Association for 
     Hispanic Elderly, National Association for Music Education.
       National Association for the Education of Young Children, 
     National Association of Area Agencies on Aging (n4a), 
     National Association of Councils on Developmental 
     Disabilities, National Association of County Behavioral 
     Health and Developmental Disability Directors (NACBHDD), 
     National Association of Elementary School Principals, 
     National Association of Federally Impacted Schools, National 
     Association of Government Employees/SEIU, National 
     Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO), 
     National Association of Letter Carriers, National Association 
     of Nutrition and Aging Services Programs (NANASP).
       National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA), National 
     Association of Private Special Education Centers, National 
     Association of School Psychologists, National Association of 
     Secondary School Principals (NASSP), National Association of 
     State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium, 
     National Association of State Directors of Special Education 
     (NASDSE), National Association of State Head Injury 
     Administrators, National Association of Thrift Savings Plan 
     Participants, National Black Child Development Institute, 
     National Center for Family Literacy.
       National Center for Law and Economic Justice, National 
     Center on Domestic and Sexual Violence, National Coalition 
     Against Domestic Violence, National Coalition for Asian 
     Pacific American Community Development, National Coalition 
     for LGBT Health, National Coalition for Literacy, National 
     Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, National 
     Congress of American Indians, The National Consumer Voice for 
     Quality Long-Term Care, National Council for Community 
     Behavioral Healthcare.
       National Council for the Social Studies, National Council 
     of Jewish Women, National Council of La Raza (NCLR), National 
     Council of Women's Organizations (NCWO), National Council on 
     Independent Living, National Disability Rights Network, 
     National Education Association (NEA), National Employment Law 
     Project (NELP), National Fair Housing Alliance, National 
     Family Caregivers Association, National Federation of Federal 
     Employees.
       National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Action Fund, National 
     Health Care for the Homeless Council, National Hispanic 
     Council on Aging (NHCOA), National Housing Trust, National 
     Immigration Law Center, National Latina Institute for 
     Reproductive Health, National Law Center on Homelessness & 
     Poverty, National Low Income Housing Coalition, National 
     Organization for Women (NOW), National Partnership for Women 
     & Families, National Pediatric AIDS Network, National 
     People's Action.
       National Priorities Project, National Respite Coalition, 
     National Rural Education Advocacy Coalition, National Rural 
     Education Association (NREA), National School Boards 
     Association, National Skills Coalition, National 
     Superintendents Roundtable, National Treasury Employees 
     Union, National Urban League, National WIC Association, 
     National Women's Conference Committee,
       National Women's Law Center, Natural Resources Defense 
     Council (NRDC), NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice 
     Lobby, Not Dead Yet, OMB Watch, Paralyzed Veterans of 
     America, People For the American Way (PFAW), Population 
     Action International, Progressive States Action, Project 
     Inform, Public Citizen, Public Education Network.
       Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Coalition (REHDC), 
     Rebuild The Dream, RESULTS, Sargent Shriver National Center 
     on Poverty Law, School Social Work Association of America, 
     Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Sexuality 
     Information and Education Council of the U.S. (SIECUS), Share 
     Our Strength, Sisters of Mercy Institute Justice Team, Social 
     Security Disability Coalition, Social Security Works.
       Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Stand Up for Rural 
     America, Robert S. Warwick, Steering Committee, Stewards of 
     Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF), Strengthen Social 
     Security Campaign, Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social 
     Justice, TESOL International Association, Transportation 
     Equity Network, Transportation Trades Department, AFL-CIO, 
     Treatment Access Expansion Project, Treatment Action Group 
     (TAG).
       Trust for America's Health (TFAH), Union for Reform 
     Judaism, United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of 
     the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States 
     and Canada, United Cerebral Palsy, United Church of Christ 
     Justice and Witness Ministries, United Electrical, Radio and 
     Machine Workers of America (UE), United for a Fair Economy, 
     The United Methodist Church--General Board of Church and 
     Society, United Mine Workers, United Spinal Association, 
     United States Student Association (USSA).
       United Steelworkers (USW), USAction, US Psychiatric 
     Rehabilitation Association (USPRA), VillageCare, Voices for 
     America's Children, Voices for Progress, Wider Opportunities 
     for Women (WOW), Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement 
     (WISER), The Woodhull Sexual Freedom Alliance, Working 
     America, YouthBuild USA, YWCA USA, ZERO TO THREE.

  Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Jackson).
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I'd like my good friend from 
Virginia, the distinguished chairman of

[[Page H7864]]

the Judiciary Committee, to engage me in a dialogue on a series of 
questions.
  The most important question to be raised with respect to the BBA, at 
least for me, and I believe most Americans, is how does the balanced 
budget amendment narrow certain gaps that are obvious in our society?
  The first gap, Mr. Chairman, is the social gap between racial 
minorities and the majority population.
  How does the balanced budget amendment narrow that gap?
  I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. The balanced budget amendment is fair to all because 
all it simply says is that for all time, the people of this country 
want their government to live within their means, not just right now, 
but in the future as well. Right now, we're not anywhere near living 
within our means; $1.3 trillion deficits each of the last 3 years, all 
that's being passed on to those children.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Respectfully, Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my 
time, it does not reduce the gap between racial minorities and the 
majority population.
  My next question, there's a gender gap in our society. Women earn 76 
cents to the dollar of what men earn in our society.
  How does the balanced budget amendment close the gap between what 
women earn in our society and what men earn in our society?
  Mr. GOODLATTE. If you don't balance the budget and you continue to 
pile up enormous debt, women, children, minorities, all will suffer in 
the future because our economy will shrink, just like Greece's economy 
is shrinking right now because they can't meet their obligations.
  And to answer the gentleman's question, I think it's best to turn to 
those people themselves.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Respectfully, Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my 
time, the balanced budget amendment does not close the gap between 
women who earn 76 cents to the dollar of what men make, because only 
the Federal Government in the 50 States can close the gap between what 
women earn in our society and what men earn in our society.
  How does the balanced budget amendment close the economic gap between 
the rich and the poor in our society?
  I yield to my friend from Virginia.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, I just pointed out that the rich pay far, far, 
far more in taxes than other people do, and they should. But this 
balanced budget amendment doesn't make any distinction between how you 
balance it, whether it's by increasing revenues, whether it's by 
economic growth, or whether it's by tax increases.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Reclaiming my time, the failure of this 
balanced budget amendment to not make any distinction between the rich 
and the poor is part of the fallacy and the problem with the balanced 
budget amendment.
  We are here as representatives of the people to close profound gaps 
that exist between our constituents and the society. We're supposed to 
be one America. We're supposed to be all Americans. We're supposed to 
be one people, e pluribus unum, through many, one, going somewhere. But 
what I'm hearing from the distinguished chairman is that the gaps will 
not close.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I would be happy to yield to the chairman.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I'm not the chairman of the Judiciary Committee; 
Congressman Smith is. But I am happy to be here in his stead.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman 
controlling time for the majority.
  Infrastructure gaps, upgrades to roads in communities that have been 
left behind, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewer systems--how does 
the balanced budget amendment propose to close the infrastructure gaps 
that exist in our society where the States themselves have failed to do 
so?
  Mr. GOODLATTE. If you don't have the resources to pay for what you 
need because you've spent it on a lot of other things, you're not going 
to have the infrastructure.

                              {time}  1300

  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Reclaiming my time, I must assume, then, 
there is no goal of the balanced budget amendment to actually close the 
infrastructure gap.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Absolutely there's a goal of doing that, and it is the 
goal of being able to generate a growing economy that results from 
living within your means and then using those means to pay for what our 
society needs.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Reclaiming my time, it is obvious that the 
balanced budget amendment does not narrow the economic, social, gender, 
and generational gap and infrastructural gaps in our country.
  Mr. Speaker, vote down the BBA. Give the American people a reason to 
believe that the Federal Government can close the gaps that exist.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to say to the 
gentleman that the balanced budget amendment also will not deliver a 
pennant to the Chicago Cubs.
  Now, let me also say this. In talking about those groups that the 
gentleman is rightly concerned about how they will do in the future, 
CNN asked them what they thought of a balanced budget amendment to the 
United States Constitution, and 75 percent of women said they favored a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution; 72 percent of nonwhite 
voters said they favored a balanced budget amendment to the 
Constitution; 79 percent of our senior citizens said they favored a 
balanced budget amendment to the Constitution; 79 percent of those who 
earn less than $50,000 a year said they favor a balanced budget 
amendment to the United States Constitution. And the same is true 
whether you look at urban areas, suburban areas, rural areas, or any 
geographic region of our country. Consistently, they support a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I would be happy to yield.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. What would the balanced budget amendment do 
for the Chicago White Sox? I'm a South Sider.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I don't know. I'm a Boston Red Sox fan. We finally got 
ours, but we have a ways to go.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, since the gentleman has admitted that the 
balanced budget amendment would not deliver the pennant to the White 
Sox or the Red Sox or the Cubs, or, I suppose, the Yankees, there's no 
argument to the balanced budget amendment.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 2 
minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois, who is the chief 
deputy whip and a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Roskam.
  Mr. ROSKAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  There's a level of anxiety that we're all sensing back at home as 
people are looking at Washington, DC, for solutions, and there are 
various tales that are going on right now in terms of what the Joint 
Select Committee is going to be able to produce, and the fact of the 
matter is we don't know what the yield is going to be of that 
negotiation. That's still ongoing, and we will be dealing with that 
next week.
  But we know what we can do right now, Madam Speaker. We can create a 
buoyancy and a sense of clarity and a sense of cohesiveness to seize 
upon a bipartisan moment, a moment that the country came close to in 
1995. It came within a whisker of passing the balanced budget amendment 
and sending it out to the States. Over 70 House Democrats in 1995, 
including several of the current leaders, voted in favor of that 
amendment. And now here we are, and we have that opportunity to do the 
same thing, although, to do it successfully.
  This is not about donkeys and elephants. This is ultimately about us 
coming together as a Congress in a thoughtful way that says one thing 
to the United States, and that is we can govern wisely; we can govern 
forthrightly; we can live within our means;

