[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 12]
[House]
[Pages 17348-17351]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  WE NEED A BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate so much the comments of my 
friend from Ohio, from Washington State, good people, good 
observations. It's an honor to serve with devoted people like that.
  Spending is at an all-time crisis. We do need a balanced budget 
amendment. There's no question. We have got to have a balanced budget 
amendment.
  The great Senator from the State of Texas, Phil Gramm, joined forces 
and got a bill referred to as Gramm-Rudman through. That was supposed 
to force, legislatively, the House and Senate to only spend within the 
revenue coming in. But since it was legislation, since both bodies can 
create such legislation, then both bodies can undo such legislation. 
Just like both bodies can create a debt ceiling bill, as occurred late 
July, early August this year, both bodies can decide to do something 
different a few months later. That's the problem with legislation. 
That's why we do need a balanced budget amendment.
  Now, the bill that was brought through committee this year, this 
112th Congress, titled H.J. Res. 1, it passed out of committee, the 
Judiciary Committee. It says that the purpose is proposing a balanced 
budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Massive 
number of cosponsors. And it was a good bill. It was, it is.
  And all gratitude goes to Mr. Bob Goodlatte. He has been a strong 
proponent for advancing a balanced budget amendment for numerous 
Congresses for many years, and he has done a good thing with this bill. 
I appreciated his also including an amendment that I brought to 
committee that was passed in committee and is part of the joint 
resolution. But it's House Joint Resolution 1. It's a good bill. It's 
to provide for a balanced budget amendment.
  In section 1 it simply says:

       Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total 
     receipts for that fiscal year, unless three-fifths of the 
     whole number of each House of Congress shall provide by law 
     for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a rollcall 
     vote.

  Well, you might think that would be sufficient just to say total 
outlays cannot exceed total receipts. But those of us who've been 
around Congress long enough know that's not good enough unless you add, 
as Mr. Goodlatte does in Section 8:

       Total receipts shall include all receipts of the United 
     States Government except those derived from borrowing.


[[Page 17349]]


  If Section 8 is not in there, some Member of Congress down the road, 
if the balanced budget amendment were made into law as an amendment to 
the U.S. Constitution, would be clever enough to say, hey, it doesn't 
say you can't borrow. It just says you can't have outlays exceed total 
receipts. Well receipts, if you get loans, you've got money coming in, 
even from loans, well, that ought to be good enough.
  So we need Section 8 that says total receipts include all receipts 
except those derived from borrowing. That's a good provision to have in 
there because we know that this body, different parties in charge, 
different groups in here, as Members of the House and Senate, have 
always had people that found a way, found a loophole, found a way to 
get around the laws, the Constitution.
  A good example of that, no, a great example of that is the ObamaCare 
bill. Article I of the United States Constitution, section 7 makes very 
clear that any bill that raises revenue, increases the amount of 
revenue, it has to start here in the House. It can't originate in the 
Senate. It has to start in the House. That's where the founders wanted 
bills involving taxes in any way, that raise revenue at all, had to 
start in the House.
  Over the years, people found a way around that. And we saw that with 
the ObamaCare bill. The election of Scott Brown in the Senate made 
clear that they were going to have to do something different than what 
was originally planned in order to get the ObamaCare bill passed. So 
they took a House bill--they knew they couldn't wait on the House to do 
anything. They were going to have to start it.
  So to get around the clear requirement of the Constitution that bills 
that raise revenue, as did the President's health care bill--raised 
taxes quite a bit actually--they said, okay, we're going to take a 
House bill that's already passed the House. They took one that provided 
a tax credit for first-time homebuyers who happened to be veterans. 
That was the basic intent of the bill.
  Beginning with line 1, page 1, the Senate then deleted every word and 
substituted therein 2,400, 2,500 pages of ObamaCare. That way the 
Senate could say, hey, it didn't originate here in the Senate. This is 
a bill that originated in the House. We just struck every single word 
and put in the Senate bill.
  Well, that violates the intent of the Constitution because, clearly, 
that health care bill did not originate in the House. But that was 
deemed to be a loophole in the rules and in the constitutional law, and 
so it's been gotten away with before and it was gotten away with on 
that bill.
  So we know games get played like that. If you don't specify that 
receipts do not include borrowed money, then somebody's going to figure 
that out and use it and probably get away with it. So it has to be in 
there.
  The rule has now been reported from the Rules Committee about the 
balanced budget amendment version that we're going to be taking up. And 
people keep referring to it as a clean balanced budget amendment. 
That's the one we're going to take up, one that does not have anything 
else other than total outlays must not exceed total receipts.

