[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 25 (Thursday, February 11, 2016)]
[Senate]
[Pages S863-S865]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, having said that, during the 2008
Presidential campaign, one of the candidates criticized the outgoing
President for adding $4 trillion to the national debt. He called that
increase not only irresponsible but even ``unpatriotic.'' Barack Obama
was that candidate. He won the election and took office with the
Government Accountability Office warning the long-term fiscal outlook
is ``unsustainable.''
The national debt on inauguration day 2009 was $10.6 trillion, and it
stands at $19 trillion today. The national debt for American households
has risen from $93,000 to nearly $160,000 since President Obama took
office.
If a $4 trillion increase is irresponsible and unpatriotic, what
words describe an increase that is more than twice as large? The
national debt crisis has been around for a long time, but we have never
been in a more serious, perilous situation than we are today. One way
to grasp the magnitude of the national debt is to compare it to the
size of the economy, or the gross domestic
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product. In other words, we can compare what we owe to our ability to
pay.
When President Obama took office, the national debt was 82 percent of
GDP. It is now 105 percent of GDP today, by far the largest increase in
American history during a President's first 7 years. Economists tell us
that the national debt above 90 percent of GDP for a sustained period
of time will lead to substantially slower economic growth and higher
interest rates.
The United States is now in the longest period in history with a
national debt above that toxic 90-percent level. Not surprisingly,
since the recession ended in June 2009, the national debt has grown
more than twice as fast, and GDP has grown less than half as fast as
during the same period after previous recessions. Some economists
prefer to evaluate the national debt as a percentage of tax revenue;
that is, comparing what we owe to what we earn. The national debt has
risen from approximately 350 percent of Federal revenue when President
Obama took office to 600 percent of Federal revenue today. But even
that does not tell the whole story.
During the last several years of skyrocketing national debt, the
interest rate on that debt has been nearly zero. If interest rates had
been at the historical average, annual interest costs would be more
than twice what they are today and on their way to consuming more than
half of all Federal revenue. And now interest rates are starting to
creep up. The Concord Coalition and the Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget both anticipate that over the next decade interest
payments on the national debt alone will approach $1 trillion per year.
That is interest against the national debt. By any of these measures,
the national debt crisis is not only serious, it is worse than ever and
much worse than when this President took office.
The Congressional Budget Office has a new budget, an economic outlook
that projects the national debt rising by nearly $10 trillion over the
next decade. Looking beyond the next decade, CBO says that under
current law, the national debt will explode to more than 150 percent of
GDP, the highest level in American history. CBO also says that interest
on the national debt is one of the engines driving the debt even
higher. A national debt of this magnitude undercuts the economic growth
necessary to minimize borrowing to fund the government. Rising interest
costs for such a monstrous debt add to the debt on which more interest
must then be paid.
In this new report, CBO again outlined some of the serious negative
consequences of this national debt for the budget and the Nation. In
addition to substantially higher interest payments, these include lower
productivity and wages, less flexibility by lawmakers to respond to
fiscal challenges, and an increased likelihood of a fiscal crisis. In
addition to those problems, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
Michael Mullen and experts from the Heritage Foundation to the
Brookings Institution warned that the national debt crisis is a serious
threat to national security. It is no wonder that more than two-thirds
of Americans say that their concern over the national debt is growing,
and more than three-quarters of Americans say that the national debt
should be among Congress's top three priorities.
The national debt was once a top priority. In fact, America's
Founders were so determined to avoid debt that their commitment to
fiscal balance was often called our unwritten fiscal constitution.
President George Washington, for example, told Congress that the
regular redemption of the public debt was the most urgent fiscal
priority. That commitment is long gone. The Federal budget has been
balanced in only a dozen of the last 80 years, and as I said earlier,
we are in the longest period of American history with a debt above 90
percent of the GDP.
As its willpower failed, Congress has also tried to address the debt
crisis by legislation. The first bill requiring a balanced budget was
introduced in 1934, when the national debt was 40 percent of GDP,
compared to today. Fifty years later, Congress enacted the Balanced
Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act. Since then, we have enacted
multiple budget control acts and budget enforcement acts as the
national debt climbed from 42 percent of GDP in 1985 to more than 100
percent of GDP today.
Good intentions will not balance the Nation's checkbook. Statutes
that Congress can change or ignore will not keep our fiscal house in
order. Neither willpower nor legislation will tackle this national debt
crisis. Pretending otherwise is the fiscal equivalent of fiddling while
Rome burns. In no other way, except by an amendment to the
Constitution, can Congress be compelled to balance its budget in
peacetime. Let me say that again. In no other way, except by an
amendment to the Constitution, can Congress be compelled to balance its
budget in peacetime. While I claim that as my firm conviction, I cannot
claim authorship of those words. The Appropriations Committee expressed
that principle in 1947 about a balanced budget amendment introduced by
Senator Millard Tydings, a Democrat from Maryland. Everything that has
happened since then has proved the truth of those words.
Year after year, decade after decade, we slide deeper in debt until
today our economy is being suffocated. One definition of insanity is
doing the same thing but expecting different results. If we keep doing
what we have done, we will get more of what we have been getting. This
would be a very different country, a freer and more productive country,
if Congress had already proposed the only solution that exists--a
constitutional amendment that requires fiscal responsibility. The first
balanced budget amendment was introduced in the House in 1936.