[[Page H7865]]

and we can do what the overwhelming majority, Madam Speaker, of what 
the American public wants us to do, and that is to balance our budget.
  I urge both sides of the aisle to shrug off the bad advice, frankly, 
of the Democratic leadership and to come down here in a short period of 
time and vote ``aye.''
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, it is my pleasure to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta), a member of the House Energy and 
Commerce Committee.
  Mr. LATTA. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding.
  I had the privilege for 6 years of serving as a county commissioner 
in Ohio and serving in the general assembly. During that time, we saw 
good times and we saw bad times in the economy. But in the bad times, 
our constitution told us in the State of Ohio that we had to balance 
our books to make sure that we didn't overspend. And that's what this 
House has to do and this country has to do.
  You know, when we look back, we don't have a very good track record--
over 50 years and only balanced a budget six times during that period 
of time. That's horrendous.
  It's kind of interesting. I was at a town hall. I was talking one 
day, and one of my farmers came up and asked this question. He said, I 
don't understand what the problem is in Washington. He said, What's the 
President want to spend?'' And I told him it's about 3.8 trillion. He 
said, How much have you got? I told him what we thought the revenue was 
going to be for the year. He said, It's simple. All you've got to do is 
subtract your revenues from what you want to spend, and that's all you 
get to spend is just that revenue. You don't spend over the top of it.
  People back home understand it. Because people back home sit around 
their kitchen tables, their dining room tables, and they get their 
pencils and papers out and they figure out how much they can spend. 
It's not complicated.
  But we've got to start thinking about this because we're in debt now 
$15 trillion. And it went over this week. When I have to look at my 
kids' faces and kids down the street, and when I go into schools and 
talk to these young children, they're going to ask me in 10 to 15 
years, What did you do to us, not for us?
  It's time that this Congress acts and passes this balanced budget 
amendment. We've been talking about it for years, and we have that 
opportunity today. I thank the gentleman for bringing it forth. I wish 
I could vote for it more than once today. But we must pass this today.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished 
whip, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman from New York for yielding.
  I spoke yesterday on this issue. My good friend, Mr. Goodlatte, and I 
have talked a number of times about this.
  In 1995, as I said yesterday, I voted for an amendment very similar 
to this, almost exactly like it. I had a confidence at that point in 
time that, in an emergency, three-fifths of us would come together and 
vote to do that which the country needed to keep it stable and safe.
  Regrettably, over the 16 years, I have lost that confidence. I've 
lost that confidence this year, where, frankly, on the majority's side 
of the aisle we would not have passed a CR to keep the government open 
once. We wouldn't have passed it a second time; and, very frankly, had 
we had to rely on the votes solely of the majority side, as we have in 
the past on my side, we would have defaulted on our debt.
  That is not a good context in which to adopt an amendment that puts 
the country at risk if three-fifths are not available to act in an 
emergency. As a result, I will not vote for this amendment, and I urge 
my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
  We are engaged at this very day in an effort to try to come to 
agreement on how we balance the budget; and, very frankly, we only need 
51 percent, and 51 percent is not there.
  But we have balanced the budget, and we balanced it without an 
amendment. We balanced it in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. And my 
Republican colleagues rightfully say, ``Well, we offered those 
budgets.'' Yes, they did. But I will tell you, I have no doubt, not a 
single doubt, that if the surpluses that were created by those budgets 
had been available in 1998 and Bill Clinton had not said save Social 
Security first, that what we would have done is cut revenues deeply and 
had deficits during those 4 years. Now, you may disagree, but I have no 
doubt, based upon the philosophy that I have heard since 1981 from my 
Republican friends, that that would have been the case.

                              {time}  1310

  I said yesterday that what we need is not a balanced budget 
amendment, that what we need is a balanced budget.
  How do we get to a balanced budget?
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Latta) pointed out he was a county 
commissioner. Now, I'll bet as a county commissioner he probably had to 
pay for what he bought. He gave the analogy, if you've got X coming in, 
then that's what you spend, not X plus Y. The fact of the matter is his 
party has spent X plus Y, plus Z, plus A, plus B, plus C, and has run a 
deficit for every single year they had the Presidency during the last 
30 years I've been in the Congress--without fail.
  Now, what happened to bring us a balanced budget?
  First of all, we had two parties responsible. I don't think we could 
have done it with just one party--my party or your party. We had two 
parties responsible, and we constrained one another. Then we had 
extraordinary growth in our economy, and that's what brought us a 
balanced budget. But we also adopted in 1990, again in 1993 and in 
1997--and I tell my good friend, the sponsor of this, sometimes he 
voted for PAYGO and sometimes he did not, and your party abandoned the 
principle of paying for what you bought in 2001.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Roby). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
  Mr. HOYER. As a result of abandoning that PAYGO responsibility, you 
could cut revenues very deeply and not pay for them, not cut spending. 
It takes no courage, I suggest to my friends, to cut taxes--none 
whatsoever. Everybody is happy. Paying for bills is a lot tougher. It 
requires a lot more courage, a lot more responsibility. But you 
jettisoned statutory PAYGO in the 2000s, and you went on a spending 
binge. Not only did you blow a hole in the deficit, but you also blew a 
hole in the economy, and we saw the worst job creation of any 
administration since Herbert Hoover because the economy, rightfully, 
was not confident that we would manage our finances correctly.
  What we need, ladies and gentlemen, in this House is a balanced 
budget, not a balanced budget amendment. Let us summon the courage, the 
will, and the ability to work together immediately on this Joint Select 
Committee on Deficit Reduction, but let us do it day after day after 
day. Then when the issues come before you, have the courage to either 
vote against spending or to vote for the revenues to pay for what all 
of us have wanted to buy.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will remind the Members that 
remarks in debate must be addressed to the Chair and not to others in 
the second person.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute to respond to 
the distinguished minority whip and to point out this chart.
  The gentleman is quite right when he talks about profligacy when 
there have been Republican Congresses. Although, I would point out to 
the gentleman that, when we were in the majority and when we had 
President Bill Clinton and when we had those four balanced budgets, he 
voted for one but not the three others. We did not cut taxes then. 
Taxes were cut after the attack on this country, on September 11, 2001, 
to stimulate the economy, and we got roundly criticized for the 
deficits that ran up during that time.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield? Because the gentleman is not 
accurate on that.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I will yield to the gentleman from Maryland in just a 
minute.

[[Page H7866]]

  This chart show that, in 2004, we had a $400 billion deficit. It was 
the highest deficit in American history, and it was part of the reason 
we lost our majority later on. Then in 2007, as the deficit stepped 
down each of the interceding years, the gentleman from Maryland became 
the majority leader, and the gentlewoman from California became the 
Speaker of the House--and look at what has happened to our deficits 
ever since.
  The Congress writes budgets; the Congress doesn't balance budgets. 
Both parties are to blame.
  There have been six balanced budgets in the last 50 years. In 37 of 
those years, Democrats only balanced it twice. This is a bipartisan 
balanced budget amendment that the gentleman voted for once before. He 
should join us today and set the future on a different track.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.
  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman, I take it, has no time to yield.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. I don't. I have all these speakers.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished 
whip.
  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman's chart is very interesting. He talks about 
voting for budgets.
  I didn't agree with some of the priorities in your budget; that's 
accurate. He is correct that we didn't cut taxes, but he is incorrect 
as to when you cut taxes. You cut taxes in April, months before 9/11, 
and you gave away a lot of money and you didn't pay for it. You didn't 
cut spending in order to pay for it in your budgets that you offered. 
Furthermore, what the gentleman doesn't point out is in 1993, to a 
person, you voted against a program which was designed to pay our 
bills--to a person. You said it would destroy the economy.
  We had the best economy and the largest budget surplus that you've 
had and an administration that is the only administration in your 
lifetime that ended its 96 months with a surplus, Bill Clinton's.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I am delighted to yield 2 minutes to 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton), the former chairman of the House 
Energy and Commerce Committee.
  (Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. BARTON of Texas. I thank the gentlelady from Alabama for her 
chairmanship of this historic debate, and I thank the gentleman from 
Virginia for his leadership and his willingness to yield me time.
  Madam Speaker, in January 1985, I held up my right hand, and I held 
my 2-year-old daughter in my left hand as I stood right out here in 
front of the podium and took the oath to be the Congressman of the 
Sixth Congressional District of Texas. As soon as I was sworn in, I 
signed my first bill and put it right over there in the hopper--the Tax 
Limitation/Balanced Budget Amendment.
  The total public debt that year was less than $5 trillion. In January 
of 1995, I took the oath of office and then led the debate on the 
Contract with America balanced budget amendment. We actually had two 
votes that day--one on the Tax Limitation/Balanced Budget Amendment, 
which got about 260-something votes, and then we came back and voted on 
a balanced budget amendment without the tax limitation provision, and 
it passed and went to the Senate.
  The public debt that day was a little under $8 trillion. Today, the 
public debt is $15 trillion--$10 trillion more than in January of 1985 
and $7 trillion more than in January of 1995.
  How many years do we have to stand here and bemoan the fact that we 
need more courage or more this or more that and then pile up more 
public debt?
  The annual deficit this year, the deficit in 1 year, is more than the 
total Federal budget was in 1985--the total budget.
  I want to thank Mr. Goodlatte for bringing this bill forward. I want 
to thank the Republican leadership for putting it on the floor.
  We owe $15 trillion, Madam Speaker, and we're going to borrow another 
$1.5 trillion. Let's stop the madness. Let's vote for this amendment 
and send it to the Senate.
  Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Johnson) for a unanimous consent request.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to 
submit the following two documents into the Record:
  One is from the International Association of Fire Fighters, and the 
other is from the AARP--both of which express their opposition to this 
ill-founded measure before us, H.J. Res. 2.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman's request 
is granted.
  There was no objection.
                                         International Association


                                             of Fire Fighters,

                                                    July 28, 2011.
     Member of Congress,
     House of Representatives,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Representative, On behalf of the nation's nearly 
     300,000 professional fire fighters and emergency medical 
     personnel, I urge you to oppose any balanced budget amendment 
     to the United States Constitution.
       Although there is a clear need to lower the long-term 
     federal budget deficit, requiring a balanced budget through a 
     constitutional amendment would be disastrous for the U.S. 
     economy. During periods of economic downturns, the federal 
     government's safety-net programs like unemployment insurance, 
     Medicaid, and food stamps face greater demand right when 
     federal receipts are in rapid decline. Requiring a balanced 
     budget every year would force cuts to these and other 
     important programs or force tax increases. Either 
     prescription would risk tipping a faltering economy into 
     recession or making recessions worse.
       Furthermore, any constitutional balanced budget amendment 
     would limit the ability of the federal government to make 
     important investments in worthy causes, including crucial 
     public safety and homeland security programs. Even at a time 
     of fiscal austerity, we must continue to provide for the 
     country's public safety and homeland security needs. Any 
     constitutional balanced budget amendment would grossly 
     undermine the ability to protect the lives and well-being of 
     Americans nationwide.
       The nation's fire fighters understand and support the need 
     to reduce federal spending, but passage of a constitutional 
     balanced budget amendment would further damage the already 
     weakened economy and prevent the federal government from 
     making critical investments.
       Again, I urge you to vote against any balanced budget 
     amendment to the United States Constitution. Thank you for 
     considering the views of our nation's first responders.
           Sincerely,
                                           Harold A. Schaitberger,
     General President.
                                  ____



