[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 34 (Monday, February 27, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1449-S1452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS
By Mr. CORNYN (for himself, Mr. Barrasso, Mr. Blunt, Mr. Boozman,
Mrs. Capito, Mr. Cochran, Mr. Crapo, Mr. Cruz, Mr. Daines, Mr.
Enzi, Mrs. Ernst, Mrs. Fischer, Mr. Graham, Mr. Grassley, Mr.
Hatch, Mr. Heller, Mr. Hoeven, Mr. Isakson, Mr. McCain, Mr.
Moran, Ms. Murkowski, Mr. Perdue, Mr. Portman, Mr. Roberts, Mr.
Rounds, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Thune, Mr. Wicker, Mr. Young, Mr.
Johnson, and Mr. Flake):
S. 446. A bill to allow reciprocity for the carrying of certain
concealed firearms; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of
the bill be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the text of the bill was ordered to be
printed in the Record, as follows:
[[Page S1450]]
S. 446
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Constitutional Concealed
Carry Reciprocity Act of 2017''.
SEC. 2. RECIPROCITY FOR THE CARRYING OF CERTAIN CONCEALED
FIREARMS.
(a) In General.--Chapter 44 of title 18, United States
Code, is amended by inserting after section 926C the
following:
``Sec. 926D. Reciprocity for the carrying of certain
concealed firearms
``(a) In General.--Notwithstanding any provision of the law
of any State or political subdivision thereof to the
contrary--
``(1) an individual who is not prohibited by Federal law
from possessing, transporting, shipping, or receiving a
firearm, and who is carrying a government-issued photographic
identification document and a valid license or permit which
is issued pursuant to the law of a State and which permits
the individual to carry a concealed firearm, may possess or
carry a concealed handgun (other than a machinegun or
destructive device) that has been shipped or transported in
interstate or foreign commerce in any State other than the
State of residence of the individual that--
``(A) has a statute that allows residents of the State to
obtain licenses or permits to carry concealed firearms; or
``(B) does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms
by residents of the State for lawful purposes; and
``(2) an individual who is not prohibited by Federal law
from possessing, transporting, shipping, or receiving a
firearm, and who is carrying a government-issued photographic
identification document and is entitled and not prohibited
from carrying a concealed firearm in the State in which the
individual resides otherwise than as described in paragraph
(1), may possess or carry a concealed handgun (other than a
machinegun or destructive device) that has been shipped or
transported in interstate or foreign commerce in any State
other than the State of residence of the individual that--
``(A) has a statute that allows residents of the State to
obtain licenses or permits to carry concealed firearms; or
``(B) does not prohibit the carrying of concealed firearms
by residents of the State for lawful purposes.
``(b) Conditions and Limitations.--The possession or
carrying of a concealed handgun in a State under this section
shall be subject to the same conditions and limitations,
except as to eligibility to possess or carry, imposed by or
under Federal or State law or the law of a political
subdivision of a State, that apply to the possession or
carrying of a concealed handgun by residents of the State or
political subdivision who are licensed by the State or
political subdivision to do so, or not prohibited by the
State from doing so.
``(c) Unrestricted License or Permit.--In a State that
allows the issuing authority for licenses or permits to carry
concealed firearms to impose restrictions on the carrying of
firearms by individual holders of such licenses or permits,
an individual carrying a concealed handgun under this section
shall be permitted to carry a concealed handgun according to
the same terms authorized by an unrestricted license of or
permit issued to a resident of the State.
``(d) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this section shall
be construed to preempt any provision of State law with
respect to the issuance of licenses or permits to carry
concealed firearms.''.
(b) Clerical Amendment.--The table of sections for chapter
44 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting
after the item relating to section 926C the following:
``926D. Reciprocity for the carrying of certain concealed firearms.''.
(c) Severability.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
this Act, if any provision of this Act, or any amendment made
by this Act, or the application of such provision or
amendment to any person or circumstance is held to be
unconstitutional, this Act and amendments made by this Act
and the application of such provision or amendment to other
persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.
(d) Effective Date.--The amendments made by this Act shall
take effect 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act.
______
By Mr. HATCH (for himself, Mr. McConnell, Mr. Cornyn, Mr.
Barrasso, Mr. Blunt, Mr. Boozman, Mr. Burr, Mrs. Capito, Mr.
Cassidy, Mr. Cochran, Ms. Collins, Mr. Corker, Mr. Crapo, Mr.