                              {time}  1700

  Now, in this House Joint Resolution 1, it has another provision that 
says:

       Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed 18 
     percent of economic output of the United States, unless two-
     thirds of each House of Congress shall provide for a specific 
     increase of outlays above this amount.

  It goes on in section 3:

       The limit on the debt of the United States held by the 
     public shall not be increased unless three-fifths of the 
     whole number of each House shall provide by law for such an 
     increase by a rollcall vote.

  That means in order to increase the debt ceiling, you can't do it 
with one more than 50 percent, that also will require three-fifths to 
raise the debt ceiling.
  Section 4 is a requirement that the President transmit to the 
Congress a budget for the United States Government. That's a proposed 
budget for that fiscal year. ``Total outlays do not exceed total 
receipts.''
  Well, we've already seen with the Senate, seen previously the 
President can just choose to ignore that, not because it's not a matter 
of law. The law requires the Senate to pass a budget. They've chosen to 
ignore that, to violate the law. They have violated the law. They 
continue to refuse to follow the law. But, unfortunately, it's another 
loophole in the law even though they're required to pass a budget, and 
the Senate's failed to do so for going on a thousand days now. There is 
no enforcement mechanism of what we do to the Senate if the Senate 
violates the law by not submitting a budget, so we've seen games get 
played. The games continue.
  Now, in this House Joint Resolution 1, section 5 says: ``A bill to 
increase revenue''--in other words, raising taxes--``shall not become 
law unless two-thirds of the whole number of each House shall provide 
by law for such an increase by a rollcall vote.'' So, in other words, a 
supermajority is required in the House and the Senate in order to raise 
taxes.
  Now, of course, section 6 makes an exception for war. As it says: 
``The Congress may waive the provisions of this article for any fiscal 
year in which a declaration of war is in effect.'' It's a war exception 
because we know in times of war we have to do whatever has to be done 
in order to provide for the common defense and to ward off those who 
would destroy this country that we love.
  So I think those are all important.
  But now we're going to be taking up something that is so important to 
the country, a balanced budget amendment. And I believed when I was 
elected in 2004 a balanced budget amendment is very important to become 
a part of the Constitution through the amendment process, and I still 
believe that. My beliefs have not changed. But in my over 6\1/2\ years 
now here in Congress, it's become very clear to me that unless we have 
a constitutional cap on spending, the House and Senate will not be able 
to control themselves. And all one need do is look at who's paying the 
taxes now.
  We're told somewhere between 50 percent and 53 percent of all of the 
adult Americans will pay all of the income tax. We're now told over 47 
percent of American adults are not paying any income tax. When a 
country has close to 50 percent who are not paying any income tax, then 
you're always going to have a situation where there is a hue and cry 
among those who are getting money from the government and not paying 
money in not to cut spending but to raise taxes.
  I feel like having a cap on spending is so important that even though 
I really appreciate and think a supermajority to raise taxes is a good 
idea, I think it would be okay to let that go. If we have a cap on 
spending, the provision that would say it takes three-fifths to raise 
the debt ceiling, if we have a balanced budget amendment and a cap on 
spending, I think we can let those go.
  But I've become increasingly convinced that if we don't have a cap, a 
maximum amount of spending--and the best way we've seen, I'm open to 
other ideas, but the best proposals have indicated a percentage of our 
gross domestic product is the best thing to take a percentage of and 
make that the maximum amount the government can spend. If we don't do 
that, I've seen repeatedly, whether the Republicans are in charge or 
the Democrats are in charge, we can't control spending. No better 
example than what's been going on lately.
  We have a President in the White House who has threatened that he'll 
veto a bill that makes cuts that he doesn't want. He's threatened to 
veto a bill that tries to rein in the extra trillion dollars of 
spending that he immediately came in and spent.
  I mean, good grief. It would seem that since this body, under control 
of Speaker Pelosi for 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, that we had spent more 
money than in history, that we could at least go before the big Wall 
Street bailout, October of 2008, we could at least go back to 2007 
spending. That was spending that was created by the liberal Congress 
headed by Speaker Pelosi. Surely we could go back to 2007 before we 
added an extra trillion dollars and then President Obama added a 
trillion dollars,