I introduced my first balanced budget amendment in June of 1979
during my first term in the U.S. Senate. Adjusted for inflation, the
national debt then was $2.6 trillion, or 32 percent of GDP. That share
of GDP doubled by 1997, when the Senate came within one vote--one
solitary vote--of passing a balanced budget amendment that I
introduced. It rose to 95 percent when the Senate last voted on a
balanced budget amendment in 2011 and is 105 percent of GDP today.
Since this crisis is already so grave and getting worse, and since
the only way to tackle it is through the Constitution, we should
propose a balanced budget amendment and let the American people decide
to take this step. Congress, after all, cannot amend the Constitution.
A requirement that Congress keep its fiscal house in order does not
become part of the Constitution until it is approved by three-quarters
of the States, or 38 States.
Article V of the Constitution also allows the States to apply for a
convention to propose constitutional amendments. Concerned citizens
have been working since the mid-1970s to reach the two-thirds threshold
for calling such a convention to propose a balanced budget amendment.
Since Congress has never called an article V convention, many questions
remain unresolved, and theories remain untested regarding that method
of proposing an amendment. I can assure my colleagues, however, that
Congress's continued failure to propose a balanced budget amendment
guarantees that our fellow citizens will continue working to force that
course upon us.
I looked at dozens of polls conducted by major polling firms and
national news organizations since I was first elected to the Senate.
Three-quarters of Americans supported a balanced budget amendment in
1976, and three-quarters support it now. They believe even more
strongly today what the Appropriations Committee said in 1947--that in
no other way, except by a constitutional amendment, can Congress be
compelled to balance its budget in peacetime. It will do no good to
pretend that the national debt is not a fiscal Tsunami. It is. It will
do no good to pretend that this ocean of debt is not already taking a
serious toll on our country. It is. It will do no good to repeat the
mantra that Congress can tackle the national debt crisis by itself. No
one believes that anymore--not anyone. That emperor has no clothes.
Perhaps some of my colleagues believe that all the polls over the last
40 years are wrong, that the American people are content watching the
national debt swallow the economy.
Perhaps our fellow citizens are actually OK with slower economic
growth, a rising threat to national security, the greater likelihood of
a fiscal crisis, and an unsustainable path to fiscal disaster. If that
is what the American
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people actually believe, then they will decline to ratify a balanced
budget amendment. So why not give it a chance?
Perhaps some of my colleagues believe that the Congressional Budget
Office is wrong in its disturbing projections and dire warnings or that
the Government Accountability Office is mistaken and the fiscal path we
are on is sustainable after all or that the Concord Coalition and the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget are wrong about how national
debt interest payments will continue to grow and add to the debt or
that economists are wrong to warn about the impact of a sustained
national debt of this magnitude. If my colleagues are convinced that
everyone else is wrong and that our fiscal future is just fine and
hunky-dory after all, then I still urge them to let the American
decide. The Constitution belongs to the American people--not to the
people here, although we are part of the American people.
President Obama once said that a $4 trillion increase in the national
debt is irresponsible and unpatriotic. This week he submitted a budget
for fiscal year 2017 that reflects the same recycled misguided policies
that have both added to the debt and have failed in Congress. On all of
the budgets he submitted, there was only one vote for his budget. There
was a bipartisan rejection in each case.
President Obama wants to expand a broken Medicaid system rather than
reform it. He wants to impose higher taxes to prop up more government
spending. He continues to turn a blind eye to the Nation's
unsustainable entitlement programs that are propelling the national
debt to unprecedented levels.
We all know the facts and the dangers about the national debt crisis.
We all know that the American people are, if anything, more alarmed
about this crisis than we are--certainly with the exception of myself.
The only reason that Members of Congress have refused to give our
fellow citizens a choice about adding a balanced budget amendment to
the Constitution is that they know what that choice will be. I say with
respect, but as strongly as I can, that this is not a legitimate basis
for refusing to propose a balanced budget amendment. In our system of
government, as Founder James Wilson once put it, the people are the
masters of government. Only they have authority to set the rules for
government. This choice must be theirs, not ours.
Here is the heart of the matter. First, the national debt crisis
poses a significant and growing threat to the economic and national
security of this country. In fact, we have never been in such an
extended, perilous period than we are right now. Second, Congress has
tried and failed to address this crisis by either willpower or
legislation and will do so only if the Constitution requires it. Third,
the decision of whether to use the Constitution to require fiscal
responsibility belongs to the American people, not to Congress. A
balanced budget amendment would allow the American people to make that
choice.
What are we afraid of? Are we afraid that we can't keep going on
spending like this or that the American people might pass a balanced
budget amendment to the Constitution? Yes, I think we are afraid of
that, but we shouldn't be. We should be glad to have it in the
Constitution itself. We could either take the responsibility we were
elected for and propose a balanced budget amendment or the American
people may do it for us.
The key to me is to pass a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
I filed it, and it has a great number. It was filed right after we got
into the Congress. It is an amendment that literally every one of us
should support.
Let's get real about this national debt. Let's get real about helping
our American people survive. Let's get real about having the greatest
Nation on Earth continue to fight for liberty and freedom and
independence and religious rights all over the world and all over this
country. Let's get real about the future of our young people. Let's get
real about being in the U.S. Senate and having an opportunity to form a
real, solid approach to this, which would make all the difference in
the world.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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