[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 8]
[House]
[Page 11387]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    A PERVERSION OF THE CONSTITUTION

  (Mr. POLIS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, what is being talked about today in terms of 
inserting language into our United States Constitution that constrains 
fiscal policy is nothing more and nothing less than a perversion of our 
democratic Republic. To take a major power away from the people of this 
country and replace it with an arbitrary percentage, 18, 19.7 percent, 
whatever that percentage is that is proposed to put into the 
Constitution as a percentage of GNP to spend on government, takes a 
basic power away from the people to elect Representatives to have those 
discussions.
  That's what we're here for. Should it be 18 percent? 22 percent? 19 
percent? 15 percent? Let's debate that and let the House and let the 
people of this country work their will. To put that into the United 
States Constitution in an arbitrary figure without a single hearing, 
without a single discussion, besides 1 hour of debate here on the floor 
of the House, is a perversion of the very Constitution that we began 
this session by reading into the Record of the House.

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