[[Page 17350]]

and then we keep adding that extra trillion dollars that we didn't 
spend in 2007 and actually wasn't spent until fiscal year 2009 because 
it was so late in 2008. We'd already passed October 1. We're in 2009 
spending. Why couldn't we go back to 2008 levels of spending before we 
added an extra trillion, before this President ran up spending to about 
$1.5 trillion more than we were bringing in in receipts?
  It just seems so grossly ridiculous to have a President come in and 
increase and say: We're going to have this big, over a trillion dollars 
in added spending we've never had before. And, by the way, if you dare 
try to cut any of this spending, I'm going to veto the bill.
  So we don't cut spending. We had the biggest wave election last 
November since the 1930s. Over 80 new Republicans coming into the House 
of Representatives. Having met them, gotten to know them, these are 
good people. These are good Members of Congress. They came with the 
right motivation. They were elected by people who had the right 
motivation. They want to see this country thrive and not just survive 
but really prosper and protect liberty. They were driven by those 
beliefs. They were driven by the same desire that I have that motivated 
me to run for Congress in 2004.
  I do not want to be a part of the generation that gave our children a 
lesser country than we inherited. That's why so many of us work so 
hard. We don't want to be that generation. This country could go on for 
200 more years and still be the greatest, freest land in the history of 
the world, but not with the level of spending that we have embraced.

                              {time}  1710

  So I've come to see, when you look at what has happened with that 
wave election coming in and when you go back and look at our 
conservative Republican pledge made by wonderful people I love serving 
with, that we pledged to the American people. I didn't write that 
pledge, but I agreed to it. It said we were going to return spending to 
pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels. We promised that. We pledged that. 
Not only that, we said, Here is our marker. We promise you we're going 
to cut at least $100 billion in the first year if you put us in office. 
That's our pledge.
  Everybody who took that pledge meant it. Then we had a wave election 
after that pledge, and wonderful, wonderful people came into this body 
with the intention of keeping the pledge.
  We got to the spring of this year. Well, actually, we got to 
December--Speaker Pelosi was still in charge. There was more money 
given away by Congress in December than in any lame duck session in the 
history of the country, which was after the most conservative wave 
election since the 1930s. Actually, that wasn't a conservative election 
back in the thirties, but this was a wave election. A powerful majority 
of Americans wanted restraint on spending, and with the wonderful 
people who were elected and sent up here, we had the biggest giveaway 
last December of any lame duck session in history.
  Then we come in at the first of this year, still with the best of 
intentions. We still knew, Okay. Just forget about December because 
we're going to keep our pledge. Then some realized, Gee, we're up 
against an awful lot of people who don't pay any income tax, and they 
don't want any cuts in spending. We may not get enough in the Senate to 
do what we promised, so let's do a compromise. It was with the best of 
intentions. There was nothing ill-intended about working out a 
compromise with the Senate.
  The way it should have worked is for this House to pass the bill that 
they believed was appropriate. It was for this House to pass a bill 
that cut $100 billion off of spending and then wait and demand for the 
Senate to pass something, because the Senate just seemed to have 
trouble passing anything. It's why the President is 50 percent right 
when he says this is a do-nothing Congress, because the Senate has been 
doing nothing. They've got our bills piled up down there, led by able 
leadership here in the House. They're letting them pile up down there. 
They're not going to pass them. They don't want to create those jobs or 
it might look good for Republicans who are driving the agenda. So 
they're just going to let them die down there unless the American 
public makes it very clear: You either pick up those Republican bills 
in the Senate and pass them or over 20 Democratic Senators won't be 
back come January 2013. Maybe that will motivate them.
  In the meantime, we should have forced them to pass something. Then 
it would go to conference, and then a compromise would be worked out. 
That's how the system was intended to work. Then we could say to our 
constituents here from the House, where the Republicans have the 
majority, You see what the House passed. This is what we believe. We 
passed what we said we would. If you want this to become law as we 
passed it in the House, you've got to give us the majority in the 
Senate, and we'll do that.
  As it is, all we have is a majority in the House. This is the only 
place we can pass it. We had to work out a compromise in the conference 
committee, and that's why we got what we did. But in the meantime, if 
you want what the House passed before the compromise, give us the 
Senate next year and you'll get it. That's the way the system was 
designed to work.
  Then it allows the Senate to say, Look, see all these giveaway 
programs that we passed here in the Senate? We had to drop some of 
these giveaway programs in the conference committee because, the dadgum 
fiscally responsible Republicans in the House, they wouldn't go along 
with all the giveaways, so we had to cut some in conference; but if you 
want more and more giveaways like we're passing in the Senate, then 
give us back the majority in the House, and you'll get more and more 
giveaway programs. That's the way the system is supposed to work.
  Then in November next year, the American voters can say either they 
want a majority in the House to have more giveaway programs like the 
Senate has passed or they can say we want more fiscal responsibility as 
we found in the House by virtue of the bills they passed. The problem 
has been that we have been negotiating with the Senate to see what we 
think they might pass and then shoot at the target that they say they 
might pass in the Senate rather than passing what we believe in in the 
House.
  This summer, it is to the Republicans' credit in the House that we 
passed a bill called Cut, Cap, and Balance. There were some issues and 
concerns I had, but overall it was a good bill and it passed. We should 
have demanded that the Senate pass something that would go to the 
conference committee with our Cut, Cap, and Balance and that we would 
work out a compromise from there, but that's not what we did. We turned 
around and passed a debt ceiling increase that had been negotiated and, 
basically, was what the Senate said they might be willing to pass, and 
we got it passed.
  My point being, we keep passing bills that really haven't cut 
spending. With the wave election like we had and with a big group 
coming in, we couldn't control spending? We couldn't get a majority to 
pass it in the House to cut $100 billion in spending? What are the 
hopes in the future?
  The time has come for a balanced budget amendment with a cap on 
spending. I think that cap on spending is so important to help future 
Congresses, to help this country last. I think it is so important that 
I think we can forget about the two-thirds to raise taxes. I think we 
could forget about some of the other provisions if we just have those 
two things: one, a balanced budget requirement where outlays do not 
exceed the receipts and where the receipts don't include borrowed 
money; number two, a cap on spending. We've seen time and time again we 
haven't been able to control spending even with the incredibly good 
Representatives that were added last November.
  With regard to the debt ceiling and bringing down the spending, good 
grief. We added over $1 trillion. We're spending nearly $1.5 trillion 
more than we're bringing in in receipts--and we can't find $100 billion 
to cut from that? I mean, good grief. This House this year