Cruz, Mr. Daines, Mr. Enzi, Mrs. Ernst, Mrs. Fischer, Mr.
Flake, Mr. Gardner, Mr. Graham, Mr. Grassley, Mr. Heller, Mr.
Hoeven, Mr. Inhofe, Mr. Isakson, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Kennedy, Mr.
Lankford, Mr. Lee, Mr. McCain, Mr. Moran, Ms. Murkowski, Mr.
Paul, Mr. Perdue, Mr. Portman, Mr. Risch, Mr. Roberts, Mr.
Rounds, Mr. Rubio, Mr. Sasse, Mr. Scott, Mr. Shelby, Mr.
Strange, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Thune, Mr. Tillis, Mr. Toomey, Mr.
Wicker, and Mr. Young):
S.J. Res. 24. A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the
Constitution of the United States relative to balancing the budget; to
the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, 70 years ago this May, the Senate
Appropriations Committee sent to the full Senate a constitutional
amendment to require a balanced Federal budget. It had been proposed by
Senator Millard Tydings, a Democrat from Maryland. In its report, the
committee said this: ``In no other way except by an amendment to the
Constitution can Congress be compelled to balance its budget in
peacetime.''
Seven decades of experience proved that the Appropriations Committee
was right, and we have never been in a more serious, perilous situation
than we are today.
Two essential facts compel me once again to introduce a
constitutional amendment to require fiscal responsibility: the gravity
of the national debt crisis and the fact that neither willpower nor
legislation will solve it.
The greatest challenge in describing the gravity of the national debt
crisis is deciding how much of the bad news to present at one time.
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, one of the candidates criticized
the outgoing President for adding $4 trillion to the national debt.
That increase, Barack Obama said, was not only irresponsible but
``unpatriotic.'' The national debt on inauguration day 2009 was $10.6
trillion, and on inauguration day 2017 it was $19.9 trillion. If a $4
trillion increase was irresponsible and unpatriotic, what words
describe a $9.3 trillion increase?
President Obama won the 2008 election with the Government
Accountability Office warning that the Nation's long-term fiscal
outlook was unsustainable. In its January 2017 assessment of the
Nation's fiscal health, GAO reports that the national debt as a share
of GDP in 2016 was 75 percent higher than the average since World War
II. As it had been before, GAO concluded that ``the federal
government's fiscal path is unsustainable.''
One way to understand the gravity of the national debt is to compare
it to the size of the economy, or the gross domestic 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 and is now
105 percent of GDP today. Some economists prefer to evaluate the
national debt as a percentage of tax revenue; that is, by comparing
what we owe to what we earn. The national debt rose from approximately
350 percent of Federal revenue when President Obama took office to 600
percent of Federal revenue today.
But neither numbers nor percentages tell the whole story because the
national debt crisis is becoming not only a bigger crisis but a
different kind of crisis. 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 payments. In other words, as GAO found in
its new fiscal report, the growing national debt now means that the
rising cost of servicing that debt becomes one of the drivers of the
growing debt itself. This is becoming what one study calls a self-
propelling crisis.
A national debt of this magnitude dampens the economic growth
necessary to minimize borrowing to fund the government, and rising
interest costs for such a monstrous debt add to the debt on which more
interest must then be paid. Last month, for instance, the Treasury
Department echoed this point in its financial report with the U.S.
Government for fiscal year 2016. The Treasury Department concluded:
The debt-to-GDP ratio rises at an accelerating rate despite
primary deficits that flatten out because higher levels of
debt lead to higher net interest expenditures, and higher net
interest expenditures lead to
[[Page S1451]]
higher debt. The continuous rise of the debt-to-GDP ratio . .
. indicates that current policy is unsustainable.
We can also consider the legislative budget and economic outlook from
the Congressional Budget Office. I want to highlight a few things that
stood out to me.
First, annual budget deficits are on their way back up after 6 years
of decline. In fact, the budget deficit for fiscal year 2016 will be
one-third larger than in 2015.
Second, CBO projects that the national debt will rise 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--by far the highest level in American history.
Third, CBO also says that interest on the national debt is itself an
increasingly forceful engine driving the debt even higher. Interest
payments on the national debt are increasing nearly twice as fast as
spending on Social Security and Medicare. Just last month, CBO Director
Keith Hall said that over the next 10 years, interest payments are
expected to triple in nominal terms and double relative to GDP.