                                                         AARP,

                                                November 17, 2011.
       Dear Representative: On behalf of our members and other 
     Americans who are age 50 and older, AARP is writing to 
     express our opposition to H.J. Res. 2, a balanced budget 
     amendment to the Constitution of the United States. H.J. Res. 
     2 would subject Social Security and Medicare, as well as all 
     other spending, to potentially very deep cuts, without regard 
     to the impact on the health and financial security of 
     individuals. AARP strongly opposes proposals that can result 
     in arbitrary and harmful cuts to Social Security and 
     Medicare.
       N.J. Res. 2 would prohibit outlays for a fiscal year 
     (except those for repayment of debt principal) from exceeding 
     total receipts for that fiscal year. This is the equivalent 
     of imposing a constitutional cap on all spending that is 
     equivalent to the revenues raised in any given year. 
     Revenues, however, fluctuate based on many factors, including 
     the health of the economy and the rate of labor 
     participation. Consequently, spending would of necessity also 
     fluctuate, and as a result, a balanced budget amendment would 
     not allow the provision of predictable Social Security and 
     Medicare benefits that can be reliably delivered during an 
     individual's retirement years. Individuals who have 
     contributed their entire working lives to earn a predictable 
     benefit during their retirement would find that their 
     retirement income and health care out of pocket costs would 
     vary significantly year to year, making planning difficult, 
     and peace of mind impossible.
       It is particularly inappropriate to subject Social Security 
     to a balanced budget amendment given that Social Security is 
     an off-budget program that is separately funded through its 
     own revenue stream, including significant trust fund reserves 
     to finance benefits. Imposing a cap on Social Security 
     outlays is unjustifiable, especially when the Social Security 
     trust funds have run a surplus for decades--which have 
     reduced the past need for additional government borrowing 
     from the public--and resulted in a public debt that is less 
     today than what it otherwise would have been.
       Older Americans truly understand that budgets matter and 
     that we all need to live within our means. But they also 
     understand that budgets impact real people; and they 
     certainly understand the difference between programs to which 
     they have made a contribution and earned over the course of a 
     lifetime of work, and those they have not. From surveys, 
     letters, e-mails, town hall meetings, and numerous other 
     interactions, we know older Americans of all political 
     affiliations reject cuts to Social Security and

[[Page H7867]]

     Medicare to balance the budget. We therefore oppose the 
     adoption of a balanced budget amendment that puts Social 
     Security and Medicare at risk, and on behalf of our millions 
     of members and all older Americans, we urge you to vote 
     against H. J. Res. 2.
       If you have any questions, feel free to call me, or please 
     have your staff contact Cristina Martin Firvida of our 
     Government Affairs office at 202-434-6194.
           Sincerely,
                                                    Nancy LeaMond,
                                         Executive Vice President.

                              {time}  1320

  Mr. NADLER. I yield 30 seconds to the distinguished gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. We do not need a constitutional amendment. We need a 
supercommittee congressional agreement now.
  To the Republicans: do it now. Call President Obama now. Tell him tax 
breaks for the billionaires, on the table. Tell him defense spending, 
on the table. Tell him tax breaks for oil companies, on the table. The 
President says he'll put the social programs on the table.
  You don't have to go back 200 years to amend the Constitution. You 
just have to next week, next Wednesday say, We want to do it now. We, 
who are here, will do it now. We will balance the budget by putting all 
of our programs on the table.
  Do it now. Do it now, Republicans. Don't pretend and hide behind a 
constitutional amendment when you can do it now. You can be the 
Founding Fathers of a balanced budget in 2011.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Noting that the Republicans on the supercommittee have 
put a proposal on the table and the Democrats have not, I now yield 
1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Manzullo), a member 
of the Financial Services Committee.
  Mr. MANZULLO. Madam Speaker, there are over 10,000 Federal programs 
and counting. No one quite knows how many there are.
  I do most of my work in Congress on manufacturing; and for 12 years, 
I've been working on a chart to identify every agency, every bureau 
that is involved somehow in manufacturing. And it continues to grow and 
grow and grow. And my objective was to find a way with a common portal 
to be able to access via the Internet exactly what's going on, but it's 
impossible. And that's the problem with this government. People run to 
Congress and say, I have got a program for this and for that.
  Well, you know what, it's time to start eliminating programs around 
here. It's time to just keep those programs that are absolutely 
necessary, and the best way to do that is to have the fiscal restraint 
imposed by a balanced budget amendment. No longer is it a matter of 
going to the backroom and simply printing money to cover this program 
or that program. We need to come to the realization that Washington 
doesn't have the answer for everything. And the best way to cut back on 
these 10,000 programs is to have the discipline of a balanced budget 
amendment so that the Members of the House and Members of the Senate 
can realize you really can't spend more than what you take in.
  Mr. NADLER. I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, how much time remains on each side?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Virginia has 4 minutes 
remaining, and the gentleman from New York has 2\3/4\ minutes 
remaining.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, at this time it is my pleasure to yield 
1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack), a member of 
the Appropriations Committee.
  Mr. WOMACK. Today is payday. It's Friday. For a lot of people, it's 
payday. They're going to get a check from their employer, if they're 
lucky enough to have a job. And I'm for sure for most of them, before 
ever cashing that check, they know exactly where it's going. These 
people have likely already come to the realization that there are a lot 
more needs, a lot more things they would like to have or do, but 
there's just so much money.
  I find it incredible that my friends on the other side of the aisle 
believe this Federal Government should not have to go through the same 
process of discerning between what they want and what they need and 
what they can afford, like the rest of America. In the 10-plus months I 
have been here, I consider this vote the most important vote I will 
have cast because it's the vote that has the most impact on the future 
of my grandson.
  It is sad that Congress does not have the discipline to live within 
its means, and I strongly believe the only way to constrain an 
undisciplined Congress is to enshrine its obligation in the 
Constitution. An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that the 
balanced budget amendment, as proposed today, is the right way forward 
for America.
  I thank my friend from Virginia for his leadership on the issue, and 
I urge its passage.
  Mr. NADLER. I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to 
the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney), a member of the House 
Budget Committee.
  Mr. MULVANEY. Madam Speaker, I have enjoyed sitting here listening to 
the arguments against this amendment. They range from the bizarre to 
the completely incredible. We've heard it's not 1985. I wish it were 
and that the deficit were only $5 trillion. Imagine what the world 
would have been like if we could have accomplished this 15 years ago.
  I have heard that we don't need this amendment to do our job against 
the backdrop of only being able to do it four times in the last 50 
years. That argument simply does not pass the laugh test. I heard just 
a few moments ago from the honorable minority leader that this was not 
the right time to pass this amendment because somehow this body was too 
partisan, too partisan to pass an amendment to the Constitution that 
would take partisanship out of the equation and force us to balance the 
budget. These are all extraordinarily weak arguments, Madam Speaker, 
and they are weak because they do not go to the heart of the matter of 
why you would be against this amendment.
  There's only one reason to be against this amendment. The only true 
argument against this amendment is that you want to continue to spend 
money that we don't have, and there are people in this Chamber who 
believe that is the way that they keep their jobs, that if we continue 
to run up debt, that if we continue to spend money that we don't have, 
that somehow back in their district it will encourage their voters to 
send them back to this Chamber.
  Madam Speaker, I believe there are more important things than our 
jobs. There are more important things than simply remaining a Member of 
Congress. More so than any amendment, any bill that we will take up 
this year, this amendment is the opportunity that we have to send a 
message to the people back home that we are willing to do what is 
right, that we're willing to stand up for them and to give them the 
opportunity to change the Constitution of the United States in a way 
that they see fit.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I would advise my colleague that I have 
only one speaker remaining.
  Mr. NADLER. I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Madam Speaker, since 1995, when this amendment was last on the floor, 
we proved we could balance the budget without a balanced budget 
amendment. But a balanced budget is not the highest goal. The highest 
goal is prosperity, a full employment economy; and that requires a 
balanced budget over the business cycle. It requires that in good times 
we have a surplus and pay down the deficit. But then in recessions, you 
should have a deficit to spur the economy; you should spend money to 
spur the economy to get out of the recession. To try to balance the 
budget by cutting spending during a recession is to increase 
unemployment, is to guarantee that every recession becomes a 
depression. Just look at what's happening in Germany, which was in 
pretty good shape until they elected a government that enacted 
austerity to try to balance the budget. Their economy is tanking. The 
same thing in Great Britain.
  The second point I want to make is that when we talk about balanced 
budgets in the States, they have a separate budget for operating 
expenses and for capital budgets. Here, this balanced budget amendment 
would say we should never borrow money for anything; the Federal 
Government should never borrow money. That's insanity economically. It 
means we have no

[[Page H7868]]

money for our bridges, roads, highways, et cetera.
  Third, this amendment would say if we couldn't reach agreement, if we 
didn't pass the balanced budget, the courts would have to decide 
whether to increase taxes and, if so, which taxes, or cut programs, and 
in such a case, which programs. We should not be giving the courts the 
power to make such decisions.
  Finally, Social Security, Medicare, these are not debts. They're 
obligations of the Federal Government. A balanced budget amendment 
would put them at risk. We would have to cut Social Security, cut 
Medicare, cut all these things if we passed a balanced budget 
amendment. And if we're unwilling, as our colleagues on the other side 
are, raise taxes on the rich. The fact is taxes on the rich are much 
less than they've ever been, which is the basic cause of the deficits 
that we're running now.
  The balanced budget amendment would not balance the budget. You would 
still have a stalemate between Republicans, who want no taxes on the 
rich and want draconian cuts on lower- and middle-income programs, and 
those on our side of the aisle who disagree on them. If you can't reach 
agreement on those things now in the supercommittee, what makes you 
think you would reach agreement just because you had a requirement on 
the books that said you should? It would end up in court.

