[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 148 (Thursday, October 8, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7231-S7233]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, a previous President of the United States 
once wrote that if he could add one amendment to the Constitution, it 
would prohibit the Federal Government from incurring more debt. That 
President's name was neither Bush nor Reagan but Jefferson. The 217 
years since then have proven three things: The national debt crisis is 
growing, it is dangerous, and only the Constitution can compel Congress 
to act. We must act before it is too late.
  The national debt was 19 percent of gross domestic product when 
Thomas Jefferson called for a balanced budget amendment. President 
George Washington told the House of Representatives that the regular 
redemption of the public debt was the most urgent fiscal priority. In 
his first report on the public credit in 1790, Treasury Secretary 
Alexander Hamilton warned that continuously accruing national debt 
interest would be a signal ``either of inability, or of ill faith, and 
will not cease to have an evil influence on public credit.''
  The commitment to fiscal balance over the next 150 years was so 
strong that many referred to it as our unwritten fiscal constitution. 
Unfortunately, that commitment did not last. The national debt topped 
40 percent of GDP for the first time in 1934, and 2 years later the 
first balanced budget amendment was introduced in Congress. Eighty 
years ago, Members of Congress began to realize that an unwritten 
constitution was no longer strong enough to limit the national debt. 
Good intentions are not enough to balance the Nation's checkbook.
  Senator Millard Tydings, a Maryland Democrat, introduced the first 
balanced budget amendment to reach the Senate or House floor. The 1947 
Appropriations Committee report on his proposal, S.J. Res. 61, opened 
with these words: ``In no other way except by an amendment to the 
Constitution can Congress be compelled to balance its budget in 
peacetime.'' The Judiciary Committee held its first balanced budget 
amendment hearing in 1956 on amendments introduced by Senator Harry 
Byrd, a Virginia Democrat, and Senator Carl Curtis, a Nebraska 
Republican. In current dollars, the national debt today is nearly five 
times what those distinguished Senators denounced as astronomical and 
staggering.
  Here is where the national debt has gone as Congress has failed to 
propose a balanced budget amendment. Let me refer to this chart. As we 
can see, the national debt as a percentage of GDP is going up the 
charts today to the highest ever. The national debt was 32 percent of 
GDP when I first introduced a balanced budget amendment in 1979. It 
climbed to 34 percent of GDP in 1982 when the Senate--but not the 
House--passed a BBA; more than 62 percent of GDP in 1997 when we came 
within one vote of approving a BBA that I introduced; and 95 percent of 
GDP when the Senate voted on a BBA that I introduced in 2011. Today the 
national debt stands at 103 percent of GDP, literally swallowing the 
economy.
  They say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. As 
the national debt continues to change in the wrong direction, BBA 
opponents make the same arguments they always have. First, they say the 
national debt is simply not a problem that needs a solution. The 
evidence, however, is all around us.
  In a July 2010 policy paper, for example, the Congressional Budget 
Office outlined what it called the significantly negative consequences 
of our rising national debt and repeated those warnings in its latest 
budget outlook. Here are the consequences of a rising national debt--
this is the Congressional Budget Office in 2015--reduced investment, 
resulting in lower national income and higher interest rates; Federal 
spending on interest payments would rise; less flexibility to address 
financial and economic crises; and increased likelihood of a fiscal 
crisis in the United States.
  ADM Michael Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
says this national debt crisis is a serious threat to national 
security--a conclusion echoed by experts from the Brookings Institution 
to the Heritage Foundation--or we can listen to the Government 
Accountability Office, which warned in 2009 that every year since

[[Page S7232]]