[[Page 17351]]

had agreed to a 5 percent cut in our legislative budgets. We did that 
to ourselves. Most of America has no idea about that. Then for next 
year, we're going to have a little over a 6 percent cut in our 
legislative budget. Most of America has no idea about that either, but 
we did it.
  The only way that's going to really make a difference in the deficit 
is if we make that demand of every other agency, of every other 
department, of every other amount of discretionary spending and if we 
say, Look, we did it to ourselves, that gives us the moral authority to 
say, You're cutting your budget 5 percent next year and 6 percent the 
year after that, and we're going to bring this down 11 percent over the 
next 2 years. Then, voila, we have met the requirement that was put 
upon the supercommittee.
  You see some problems with the so-called supercommittee. There are 
some great people on there. The people who were put on there from the 
House and the Senate, the Republicans, they're friends and they're good 
people. Pat Toomey--there's not a more conservative guy anywhere--he 
was even willing, from the reports, to have a framework that actually 
raised revenue like the demand had been made by the Senate Democrats 
and by the President. Some of us were wincing at it--ooh--but he was 
willing to do that. It looked like the Democrats were so impressed--
gee, this is great. So I'll tell you what. This may be the deal that 
works. Then they went back and talked to their Democratic leadership, 
whoever that is, and they came back and said, We can't work out a deal 
here.
  That should have made it pretty clear, when the agreement was made to 
cut hundreds of billions of dollars from our national security and at 
the same time cut hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare, that 
some people on the other side of the aisle have realized, if we go into 
next year's election and if the only cuts to Medicare have been the 
$500 billion that ObamaCare did last year--that the Democrats rammed 
through against the will of the Republicans in the House and the Senate 
and against the people across America--we're going to be toast next 
November. So, if we could have this failure of the supercommittee and 
if all this doesn't work out and if all these hundreds of billions are 
cut from Medicare, then we can tell them the Republicans did it instead 
of ObamaCare, which AARP thought was a good idea.

                              {time}  1720

  They'll forget about that if we have those cuts this year because we 
blame the Republicans.
  Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is left.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Huizenga of Michigan). The gentleman 
from Texas has 55 seconds remaining.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Let me finish up by saying, we need a cap on spending.
  And with respect for the veterans, let me finish with a prayer from 
George Washington, just a small excerpt since my time is so short. It's 
Washington's prayer:

       Almighty God, we make our earnest prayer that Thou wilt 
     keep the United States in Thy holy protection; and Thou wilt 
     incline the hearts of the citizens to entertain a brotherly 
     affection and love for one another and for their fellow 
     citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for 
     their brethren who have served in the field.

  Those are our veterans. I'm a veteran. I didn't serve in combat. But 
thank God for those willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our 
liberties. Now we should not squander it.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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