                              {time}  1330

  The balanced budget amendment is simply a sop to be able to say we 
are doing something about a balanced budget when we are, in fact, 
unwilling to make the tough decisions that could, in fact, balance the 
budget. We showed, during the Clinton administration, that those 
decisions could be made. And if we really want to balance the budget, 
we have to undo most of the Bush tax cuts, we have to stop voting for 
wars that we don't pay for, and we have to really balance the budget, 
not pass an amendment.
  I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  The gentleman from New York and I agree on one thing: Prosperity is 
the goal. And this is not a pathway to prosperity. Fifty years with six 
balanced budgets is a pathway that has led to a $15 trillion debt that 
we have right now. That's not prosperity. The largest debtor nation on 
Earth is not prosperity. $50,000 per American citizen in debt is not 
prosperity. And the $60 trillion in future obligations that we have 
yielding this result is definitely not prosperity for our children and 
grandchildren.
  That is why we need the discipline that a balanced budget amendment 
to the Constitution provides. That is why this is a bipartisan vote. 
That is why dozens of Democrats will join us today in enshrining in our 
Constitution something that will require that future Congresses balance 
the budget.
  I urge my colleagues to join us in this matter, and I yield back the 
balance of my time.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would ask Members not to traffic 
the well when another Member is under recognition.
  Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Madam Speaker, Democrats remain committed to 
responsibly putting the budget on a fiscally sustainable path through a 
balanced approach that includes both spending and revenue. But the 
Republican Constitutional amendment defeated on the House floor today 
was not the answer. It could have dire consequences for the economy, on 
needed services to seniors and others, and on the government's ability 
to quickly and appropriately respond to changing needs.
  This Constitutional amendment would have made it easier to cut Social 
Security or Medicare than to cut corporate tax loopholes or eliminate 
tax breaks for millionaires. It required a roll call vote by the 
majority of the whole number of each House--218 votes in the House 
regardless of how many Members are absent--to raise revenue, but 
allowed spending cuts with a simple majority vote of those present. Why 
should there be a different standard for cutting Social Security 
benefits than for cutting even a dime of special interest tax breaks?
  The disparity clearly highlighted that this Amendment was not 
actually about balancing the budget, but rather about establishing a 
constitutionally mandated path to impose the Republican budget 
priorities. In fact, the Amendment would have required even deeper cuts 
than the House Republican budget resolution, which never reached 
balance. The Republican budget ran $1.6 trillion in deficits from 2018 
through 2021, when this Amendment could have been in effect.
  This Constitutional amendment would have jeopardized Social Security 
and Medicare benefits, veterans' benefits, and all other guarantees to 
our citizens by limiting annual spending to that year's receipts. 
Regardless of whether the country has brought in receipts over many 
years, saving to cover upcoming obligations--and regardless of the 
retirement guarantee made to our seniors who contributed to the Social 
Security trust fund throughout their working years--this Amendment 
would not have let us make those payments unless we had an equal amount 
of receipts coming in that year.
  The Constitutional amendment also would have deprived Congress of the 
flexibility to address national needs and economic emergencies by 
limiting spending to the level of that year's receipts. For example, 
during a recession the Amendment would have required spending cuts or 
tax increases at the very time the country required additional spending 
or tax cuts to provide needed help and to boost the economy. Even in 
the face of a natural disaster there was no emergency exemption to 
allow immediate extra assistance.
  This year has illustrated the economic consequences of risking 
default on the nation's obligations, yet the Constitutional amendment 
would have made default more likely by increasing the difficulty of 
raising the debt limit by requiring a 3/5th supermajority vote. In 
fact, the need to raise the debt ceiling has no correlation to whether 
future budgets are balanced; increases in the debt ceiling reflect past 
decisions on fiscal policy.
  Some have argued that this Amendment would have put the federal 
government in the same position as state governments and households, 
which balance their budgets. And while many states are required to 
balance their operating budgets, they still can and do borrow for 
capital projects. Likewise, families regularly do not balance their 
budgets on an annual basis; a 30-year home mortgage or a student loan 
are both examples of ways families can responsibly take on debt and pay 
it back over time. By requiring the federal government to balance 
spending and receipts each year--regardless of the country's economic 
circumstance or the need for immediate resources--the Amendment would 
have prohibited the nation from making necessary investments.
  This Constitutional amendment was not a responsible budget plan. It 
did not make any of the hard choices necessary to fix our fiscal and 
economic crisis. Instead, it would have enshrined in the Constitution a 
fixed budgetary goal without providing guidance on how to reach it or 
how to enforce it. The Amendment could send budget decisions to the 
courts, tying up federal budgeting and transferring the power to make 
the laws from Congress to the federal judiciary. If cases were filed 
arguing that the budget is not balanced, court involvement could lead 
to shutting down all federal operations--even emergency services.
  The Constitution provides broad guarantees for citizens, but is not 
designed to implement particular policies. Congress must confront the 
difficult choices before it. Passing the Amendment may make for good 
theater, but it is simply a device for pretending we are doing 
something while ducking difficult choices. Instead, we are working hard 
now to responsibly put the budget on a sustainable path, and that is 
the right thing to do.
  Mr. HOLT. Madam Speaker, the right question to ask is not, ``How can 
Congress create the political will necessary to balance our budget?'' 
The right questions to ask are, ``What is the right budget to enable a 
vigorous economy?'' And that is not necessarily a budget in exact 
numerical equality between income and outgo. And, second, ``How has 
America balanced its budget in the past?''
  Madam Speaker, I took great personal satisfaction during my first 
term as a member of this body in voting for and helping to achieve 
America's first balanced budget in a generation. It was not easy to 
attain. Those members of Congress, myself included, who believe in 
fiscal responsibility and budgetary discipline, had to make tough 
choices and cast difficult votes in order to put the federal 
government's fiscal house in order. The White House and Congress can 
balance the federal budget without a constitutional amendment.
  We needed two things: sufficient income and no unnecessary spending. 
A revenue base made balancing the budget possible. We also had a 
recognition that a vibrant economy produces more revenue than an 
economy in a recession.
  That, Madam Speaker, is what is lacking today--not the political 
will, but the economic fundamentals. America's revenue base was 
decimated by the Bush tax cuts, which gave away hundreds of billions of 
dollars to the most fortunate Americans while doing little to

[[Page H7869]]

help middle-class families. And America's economy has been devastated 
by the financial crisis, which has diminished the federal government's 
revenue base and required us to spend money to sustain the social 
safety net and to create jobs.
  Madam Speaker, if America truly wants to return to the era of 
balanced budgets, we don't need a misguided and destructive 
constitutional amendment. What America needs is to invest in those 
things that allow and help our people to be productive--education, 
research, health care, and things that help the wheels of commerce 
turn, like banking and trading regulations, environmental protection, 
and freer migration of talented people. We need the wealthiest 
Americans and our wealthiest corporations to pay their fair share of 
the cost of running this nation. And we need to act with urgency and 
compassion to put to work the 25 million Americans who are out of work 
or underemployed. We need to create jobs in the short-term to stop the 
damage to our long-term economy.
  Madam Speaker, our history of amending the Constitution has been 
about the enhancement of individual rights or the correction of 
fundamental structural flaws in the federal government. Politics--not a 
structural flaw--created our current deficit problem, and political 
compromise can fix it. We must be committed to reaching the political 
compromises that are necessary in order to exercise fiscal 
responsibility and balance budgets consistently.
  Madam Speaker, a balanced budget amendment is nothing more than a 
fine example of political theater. We will debate this amendment for 
hours, but without any chance to amend it or consider any alternatives. 
The majority is putting the bill on the floor under a procedure 
normally reserved for non-controversial measures, despite the very 
controversial nature of this flawed constitutional amendment. It is bad 
policy that will not bring us any closer to solving our budget 
problems, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it here today.
  Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of this 
Balanced Budget Amendment.
  I have always been hesitant to support changes to our Constitution. 
It is the most significant document in our Nation's history and I am 
reminded of its guiding principals by the copy I carry with me each 
day.
  Truthfully, I wish this step had not become so necessary. A simple 
majority of us in the House, working with the Senate and the President 
have the ability to balance our budget without this Amendment.
  It has been done before. I have been honored to serve in this House 
for the last 41 years. During this time, we have managed to balance our 
budget twice, and both times occurred during my tenure as Chairman of 
the House Appropriations Committee.
  The way we balanced the budget then was by making the hard, but 
necessary choices. The Appropriations Committee had to say no to many 
funding requests. It was not always easy and I was not always the most 
popular person around here. But we had to do the right thing for the 
country and we did it as a Republican House working with a Democrat 
President.
  In this Congress, the House and the House Appropriations Committee 
have made the difficult decisions to cut wasteful spending, consolidate 
duplicative programs, and reign in the excesses of recent years. We 
have reduced excessive spending and passed a responsible budget 
resolution. We have brought our bills to the floor under regular 
order--in contrast to recent years. Every Member on the Committee and 
in the entire House has had the opportunity to make their voices heard 
and offer their amendments. In fact, we have considered almost 500 
amendments to appropriations bills just this year.
  I am proud to say that the House has made real progress towards 
fiscal responsibility. Unfortunately, much of our budget process has 
become dysfunctional.
  We are stuck with a Senate that has been unwilling to do their part. 
It has been more than two and a half years since they have completed 
the basic task of passing a budget.
  Under this President, spending has skyrocketed to consume more than 
25 percent of the economy. Since 2008, annual spending has jumped by 
close to $1 trillion. The President's budget proposed to keep the 
spending going for the next decade, with spending growing from its 
historical average of 18 percent to 24 percent of GDP in 2021.
  We have mandatory spending that is spiraling out of control.
  For the first time in America's proud history, our credit rating was 
downgraded because we have been unable to come to an enforceable 
agreement on how to bring our debt under control.
  I have come to believe that the only guaranteed way to bring spending 
under control is to pass this Balanced Budget Amendment. The only way 
to get the entire Congress and the President to consistently agree on a 
fiscally responsible budget is to amend the Constitution to require it 
to happen. It is a common sense proposal that has widespread support.
  In 2009, I asked every voter in my district how they felt about 
requiring a balanced budget and 79.64 percent of the more than 32,000 
who responded to my survey said that they support it.
  The National Federation of Independent Businesses recently asked 
small business owners in my district if they support the Balanced 
Budget Amendment and 78 percent responded that they do.
  National polls point to more overwhelming support. After all, 
families and small businesses across the country have to sit down and 
balance their own budgets, just as our state of Florida must. Why can't 
the federal government do the same?
  America has a spending problem. Just on Wednesday our national debt 
topped $15 trillion. We are borrowing 43 cents for every dollar we 
spend. This year gross interest payments on the debt reached $466 
billion. Every one of our children and our grandchildren already owes 
more than $46,000 to our creditors.
  We owe it to the next generation to leave them a better country and a 
better future, as those who came before us did. It is essential that we 
change the culture of spending in Washington and restore fiscal sanity 
to our federal budget. It is crucial to the future of our Nation that 
we solve this debt problem, because if we don't, I hate to think what 
might happen to our economy, what might happen to our currency, and 
what might happen to our standing in the world.
  Let me close by saying that to have a strong national defense we must 
have a strong robust economy.
  Mr. THORNBERRY. Madam Speaker, it would be a mistake to believe that 
a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution will solve all of our 
fiscal woes. There are no magic answers to what ails us. Fiscal 
discipline and common sense applied day-by-day, year-by-year are 
required.
  A Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution would, however, help 
impose the discipline needed on the taxing and spending decisions of 
the federal government. It would be a very significant step--perhaps 
one of the most significant we could take--in repairing our fiscal 
house.
  It forces Congress and the President to make choices. If new spending 
is proposed, other spending must be cut or some other way to finance 
the new program must be found.
  A basic principle for individuals, businesses, and other 
organizations is that one should not spend more than one has to spend, 
except in extraordinary circumstances. That is common sense. Yet, for 
too long, that principle has been commonly absent from Washington. This 
vote on this Amendment is our opportunity to apply this basic idea to 
the federal government. We should do it now.
  Mr. POSEY. Madam Speaker, nearly every State in the union is required 
to balance its budget each year, including my home State of Florida. 
Our counties, cities, school boards and special districts are all 
required to make financially responsible decisions with the hard-earned 
tax dollars of Florida's working families and small businesses.
  It is long past due for Washington to do the same, which is why the 
Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is one of the first 
bills I cosponsored as a new Member of Congress in 2009.
  For 235 years, the United States has been the greatest economic 
success story the world has ever known. Yet, the most significant 
threat ever to our continued success is our unprecedented and rapidly 
growing national debt. From 1776 to 2008, Washington accumulated a debt 
of $10.6 trillion. Yet in just the last 3 years alone, another $4.4 
trillion in debt has been added for a grand total of $15 trillion and 
counting.
  Washington doesn't just have a spending problem. It has an insatiable 
addiction to spending money it does not have and it is threatening our 
children's future. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called it 
the greatest threat to our Nation.
  The last time the House voted on and passed a Balanced Budget 
Amendment to the Constitution--back in 1997--the national debt stood at 
$5.4 trillion. That year the Balanced Budget Amendment fell just ONE 
VOTE short of passage in the Senate. It's something I like to call 
``The Ten Trillion Dollar Vote.''
  So, you might ask: How do these gigantic numbers relate to the 
American taxpayer? Because of Washington's failure to control spending, 
each and every taxpayer's share of the debt amounts to $130,000. It 
gets worse. On our current path, the non-partisan Congressional Budget 
Office estimates the national debt will reach $23 TRILLION in 2015. 
That's $200,000 in debt per taxpayer. This must change.
  The American people were promised in 1997 that Washington would 
balance the