Fourth, CBO repeated some of the serious negative consequences of
this national debt for the budget, the economy, 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 increased likelihood of a fiscal crisis.
In addition to these problems, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman
Michael Mullen and experts from the Heritage Foundation to the
Brookings Institution warn that the national debt crisis is a serious
threat to national security.
Economists tell us that 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 its history with the 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 comparable period after
previous recessions.
It is no wonder to me and to many others 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
such 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 was George Washington. Thomas
Jefferson wrote in 1798 that if he could add a single amendment to the
Constitution, it would prohibit the Federal Government from borrowing.
That commitment, of course, 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 in American history with a debt above 90
percent of GDP.
As its fiscal 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. 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, only to see the
national debt climb from 42 percent of GDP in 1985 to 105 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 the national debt
crisis. Pretending otherwise is the fiscal equivalent of fiddling while
Rome burns.
All the evidence--every bit of it--proves true the conclusion drawn
by the Appropriations Committee 70 years ago. In no other way except by
amendment to the Constitution can Congress be compelled to balanced its
budget in peacetime. We have, as lawyers put it, exhausted our other
remedies for this crisis. This would be a very different country--a
freer and more prosperous country--if Congress had already proposed the
only solution that exists, a constitutional amendment which requires
fiscal responsibility.
The first balanced budget amendment was introduced in the House of
Representatives in 1936. As you can see, the national debt as a
percentage of GDP has been going up by leaps and bounds. I introduced
my first balanced budget amendment in June of 1979, during my first
term in the Senate when the national debt was 32 percent of GDP. That
share of GDP doubled by 1997 when the Senate came within one vote of
passing a balanced budget amendment that I introduced--one vote. 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, since the
only way to tackle it is through the Constitution, we should propose a
balanced budget amendment and let the American people decide whether to
take this step. After all, Congress cannot amend the Constitution. A
requirement that Congress keep its fiscal house in order cannot become
part of the Constitution until that is approved by three-quarters of
the States.
Congress, however, is not the only way to propose constitutional
amendments. 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 and are only six States away from that goal. Since Congress
has never called an article V convention, questions remain unresolved
and theories untested regarding that method of proposing an amendment.
I can assure my colleagues, however, that Congress's continued failure
to propose a balanced budget--and a balanced budget amendment at that--
guarantees that our fellow citizens will continue working to force that
course upon us.
There are two facts that we must face: the gravity of the nation's
debt crisis and the failure to address it by willpower or legislation.
Perhaps some of my colleagues believe that the Congressional Budget
Office is wrong in its disturbing projections and dire warnings; that
the Government Accountability Office is mistaken and the fiscal path we
are on is sustainable after all; that the Treasury Department is wrong
about the spiral of increased debt and growing interest payments--some
people feel that way; 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; and that economists
are wrong to warn about the impact of sustained national debt of this
magnitude.
If my colleagues are convinced that everyone else is wrong and our
fiscal future is just fine after all, then they should say so and then
try to make that case to the American people. Even they will not do
that because they know they are wrong, yet we can't seem to get them to
do what is right. I, for one, think that would be a very tough sell for
them to make. Americans have been polled about this issue dozens of
times over the years by major polling firms and national news
organizations. Three-quarters of Americans supported a balanced budget
amendment in 1976, and three-quarters support it today.
Perhaps all of these polls over the last 40 years are wrong. Perhaps
the American people are content watching their 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 people actually believe, then
they certainly are inclined to ratify a balanced budget amendment.
The real reason Members of Congress refuse to give the American
people this choice is that they know what the American people will say.
I say with respect, but as strongly as I can, that this is not a
legitimate basis for refusing to propose a balanced budget
[[Page S1452]]
amendment. In our system of government, as Founder James Wilson once
put it, the people are the masters of government. They alone have
authority to set 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 as we are right now. Second, Congress has
tried and failed to address this crisis by either willpower or
legislation and will actually 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.
We can either take the responsibility we were elected for and propose
a balanced budget amendment or the American people may do it for us. I
hope we have the guts to do what is right. Our very country is hanging
in the balance. The rest of the world depends on the United States and
the strong principles of the United States, and we need to do what is
right.
I think it is time for us to wake up and realize this is the Congress
that can make the difference. After all these years of impropriety and
excessive spending, we can do it. We can live within certain
constraints. It may take a period of time to wind this down, but we can
do it. This amendment does provide for some ways of getting there.
____________________