[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 7 (Wednesday, January 11, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H306]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TIME TO GET SERIOUS ABOUT A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
California (Mr. McClintock) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCLINTOCK. Mr. Speaker, in the last 8 years, our Nation's debt 
has doubled. That means that the Obama administration has borrowed as 
much in just 8 years as our government borrowed in the 220 years 
between the first day of the George Washington administration and the 
last day of the George W. Bush administration.
  Our interest costs are now eating us alive. Last year the 
Congressional Budget Office warned that within 6 years on our current 
trajectory, interest payments on the debt will exceed what we now spend 
for our entire defense budget.
  Before we can provide for the common defense and promote the general 
welfare, we have to be able to pay for it, and our massive debt 
directly threatens our ability to do so. History warns us that nations 
that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long.
  I am confident that the new administration clearly understands the 
peril this poses to our country. The nomination of Mick Mulvaney to 
head the Office of Management and Budget is a powerful signal that this 
danger will soon be addressed aggressively and effectively.
  This debt is our generation's doing. It is our generation's 
responsibility to set right. When we do so, we will need to leave 
behind the mechanisms to assure that reckless borrowing never threatens 
our government again. For this reason, last week I introduced a 
proposal for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, H.J. Res. 
12.
  The beauty of the American Constitution is in its simplicity and its 
humility. The American Founders recognized Cicero's wisdom that the 
best laws are the simplest ones, and they humbly realized they couldn't 
possibly foresee the circumstances and conditions that might confront 
future generations. They resisted the temptation to micromanage every 
decision that might be made in the centuries to come. Instead, they set 
forth general principles of governance and erected a structure in which 
human nature itself would naturally guide future decisions to comport 
with these principles.
  In crafting a balanced budget amendment, we need to maintain these 
qualities. We should not attempt to tell future generations 
specifically how they should manage their revenues and expenditures in 
times that we cannot foresee or comprehend. The experience of many 
States that operate under their own balanced budget amendments tells us 
that the more complicated and convoluted such strictures become, the 
more they are circumvented and manipulated.
  In 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote this observation to John Taylor: ``I 
wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. 
I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the 
administration of our government to the genuine principles of its 
Constitution; I mean an additional article taking from the federal 
government the power of borrowing.''
  What is a balanced budget? It is simply a budget that doesn't require 
us to borrow. So why don't we just say so, as Jefferson did?
  Instead of trying to define fiscal years, outlays, expenditures, 
revenues, emergencies, contingencies, triggers, sequestrations, and on 
and on, I would hope we would consider 27 simple words: ``The United 
States Government may not increase its debt except for a specific 
purpose by law adopted by three-fourths of the membership of both 
Houses of Congress.'' That is it.

                              {time}  1030

  Such an amendment, taking effect 10 years from ratification, would 
give the government time to put its affairs in order and thereafter, 
naturally, require future Congresses to maintain both a balanced budget 
and a prudent reserve to accommodate fluctuations of revenues and 
routine contingencies.
  It trusts that three-fourths of Congress will be able to recognize a 
genuine emergency when it sees one and that one-fourth of Congress will 
be strong enough to resist borrowing for trivial reasons. The States' 
experience warns us that a two-thirds vote is insufficient to protect 
against profligacy.
  Some advocate going much farther and establishing limitations on 
spending and taxation as well, but prohibiting borrowing sets a natural 
limit to the limits of the people to tolerate taxation and, therefore, 
spending. The real danger is when runaway spending is accommodated by 
borrowing--a hidden future tax. The best and most effective way to 
invoke that natural limit is a simple prohibition.
  In drafting an amendment to guide not only this generation but all 
those to follow, I would hope that we would do as the Constitutional 
Convention would have done if it had the benefit of Jefferson's wise 
counsel: set down the general principle only and allow future 
generations, with their own insight into their own challenges, to put 
it to practical effect.

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