that ``the long-term fiscal outlook is unsustainable.''
  A recent study published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives 
looked at periods in different countries over the last two centuries 
when national debt exceeded 90 percent of GDP for more than 5 years. 
The authors found that these periods not only lead to ``substantially 
slower'' economic growth but that ``even if such episodes are 
originally caused by a traumatic event such as a war or financial 
crisis, they can take on a self-propelling character.''
  These findings are very important for us today because the national 
debt has been more than 90 percent of GDP since the recession ended in 
2009. In fact, we are entering the longest period in American history 
with the national debt above this toxic level. CBO projects exactly 
what this study predicts--that the national debt will remain above 100 
percent of GDP and that GDP will grow at a rate ``notably less'' than 
in the past. Our own actual experience already proves the same thing. 
In the 6 years since the recession ended, debt has been twice as high 
and GDP has grown at half the rate as during the same period after 
previous recessions. This really does look like a self-propelling 
crisis.
  The second argument by BBA opponents is that even if the national 
debt is a problem, Congress can solve it by willpower. That willpower 
once existed, but it is long gone. The Federal budget has been balanced 
in only 7 of the 80 years since a balanced budget amendment was first 
introduced in Congress and total deficits over those years dwarf total 
surpluses by 23 to 1.
  The third argument by balanced budget amendment opponents is that 
even if Congress won't solve the national debt by willpower, it can do 
so by legislation. In 1985 we enacted the Balanced Budget and Emergency 
Deficit Control Act of 1985 when the national debt was 42 percent of 
GDP. We have enacted one law after another as the national debt has 
continued to climb. Most recently, we enacted the Budget Control Act of 
2011 when the national debt had swelled to 95 percent of GDP, but it 
failed, as did all the others. Willpower and legislation have both 
failed to tackle this crisis.
  The national debt today stands at nearly $18.2 trillion. In its most 
recent budget outlook, CBO projects that under current law the national 
debt will swell to more than $25 trillion in the next decade. GAO 
issued its latest ``Federal Fiscal Outlook'' report in August. Without 
significant action by Congress, GAO says, Federal debt as a percentage 
of GDP could in the next 25 years climb to four times its historical 
average.
  New data show that the deficit for fiscal year 2015 will likely be 
lower than expected. If the best thing to say about our current fiscal 
condition is that it could be worse, we are really in trouble. In its 
June long-term budget outlook, CBO says that after a few years at a 
more modest level, deficits will once again increase, especially when 
interest rates start to rise.
  Since President Obama took office, we have seen both the greatest 
buildup of debt and the lowest interest rates in history. This is the 
perfect fiscal storm. Even a small rise in interest rates will explode 
the cost of servicing this massive debt and contribute to higher 
deficits and greater debt. CBO projects that interest rates will indeed 
rise, and, as a result, ``the government's net interest costs are 
projected to more than double relative to the size of the economy over 
the next decade.'' Both CBO and the Concord Coalition anticipate that 
over the next decade, interest costs alone will approach $1 trillion a 
year--that is with a ``t''--$1 trillion a year.
  The fourth argument by BBA opponents really amounts to plain old 
scare tactics. They figure that Americans may want a balanced budget 
but only if their own favorite spending continues. So BBA opponents 
claim that a BBA will automatically cut this or that program. Not only 
is this a cynical approach to a very serious problem, but it is not 
true. A balanced budget amendment will require that Congress finally 
get serious about priorities and decide which spending is the most 
important and the most cost-effective. Long-term fiscal responsibility 
is more important than any one spending item in the budget.
  I introduced my first balanced budget constitutional amendment in 
June 1979. I said then and I repeat today that a balanced budget 
amendment ``requires that Congress think in order of budget 
priorities.'' Nothing short of the Constitution will make that happen.
  One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and 
expecting different results. Neither willpower nor legislation can 
tackle the growing national debt crisis. It has been nearly 70 years 
and more than $15 trillion of debt since the Appropriations Committee 
declared in 1947 that only a constitutional amendment can compel 
Congress to balance its budget. That is the only option left.
  The last gasp of BBA opponents isn't really an argument at all. They 
say that adopting a balanced budget amendment will not by itself solve 
the debt crisis. I have introduced 7 and cosponsored 20 balanced budget 
amendments since I was first elected. In all this time, during all the 
hearings and floor debates, I have never once heard anyone claim that 
adopting a balanced budget amendment will, by itself, magically make 
the debt disappear. Of course it won't. Neither did enacting all of 
those so called budget control acts. Congress will still have to make 
the decisions to determine whether we continue drowning in debt or 
chart a different course.
  Congress cannot amend the Constitution by itself. Article V of the 
Constitution provides that constitutional amendments may be proposed by 
either two-thirds of Congress or by a convention called at the request 
of two-thirds of the States. In either case, a proposed amendment does 
not become part of the Constitution until at least three-fourths or 
three-quarters of the States ratify it. Congress can do nothing more 
than propose a balanced budget amendment so that the American people 
may decide whether they want to add it to their Constitution.
  Government does not get to set its own rules. The Constitution is the 
law that governs government, and it belongs to the American people. It 
is the primary way the American people set rules for how their 
government must operate.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be permitted to finish 
these remarks.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, Congress has proven, over decades of 
failure resulting in trillions of dollars of debt, that it will not 
exercise its fiscal authority properly. The American people must be 
given a chance to decide whether to make fiscal responsibility 
mandatory. It is the American people who ought to decide this. The only 
way they can is to propose a balanced budget amendment and send it to 
the States for consideration.
  I have looked at dozens of national polls since I was first elected 
to the Senate conducted by major polling firms or national news 
organizations. Three-quarters of Americans supported a balanced budget 
amendment in 1976 and three-quarters supported it last year. Is it 
possible, however, that all of those polls over all those years are 
actually wrong? The American people might be content with the national 
debt swallowing the economy. They may not be bothered by being on an 
unsustainable fiscal path. Who knows, they might welcome soaring 
national debt interest payments crowding out other budget priorities. 
They might be OK with slower economic growth and a greater threat to 
national security. The American people might believe, with balanced 
budget amendment opponents here in Washington, that the national debt 
is no big deal or that Congress can solve it on its own. If so, then 
the American people will decline to ratify a balanced budget amendment, 
but the choice has to be theirs, not ours.

  The Peter G. Peterson Foundation also does polling, each month 
compiling the Fiscal Confidence Index of Americans' opinions about the 
national debt. The results are both clear and consistent: 71 percent of 
Americans are concerned about national debt, as seen here--let me just 
define it a little bit--71 percent say their concerns about the 
national debt have increased; 63 percent say addressing the national 
debt is on the wrong track; 81 percent say addressing the national debt 
should be

[[Page S7233]]

among Congress's top three priorities; 83 percent say Congress should 
spend more time addressing the national debt; 62 percent expect the 
national debt crisis to get worse in the next few years.
  Some of my colleagues may believe we have no obligation to handle the 
American people's money responsibly. They might still claim that 
Congress can get its fiscal act together on its own or they may deny 
that the American people should be able to set the fiscal rules for the 
government they elect, using the Constitution that belongs to them.
  Those colleagues should remember what the American people think about 
Congress. Disapproval of this institution is 83 percent today, higher 
than 98 percent of the time since the early 1970s. The percentage of 
Americans with very little or no confidence at all in Congress is the 
highest since Gallup started asking in May of 1973.
  I am continually amazed at the wisdom and foresight of America's 
Founders. Thomas Jefferson was right in 1798 that one of the most 
effective ways of keeping the Federal Government within constitutional 
principles is to require a balanced budget. The Appropriations 
Committee was right in 1947 that Congress will not balance its budget 
unless the Constitution requires it. After seven more decades of 
attempting to tackle the debt by willpower or legislation, the crisis 
is worse than ever.
  Continued failure is not an option, and there is only one solution. 
We must act before it is too late.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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