[[Page H7870]]

budget without a Balanced Budget Amendment. Given what we now know, 
it's ridiculous to believe that Washington will balance the budget and 
begin paying down the debt without the requirement of a Balanced Budget 
Amendment.
  Future generations of Americans deserve to live with the same 
opportunities we have had. Burdening them with this unprecedented debt 
load is immoral and unthinkable. Only by passing a Balanced Budget 
Amendment can we eliminate their greatest threat to success and 
guarantee them the same opportunities that we have had.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Balanced Budget Amendment and set 
our Nation on a more financially responsible and stable course.
  Mr. WOLFE. Madam Speaker, I rise today to support H.J. Res. 2, which 
is a common sense, balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 
I am proud to join my friend from the Shenandoah Valley, Bob Goodlatte, 
as a cosponsor of his legislation and I thank him for his work in 
bringing it to the floor for a vote.
  I have long supported this legislation because I believe Washington 
must live within its limits when spending the hard earned money of the 
American taxpayers. This balanced budget amendment is one of the 
necessary steps we must take in order to address our Nation's crushing 
fiscal obligations. That is why I have consistently voted for a 
balanced budget amendment every time it has come before the House--in 
1982, 1990, 1992, 1994 and 1995.
  The national debt is over $15 trillion, annual deficits are over $1 
trillion and we are looking at unfunded obligations and liabilities of 
$62 trillion. I am concerned that if we don't deal with this crushing 
burden now it could lead to another downgrade of our Nation's credit 
rating. This could make credit, from car loans to mortgage loans to 
college loans, more difficult and expensive to obtain. Everything must 
be on the table for consideration--all entitlement spending, all 
domestic discretionary spending, including defense spending, and tax 
policy--particularly reforms to make the tax code simpler and fairer 
and free from special interest earmarks.
  That is why I have supported every serious effort to resolve this 
crisis: the Bowles-Simpson recommendations, the ``Gang of Six'' effort, 
the ``Cut, Cap and Balance'' bill, and the Budget Control Act. None of 
these solutions were perfect, but they all took the steps necessary to 
rebuild and protect our economy. I also joined a bipartisan group of 
102 of my colleagues in sending the enclosed letter to the Joint Select 
Committee on Deficit Reduction to ``go big'' and identify $4 trillion 
in savings through spending cuts and tax reform in its proposal due 
later this month.
  A balanced budget amendment to the Constitution is but one tool to 
get our fiscal house in order. This balanced budget amendment would 
establish critical institutional reforms that would ensure that the 
Federal Government lives within its means. We must reduce the deficit 
and pay down the debt to ensure that we have the ability to support the 
critical programs that citizens expect the government to provide.
  In his Farewell Address, George Washington instructed the Congress to 
use the public credit as sparingly as possible. We should heed his wise 
words and pass this balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong 
support of H.J. Res. 2, which would require the Federal Government to 
do what American families do every day--balance our budget.
  One of the first votes I cast in Congress was in support of the 
Balanced Budget Amendment. That was in 1995 when the Federal deficit 
was $4.9 trillion--a level that I considered unacceptable to pass on to 
our children and grandchildren. And we came so close, Madam Speaker. 
The Balanced Budget Amendment passed by a two-thirds majority in the 
House.
  This included 72 Democrats. Many of my colleagues from the other side 
of the aisle that I see here today stood with us to do what is best for 
the future of our country.
  We came just one vote shy of passing it in the Senate, and have paid 
for this failure every day since, Madam Speaker. It has been 16 years 
and over 10 trillion dollars more in debt since I voted for the 
Balanced Budget Amendment.
  The Federal deficit was unacceptable then, and it is unconscionable 
today--growing an incredible $1.6 billion per day.
  This has led us to where we are today--facing a $15 trillion dollar 
debt that leaves future generations in even greater jeopardy and is 
causing serious harm to our economy.
  Former Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen recently said that 
the greatest threat to our country is not Al-Qaeda--it is our national 
debt.
  It is threatening our economy, our standard of living, and our very 
way of life.
  Madam Speaker, just think of how different our country would be if we 
had succeeded in 1995.
  It seems like such a simple concept--only spending as much as we take 
in.
  This is our chance to make history. Let's not force future 
generations to look back and see how Congress once again failed to 
change the course of American history and get our economy back on 
track.
  As a grandfather, Madam Speaker, I strongly urge all of my 
colleagues, regardless of political affiliation, to stand up for the 
future of our country and join me in voting for this vital resolution.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Madam Speaker, I rise in 
opposition of the proposed Balanced-Budget Amendment to the U.S. 
Constitution.
  The constitutional balanced budget amendment we are debating this 
week could force Congress to indiscriminately cut all programs by an 
average of 17.3 percent by 2018. According to the Center on Budget and 
Policy Priorities, if revenues are not raised and all programs are cut 
by the same percentage, Social Security would be cut $184 billion in 
2018 alone and almost $1.2 trillion through 2021; Medicare would be cut 
$117 billion in 2018 and about $750 billion through 2021; and Medicaid 
and the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) would be cut $80 
billion in 2018 and about $500 billion through 2021.
  I am also concerned the measure adds arbitrary caps on Federal 
spending that achieves nothing but to cripple this government's ability 
to jumpstart the economy, make the important investments to secure our 
future, and ultimately put Americans back to work.
  That is why I, along with leading economists and Nobel laureates in 
economics, strongly oppose this radical and debilitating method for 
addressing our budget woes.
  My republican colleagues have already had countless opportunities in 
this Congress to work with us to develop a tangible plan to reduce the 
deficit and fix this economy. In fact, Republicans have voted seventeen 
times against Democratic proposals or efforts to simply consider 
proposals to create or protect American jobs.
  Fervent calls for a balanced budget make for great political talking 
points. However, it makes little to no practical sense to stymie this 
government indefinitely in its ability to borrow reasonable amounts of 
money to make smart investments in infrastructure, public services, and 
education. Nobody in this Congress or across the country is claiming 
that there is anything reasonable about borrowing fifteen trillion 
dollars. However, what some of my colleagues and I are going even 
further to say is that it is unreasonable to make severe cuts to vital 
programs that benefit the majority of Americans at a time when this 
type of investment is needed the most.
  Even ignoring all of these points, a balanced-budget amendment would 
not even take effect in time to address the budget problems that 
Americans are experiencing today. In fact, if ratified by three-
quarters of the States, the amendment would not take effect until the 
second fiscal year beginning after ratification, or the first fiscal 
year beginning December 31, 2016, whichever is later.
  The economic problems we are experiencing are a very real threat 
today. Ignoring all of the fundamental problems with this amendment, it 
does nothing to address the problems we are having today. Americans are 
hurting today and we must do what we can today to address these 
problems. The Balanced-Budget Amendment to our Constitution is not the 
right solution.
  This country is at a crossroad. I am not talking about finances or 
the economy. I am talking about a fundamental crossroads in beliefs 
that will affect generations after generations to come. This debate we 
are having today goes well beyond the national debt. It is about the 
fundamental beliefs whether or not we want government to provide the 
vast amounts of public services we enjoy today or to rely on for-profit 
private entities to provide those services to us on a for-profit basis.
  This amendment would force us to shrink government to impractical 
levels, paving the way for severely reduced public services, very 
little oversight in the way private entities provide goods and 
services, and free reign for businesses to operate with the sole 
purpose in mind of making a profit.
  Madam Speaker, I strongly oppose this Balanced-Budget Amendment that 
is being considered by the House. I implore my colleagues to see reason 
and oppose this measure that is before us today. It is a radical 
measure that would prove catastrophic for this country for generations 
to come.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Madam Speaker, I oppose this amendment to our 
Constitution that purports to balance our nation's budget, but instead 
serves merely as an excuse for Congress to avoid the real 
responsibilities of governing. When the balanced budget amendment 
freight train was moving through Congress in 1995 and a number of 
people piled

[[Page H7871]]

on, it passed in the House overwhelmingly, but it failed in the Senate 
by one vote. The only Republican who voted no was Senator Mark 
Hatfield. As Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, he was visited 
repeatedly by some of the most ardent proponents of a ``balanced 
budget,'' asking him for special treatment so that they might spend 
more money in their home states. Senator Hatfield recognized that, in 
his words, a vote for a balanced budget amendment is, ``not a vote for 
a balanced budget, it is a vote for a fig leaf.''
  Amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget is an 
irresponsible approach to fiscal discipline. It does not balance the 
budget; instead, it would restrict the government's ability to provide 
for the common welfare, to respond to economic crises and natural 
disasters, and to invest in America. Under a balanced budget amendment, 
recessions would be longer and deeper because Congress would be forced 
to raise taxes, cut spending, or both in order to meet the 
constitutional mandate. This flies in the face of sound economic 
policy. If the balanced budget amendment were in effect today, it would 
throw 15 million more people out of work, double the unemployment rate, 
and slash our economy by 17 percent.
  It would also require devastating cuts to critical programs like 
Social Security, Medicare, and veteran's benefits. No program would be 
spared: education, job training, natural resources, environmental and 
financial protection, and transportation would all suffer under 
spending cuts. Yet a balanced budget amendment would do nothing for the 
corporate tax loopholes and benefits for the wealthy that cost 
taxpayers billions of dollars.
  A balanced budget amendment limits the government's response to 
natural disasters. This year alone, our country has experienced 
flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes that have taken 
hundreds of lives and caused billions of dollars in damage. Our 
communities need immediate support to help those who are injured and 
without a home, and to help clean up the devastation. A balanced budget 
amendment would tie the government's hands by requiring the slow 
machinery of Congress to act before relief could be given to suffering 
families.
  A popular argument in favor of a balanced budget amendment is that 
families across the country must live within their means, and thus, so 
should Congress. But few families paid cash for their home. And few 
students paid cash for their college education. Families in Oregon 
borrow money for important investments that will build their lifetime 
wealth and improve the quality of their lives. Congress must be able to 
make similar investments to rebuild and renew America--shoring up the 
country's crumbling infrastructure, repairing our dilapidated schools, 
and creating the energy resources that will drive the future of our 
economy.
  Balancing the budget does not require a constitutional amendment. It 
requires courage and compromise.
  After Senator Hatfield courageously voted no on the balanced budget 
amendment in 1995, Congress in fact was able to move forward to rein in 
spending and raise an appropriate level of revenue that balanced the 
budget for four consecutive years. Unfortunately, when Republicans took 
control of Congress and the Bush administration took power, restraint 
was lost, our nation's wealth was given away, deficits skyrocketed, and 
their tax cut and spending policies drive our deficit to this day.
  A balanced budget amendment is a phony solution. Instead, members of 
Congress must stand up and work together to provide a balance of 
increased revenues and sensible spending cuts. Doing otherwise merely 
avoids our responsibilities and is an insult to the people who sent us 
to represent them in Congress.
  Mr. WAXMAN. Madam Speaker, I am unalterably opposed to this proposed 
Constitutional amendment. President Obama stated it succinctly earlier 
this year: ``We won't need a constitutional amendment to do our job.'' 
He is right. President Clinton and Congress enjoyed balanced budgets in 
1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. The proponents of this deeply flawed and 
highly dangerous tampering with our Constitution are dead wrong. All 
that is needed is the responsible exercise of choices about our budget.
  This proposed constitutional amendment fails on several counts:
  First and foremost, the proposed amendment does not pass the truth in 
labeling test. There is nothing in it that requires Congress, under any 
and all conditions, to pass a balanced budget. Under the voting 
procedures that are established, Congress can pass an unbalanced 
budget.
  Second, there is a dangerous tampering with the fundamental principle 
of majority rule in the House of Representatives. Today, the majority 
rules in votes on the budget. Under this proposed constitutional 
amendment, it will require a three-fifths (60%) vote of the House to 
pass a budget that is not in balance. The last thing the United States 
House of Representatives needs is to become more like the United States 
Senate in its rules for voting on legislation. We need coherence, not 
paralysis. We elect a President with a majority of the Electoral 
College. We should certainly be permitted to pass a budget through a 
simple majority vote in the House of Representatives--just as we do 
today. That's democracy. This proposed constitutional amendment is 
undemocratic.
  Third, this amendment, by requiring a three-fifths vote in the House 
to approve any increase in the public debt limit, guarantees an annual 
repeat of the debacle we experienced this summer. Our debt goes up--or 
down--based on spending and tax decisions previously taken by Congress. 
The debt that exists is simply an expression of spending and tax bills 
already enacted into law. Increasing the public debt should therefore 
be a simple, technical legislative act. By imposing a supermajority 
requirement on any increase in the public debt, this guarantees that we 
will face a recurring risk of default on the full faith and credit of 
the United States. This summer, we saw fear spread in households across 
America, and havoc in markets worldwide, out of grave concern over what 
a default would mean. This amendment would cement such instability into 
the Constitution itself. To perpetuate uncertainty over whether the 
United States will default on its obligation is dangerous and 
irresponsible.
  Fourth, this so-called balance budget amendment is, at its heart, a 
fraud. Section 7 of the proposed amendment provides that the budget is 
deemed in balance when outlays match receipts--except for revenues 
derived from borrowing and outlays of interest payments on the national 
debt. In other words, carrying the national debt does not count. This 
is not a balanced budget, as payment of the debt will require trillions 
in spending on interest for decades to come. Even under the draconian 
Republican budget plan adopted earlier this year by the House, the 
budget, with all its harsh cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social 
Security, would not approach being truly balanced until the 2030s or 
later. The House Republicans may want the American people to think this 
is a vote on a balanced budget constitutional amendment. What they are 
not telling you up front is that the United States budget will be in 
deficit for decades even if this becomes part of the Constitution. The 
American people should not be fooled.
  Fifth, this amendment will gravely injure our seniors, and those who 
rely on Medicare and Medicaid. This amendment will require cuts at 
least as harsh as those rammed through the House by the Republicans 
earlier this year.
  This will mean the end of Medicare as we know it, and it will be 
devastating for Medicare beneficiaries. The Congressional Budget Office 
concluded that the Republican budget, by privatizing Medicare, will 
more than double beneficiary costs for new enrollees. The average 
senior will face increased costs of over $6,000 annually when the 
program begins. And all of that extra spending by seniors and people 
with disabilities will go to private health insurance plans. The 
transfer of seniors into private plans will raise costs by over $11,000 
per beneficiary by 2030. To add insult to injury, the Republican budget 
reopens the donut hole under the Part D prescription drug benefit, 
increasing the burden on seniors within 5 years.
  For Medicaid, the Republican budget approved by the House was even 
worse. Medicaid accounts for 43% of total long term care spending in 
the U.S. But the Republican budget cuts Medicaid in half by 2022, and 
turns it into a block grant for the states. Moreover, by cutting 
reimbursement rates, Medicaid will lose health providers. At least 18 
million people will be cut off from access to Medicaid. There will be a 
loss of quality and staffing in nursing homes--which means job losses 
in the health professions--as well as cuts to programs that provide in-
home services to keep seniors independent.
  There are other deep flaws in this proposal. The amendment puts our 
ability to respond to national crisis in a straightjacket. Section 5 of 
the proposed amendment permits an absolute majority of the House to 
vote to waive the balanced budget requirement if we are at war. But if 
we face an economic emergency--like we do today--the balanced budget 
requirement can only be waived by a three-fifths vote of the House. The 
economic crisis we face today is at least as significant as the Iraq 
war--but this amendment would make it harder to respond to recession 
and unemployment.
  Also troubling is the prospect that the courts will become involved 
in budgets passed by Congress. By placing the budget under a specific 
constitutional amendment, it is likely that the courts could be asked 
to rule on whether a budget, as passed, complies with the requirements 
of the constitutional amendment. Is it really balanced? If this 
amendment is passed, we head down a dangerous legal road.

[[Page H7872]]

  Madam Speaker, this week, 273 organizations representing health, 
welfare, labor, public advocacy and community groups across the Nation, 
have written to the Congress to insist that we reject this balanced 
budget constitutional amendment. Their letter states:

       A balanced budget constitutional amendment would damage the 
     economy, not strengthen it. Demanding that policymakers cut 
     spending and/or raise taxes, even when the economy slows, is 
     the opposite of what is needed to stabilize a weak economy 
     and avert recessions. Such steps would risk tipping a 
     faltering economy into recession or worsening an ongoing 
     downturn, costing large numbers of jobs while blocking worthy 
     investments to stimulate jobs and growth and address the 
     nation's urgent needs in infrastructure and other areas . . .
       A balanced budget amendment has no place in the 
     Constitution of the United States. Our Constitution has 
     served the nation well because it represents enduring 
     principles that are the foundations of our government. It 
     should not be used as a substitute for real leadership on 
     fiscal policy.

  We do not need a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. We 
do not need to turn the House into the Senate. We do not need to impose 
inhumane cuts on the most vulnerable in our society. And we do not need 
to ruin the fabric of the Constitution of the United States of America.
  Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong support of 
H.J. Res. 2, which proposes a Balanced Budget Amendment to the 
Constitution. It's time to tighten the nation's purse strings and keep 
Washington from spending more than we can afford.
  For too long Congress and the President, on a bipartisan basis, have 
let down the American people in our unwillingness and inability to be 
responsible with our nation's finances. We have spent too much, 
borrowed too much, and have failed to face the fact that we can no 
longer continue to spend money that we do not have. A Balanced Budget 
Amendment to the Constitution would legally force our government to 
live within its means. It's interesting to see that while many of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, including our President, 
have argued that a constitutional amendment is not necessary, 49 states 
currently abide by some form of a balanced budget requirement.
  President Obama urged opposition to this legislation, clearly showing 
how out of touch he is. He just doesn't seem to get it. Americans 
overwhelmingly support a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution 
because their government has proven that it is unable to be responsible 
with their money. The arguments against a Balanced Budget Amendment 
appear to rest on the concerns that this will finally stop out-of-
control spending; meaning Congress will no longer be able to spend at 
will on programs that may be nice to have, but are unnecessary or 
unaffordable.
  The measure on the floor today is a good compromise between those who 
wanted a stronger Balanced Budget Amendment, and those who felt such 
proposals went too far. While I would have preferred the version that 
placed greater restriction on Congress's ability to tax and spend, I am 
pleased to support his legislation.
  It is simply unfair to continue to pass our financial burdens along 
to our children and grandchildren. Given Congress's history of not 
being responsible with the American people's hard earned money, it is 
time we put in place these limitations on spending. A Balanced Budget 
Amendment would finally force us to make tough decisions about how we 
spend our money. This is not a silver bullet; however, it is an 
important step in controlling spending and restoring confidence among 
the American people. I strongly support passage of this important 
legislation, and urge my colleagues to support the bill.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Madam Speaker, I rise in strong opposition 
to H.J. Res. 2--the Balanced Budget Amendment.
  We do need to responsibly reduce our budget deficits and debt, but 
the best way to do that is by investing, building and growing our 
economy--or through balanced economic growth--not a Balanced Budget 
Amendment.
  What is the most important question to be raised with respect to the 
BBA?
  We have serious gaps in our society that need to be narrowed: 
Economic gaps between the rich and the poor--ask the 99%; social gaps 
between racial minorities and the majority population; gender gaps--
women earn 76 cents of what men earn; generational gaps--will Social 
Security be there for the next generation?; and infrastructure gaps--
upgrades to roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewer systems, 
high speed rail, airports and more in order to remain competitive in 
the world marketplace.
  So the most important question is this: How does the BBA narrow these 
economic, social, gender, generational and infrastructure gaps? It 
won't! It will exacerbate them!
  The BBA will permanently establish the United States as a ``separate 
and unequal'' society!
  The BBA will balance the federal budget on the backs of the poor, the 
working class and the middle class.
  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Citizens for Tax 
Justice says the BBA would: Damage our economy by making recessions 
deeper and frequent; heighten the risk of default and jeopardize the 
full faith and credit of the U.S. Government; lead to reductions in 
needed investments for the future; favor wealthy Americans over middle- 
and low-income Americans by making it far more difficult to raise 
revenues and easier to cut programs; and weaken the principle of 
majority rule.
  Before we affirm a BBA, we need to consider our future--not just the 
future of America's debt, but America's future. Do we want a future 
that is bright with promise? A future with innovation? A future with 
the best schools, the brightest students, and the strongest and 
healthiest workers? Do we want to continue to lead the world?
  My answer is ``yes.''
  Madam Speaker, I respectfully urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on 
this irresponsible and short-sighted amendment.
  Mr. HONDA. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to House Joint 
Resolution 2, the ``Balanced Budget'' Constitutional Amendment. This 
misguided proposal would harm our economic recovery by destroying jobs, 
cutting Medicare and Social Security, and increasing the likelihood 
that the United States will default on its debt.
  With the nation struggling to recover from the economic crisis, the 
American people want Congress to focus on addressing the root causes of 
our country's economic hardships, not passing pointless message pieces 
to satisfy the Republican base that fail to get Americans back to work.
  In fact, if we amend our Constitution in the way that H.J. Res. 2 
proposes, it will wreak havoc on our economy. If enacted in Fiscal Year 
2012, this Balanced Budget Amendment would cost 15 million people their 
jobs, double our unemployment rate to 18%, and cause our economy to 
shrink by 17%. As Bruce Bartlett, former advisor to President Ronald 
Reagan, correctly points out, rapidly cutting spending to balance our 
budget would throw our country into a recession.
  This Balanced Budget Amendment would harm our middle class, seniors, 
and veterans at a time when they are most vulnerable. This amendment 
could force Congress to cut all programs by 17% by 2018. Furthermore, 
it would cut Social Security by $1.2 trillion, Medicare by $750 
billion, and veterans' benefits by $85 billion through 2021.
  Proponents are suggesting this is a simple balanced budget amendment, 
but it is not. Instead, H.J. Res. 2 would enshrine in our Constitution 
a requirement that Congress would need a three-fifths supermajority 
vote to raise the debt ceiling. This would make permanent the 
dysfunction we witnessed this summer, which created chaos in our 
financial markets and nearly unleashed a catastrophic default, and 
raise the likelihood that our country would default on its debts.
  Madam Speaker, this Constitutional Amendment is not only bad for our 
country, but it is entirely unnecessary. If we want to balance our 
budget, we should instead allow the Bush Tax Cuts sunset, and bring our 
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to an end. This would cut $5 trillion in 
spending and leave our country on sounder financial footing without 
harming our economic growth and our most vulnerable citizens.
  This Balanced Budget Amendment would put the federal government under 
far tighter constraints than States and families operate under every 
day, and it would open the door to federal courts making the budget 
decisions that should be made by our elected officials. Our nation 
needs real legislation that will create jobs and stimulate growth, not 
a Constitutional Amendment that will cut jobs, kill growth, all in the 
name of balancing the budget. Our budget problems can instead be 
resolved in a responsible manner, but this amendment is not it. I urge 
my colleagues to reject H.J. Res. 2.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, earlier this week the federal budget 
eclipsed 15 trillion dollars. The passing of this milestone underscores 
the real, substantive need to address our ballooning debt crisis. It is 
past time for Congress to take action and put this nation on a path to 
fiscal responsibility. That is why today I will vote in favor of a 
balanced budget amendment to the United States constitution.
  Madam Speaker, this country has a spending problem and a balanced 
budget amendment is the only permanent fix to ensure that we stop 
burdening our children and grandchildren with a debt they cannot 
afford. Last year alone, the United States ran a 1.3 trillion dollar 
budget deficit. That means we spent 1.3 trillion dollars that we do not 
have. Under this balanced budget amendment, Congress would be forced to 
live within its means and balance our checkbook, just like millions of 
Americans

[[Page H7873]]

across this country. I urge my colleagues to help ensure that America's 
best days lie in its future and join me in passing this balanced budget 
amendment.
                                  ____
                                  
  Mr. STARK. Madam Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.J. Res. 2, the 
Balanced Budget Amendment. This amendment is just another opportunity 
for the House Majority to pander to their right wing base instead of 
focusing on the issue that ordinary families care about--jobs.
  The families in my district are concerned about their next paycheck 
and how they will make that next mortgage or rent payment. Unemployment 
is unacceptably high, and in California it's even higher than the 
national average. There are five applicants for every available job. 
Unemployment benefits are set to expire at the end of the year for 
305,000 people in my state, and millions nationwide. Our highest 
priority should be creating jobs and helping those who need help 
staying afloat while they search for work.
  Instead of creating jobs the Congress is voting on this reckless 
amendment to the Constitution that would damage our shaky economy and 
end Social Security and Medicare as we know them. This balanced budget 
amendment would prevent the U.S. from responding to an economic crisis 
or making the investments we need to repair our infrastructure. H.J. 
Res. 2 is designed to guarantee that working families will bear the 
burden of deficit reduction through steep cuts to vital programs, 
instead of asking the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes.
  The balanced budget amendment is a distraction. The legislation has 
no chance of getting 2/3 support in the House and Senate or the support 
of 3/5 of the states, which is needed for ratification. We certainly 
won't be seeing a balanced budget amendment added to our Constitution 
anytime soon. This vote is typical for this Republican Congress. It is 
no surprise that our approval rating is 9%. Since Republicans took 
control of the House, the agenda has been dominated by symbolic votes 
to wipe out environmental protections, eliminate states' abilities to 
control guns, reaffirm our national motto which no one has threatened, 
limit access to abortion, weaken social insurance programs, and 
outsource American jobs.
  There are plenty of good ideas to get our economy back on track. We 
could extend unemployment insurance, create jobs by repairing our 
infrastructure, and reform our tax code so the wealthy and Wall Street 
are paying their fair share. This balanced budget amendment doesn't 
impact our economy at all. Instead, it is a distraction from that work. 
I urge my colleagues to join me in voting no.
                                  ____
                                  
  Mr. MICA. Madam Speaker, today I rise in support of the amending the 
Constitution to include a Balanced Budget Amendment requiring 
government to live within its means.
  This week, our national debt surpassed $15 trillion. Our nation faces 
difficult economic times, a good part due to spending beyond our means. 
Debt per household and for every American is at an unsustainable level 
and jeopardizes our future. We can balance our budget. I helped and 
voted for that responsible path which we achieved from 1996 to 2001.
  We have today the opportunity to take an important step toward 
reestablishing fiscal order to our nation. Congress must ensure that 
the reckless spending and poor choices of today do not doom our 
children and grandchildren to insurmountable indebtedness.
  Having balanced our budgets in the past, and, while it will not be 
easy, it can be done again. Families and businesses have made the tough 
choices that are required. Government must now follow.
  I strongly encourage my colleagues to support the passage of this 
resolution and provide Americans the opportunity to vote on a Balanced 
Budget Amendment. This is a decision not just for the House of 
Representatives or Congress, but for the American people. History will 
judge us today on how we have laid the foundation for the success of 
future generations. I urge my colleagues to make the right choice.
                                  ____
                                  
  Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, today's debate over the balanced budget 
amendment is highly instructive. It throws the differences between 
those who believe in limited government and those who believe in an 
ever-expanding federal government into sharp relief.
  This debate brings to mind what American founder Alexander Hamilton 
wrote in Federalist Paper 84.
  He said that the Bill of Rights was ``. . . not only unnecessary in 
the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous.''
  He thought that it ``would contain various exceptions to powers not 
granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to 
claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be 
done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be 
said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no 
power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?''
  He made a good point, but the Bill of Rights was adopted and has 
served to secure many of the liberties we enjoy.
  Even though he was somewhat wrong about the Bill of Rights, he was 
correct in understanding the nature of power and government.
  After all, if a power is implied, enthusiasts of big government are 
bound to leverage the slightest constitutional hiccup into a new 
``enumerated power.'' It appears that Hamilton understood very well the 
tendency of some to rush to the federal government to solve problems, 
create programs and expand in size and scope. In this sense, Hamilton 
was correct; the specter of an expanded and powerful central government 
is one that destroys and suppresses freedom.
  That is why this debate over a balanced budget amendment is so 
important, if only for the sharp contrasts it unveils between the 
various parties to this crucial debate and the visions for limited 
government and big government.
  Mr. FARR. Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to the 
Balanced Budget Amendment. The purpose of Congress is to serve the 
American people and this Amendment is an unforgiveable disservice to 
our constituents. Let's look at the facts: the American people want 
jobs. But this amendment would destroy some 15 million jobs, double 
unemployment, and contract the economy by an estimated 17%. The 
American people want security. But this amendment requires draconian 
cuts to critical lifelines like Medicare, Social Security, and 
veterans' benefits. The American people want a future for their 
children. But this amendment blocks investments in education and 
infrastructure, elevates the risk of federal default, and as Reagan's 
Economic Advisor Bruce Bartlett said would unquestionably cause another 
recession. But here's the one thing this Amendment would do for the 
American people: reinforce their belief that Congress can't get 
anything good done.
  This legislative body is better than that. And it is better than this 
amendment, which is nothing more than political theater. And at a time 
of 9% unemployment and a contracted economy, there is no excuse to 
waste taxpayer dollars on petty political gamesmanship.
  Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment and get 
down to the serious legislative business of restoring order to our 
fiscal house. I have joined with many of my Democratic colleagues in 
fighting to stabilize the economy, create jobs, and build a better 
future for our children and grandchildren. And I will not stop this 
fight until we have rebuilt our economy so that the men and women of 
America can get back to work.
  Mr. KIND. Madam Speaker, today I rise in support of H.J. Res. 2, the 
Balanced Budget Amendment.
   The Balanced Budget Amendment is now the only check on the last 
decade Republican fiscal mismanagement. It is a practical solution to 
the last decade of Republican irresponsible spending. Of course, the 
easier response than going through the process of amending the U.S. 
Constitution is reinstituting pay-as-you-go budgeting rules, which I 
fully support. Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues do not.
   Pay-as-you-go budgeting led our country into the healthy economic 
dynamic we saw in the 1990's under President Clinton. It, too, forced 
us to make tough decisions about our spending, but led to four years of 
budget surpluses, 27 million private sector jobs, and excess payments 
on our national debt. Unfortunately, the Republicans squandered all of 
that away as they recklessly cast aside fiscal discipline to enter two 
wars, enact two large tax cuts, and increase entitlement spending, all 
of which were not paid for. And all of which transformed our country 
from one with a budget surplus to one with a $1.5 trillion budget 
deficit in just eight short years.
   I share my colleagues' concerns about the requirement for a 
supermajority to raise the debt ceiling in light of the irresponsible 
actions of House Republicans earlier this year when they nearly forced 
the U.S. Government into default.
   We must act with fiscal responsibility and attention to long-term 
deficit reduction. And time is of the essence for the sake of economic 
growth and job creation--now and for future generations.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) that the House suspend the rules and 
pass the joint resolution, H.J. Res. 2, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds not 
being in the affirmative, the noes have it.
  Mr. GOODLATTE. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, this 15-

[[Page H7874]]

minute vote on the motion to suspend the rules will be followed by a 5-
minute vote on adoption of House Resolution 470.
  The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 261, 
nays 165, not voting 8, as follows:

                             [Roll No. 858]

                               YEAS--261

     Adams
     Aderholt
     Akin
     Alexander
     Altmire
     Amodei
     Austria
     Bachmann
     Bachus
     Barletta
     Barrow
     Bartlett
     Barton (TX)
     Bass (NH)
     Benishek
     Berg
     Biggert
     Bilbray
     Bilirakis
     Bishop (GA)
     Bishop (UT)
     Black
     Blackburn
     Boehner
     Bonner
     Bono Mack
     Boren
     Boswell
     Boustany
     Brady (TX)
     Brooks
     Broun (GA)
     Buchanan
     Bucshon
     Buerkle
     Burgess
     Burton (IN)
     Calvert
     Camp
     Campbell
     Canseco
     Cantor
     Capito
     Cardoza
     Carter
     Cassidy
     Chabot
     Chaffetz
     Chandler
     Coble
     Coffman (CO)
     Cole
     Conaway
     Cooper
     Costa
     Costello
     Cravaack
     Crawford
     Crenshaw
     Cuellar
     Culberson
     Davis (KY)
     DeFazio
     Denham
     Dent
     DesJarlais
     Diaz-Balart
     Dold
     Donnelly (IN)
     Duffy
     Duncan (SC)
     Duncan (TN)
     Ellmers
     Emerson
     Farenthold
     Fincher
     Fitzpatrick
     Flake
     Fleischmann
     Fleming
     Flores
     Forbes
     Fortenberry
     Foxx
     Franks (AZ)
     Frelinghuysen
     Gallegly
     Gardner
     Garrett
     Gerlach
     Gibbs
     Gibson
     Gingrey (GA)
     Goodlatte
     Gosar
     Gowdy
     Granger
     Graves (GA)
     Graves (MO)
     Griffin (AR)
     Griffith (VA)
     Grimm
     Guinta
     Guthrie
     Hall
     Hanna
     Harper
     Harris
     Hartzler
     Hastings (WA)
     Hayworth
     Heck
     Hensarling
     Herger
     Herrera Beutler
     Hochul
     Holden
     Huelskamp
     Huizenga (MI)
     Hultgren
     Hunter
     Hurt
     Inslee
     Issa
     Jenkins
     Johnson (IL)
     Johnson (OH)
     Johnson, Sam
     Jones
     Jordan
     Kelly
     Kind
     King (IA)
     King (NY)
     Kingston
     Kinzinger (IL)
     Kissell
     Kline
     Labrador
     Lamborn
     Lance
     Landry
     Lankford
     Latham
     LaTourette
     Latta
     Lewis (CA)
     Lipinski
     LoBiondo
     Loebsack
     Long
     Lucas
     Luetkemeyer
     Lummis
     Lungren, Daniel E.
     Mack
     Manzullo
     Marchant
     Marino
     Matheson
     McCarthy (CA)
     McCaul
     McClintock
     McCotter
     McHenry
     McIntyre
     McKeon
     McKinley
     McMorris Rodgers
     Meehan
     Mica
     Miller (FL)
     Miller (MI)
     Miller, Gary
     Mulvaney
     Murphy (PA)
     Myrick
     Neugebauer
     Noem
     Nugent
     Nunnelee
     Olson
     Palazzo
     Paulsen
     Pearce
     Pence
     Peterson
     Petri
     Pitts
     Platts
     Poe (TX)
     Pompeo
     Posey
     Price (GA)
     Quayle
     Reed
     Rehberg
     Reichert
     Renacci
     Ribble
     Rigell
     Rivera
     Roby
     Roe (TN)
     Rogers (AL)
     Rogers (KY)
     Rogers (MI)
     Rohrabacher
     Rokita
     Rooney
     Ros-Lehtinen
     Roskam
     Ross (AR)
     Ross (FL)
     Royce
     Runyan
     Scalise
     Schilling
     Schmidt
     Schock
     Schweikert
     Scott (SC)
     Scott, Austin
     Sensenbrenner
     Sessions
     Shimkus
     Shuler
     Shuster
     Simpson
     Smith (NE)
     Smith (NJ)
     Smith (TX)
     Southerland
     Stearns
     Stivers
     Stutzman
     Sullivan
     Terry
     Thompson (PA)
     Thornberry
     Tiberi
     Tipton
     Turner (NY)
     Turner (OH)
     Upton
     Walberg
     Walden
     Walsh (IL)
     Webster
     West
     Westmoreland
     Whitfield
     Wilson (SC)
     Wittman
     Wolf
     Womack
     Woodall
     Yoder
     Young (AK)
     Young (FL)
     Young (IN)

                               NAYS--165

     Ackerman
     Amash
     Andrews
     Baca
     Baldwin
     Becerra
     Berkley
     Berman
     Bishop (NY)
     Blumenauer
     Brady (PA)
     Braley (IA)
     Brown (FL)
     Butterfield
     Capps
     Capuano
     Carnahan
     Carney
     Carson (IN)
     Castor (FL)
     Chu
     Cicilline
     Clarke (MI)
     Clarke (NY)
     Clay
     Cleaver
     Clyburn
     Cohen
     Connolly (VA)
     Conyers
     Courtney
     Critz
     Crowley
     Cummings
     Davis (CA)
     Davis (IL)
     DeGette
     DeLauro
     Dicks
     Dingell
     Doggett
     Doyle
     Dreier
     Edwards
     Ellison
     Engel
     Eshoo
     Farr
     Fattah
     Frank (MA)
     Fudge
     Garamendi
     Gohmert
     Gonzalez
     Green, Al
     Green, Gene
     Grijalva
     Gutierrez
     Hahn
     Hanabusa
     Hastings (FL)
     Heinrich
     Higgins
     Himes
     Hinchey
     Hinojosa
     Hirono
     Holt
     Honda
     Hoyer
     Israel
     Jackson (IL)
     Jackson Lee (TX)
     Johnson (GA)
     Johnson, E. B.
     Kaptur
     Keating
     Kildee
     Kucinich
     Langevin
     Larsen (WA)
     Larson (CT)
     Lee (CA)
     Levin
     Lewis (GA)
     Lofgren, Zoe
     Lowey
     Lujan
     Lynch
     Maloney
     Markey
     Matsui
     McCarthy (NY)
     McCollum
     McDermott
     McGovern
     McNerney
     Meeks
     Michaud
     Miller (NC)
     Miller, George
     Moore
     Moran
     Murphy (CT)
     Nadler
     Neal
     Owens
     Pallone
     Pascrell
     Pastor (AZ)
     Payne
     Pelosi
     Perlmutter
     Peters
     Pingree (ME)
     Polis
     Price (NC)
     Quigley
     Rahall
     Rangel
     Reyes
     Richardson
     Richmond
     Rothman (NJ)
     Roybal-Allard
     Ruppersberger
     Rush
     Ryan (OH)
     Ryan (WI)
     Sanchez, Linda T.
     Sanchez, Loretta
     Sarbanes
     Schakowsky
     Schiff
     Schrader
     Schwartz
     Scott (VA)
     Scott, David
     Serrano
     Sewell
     Sherman
     Sires
     Slaughter
     Smith (WA)
     Speier
     Stark
     Sutton
     Thompson (CA)
     Thompson (MS)
     Tierney
     Tonko
     Towns
     Tsongas
     Van Hollen
     Velazquez
     Visclosky
     Walz (MN)
     Wasserman Schultz
     Waters
     Watt
     Waxman
     Welch
     Wilson (FL)
     Woolsey
     Yarmuth

                             NOT VOTING--8

     Bass (CA)
     Deutch
     Filner
     Giffords
     Napolitano
     Nunes
     Olver
     Paul

                              {time}  1358

  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts changed his vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
  Mr. INSLEE changed his vote from ``nay'' to ``yea.''
  So (two-thirds not being in the affirmative) the motion was rejected.
  The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
  Stated against:
  Mr. FILNER. Madam Speaker, on rollcall 858, I was away from the 
Capitol due to prior commitments to my constituents. Had I been 
present, I would have voted ``nay.''
  Mrs. NAPOLITANO. Madam Speaker, I was absent during rollcall vote No. 
858 in order to attend an important event in my district. Had I been 
present, I would have voted ``nay'' on the Motion to Suspend the Rules 
and Pass, As Amended H.J. Res. 2--Proposing a Balanced Budget Amendment 
to the Constitution of the United States.
  Ms. BASS of California. Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 858 I was 
unable to be present as I was in California attending a family funeral. 
Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

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