[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 12495]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           BALANCE THE BUDGET

  (Mrs. SCHMIDT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mr. Speaker, just tonight we passed the debt ceiling 
vote, and it had a very critical feature, a feature that requires 
accountability in our House--a balanced budget amendment.
  Every day, millions of Americans sit at their kitchen tables, trying 
to figure out how they pay their bills. But before they write that 
check and determine how much they're going to have to spend out of that 
checking account, they first balance that checking account to know how 
much money is in it. But we, in the United States Congress, don't do 
that. We don't balance our account. We don't know how much money's in 
there. We just spend money.
  The American public expects accountability from us. In order to have 
that accountability, we need to do what 49 States in America do, and 
that's pass a balanced budget amendment. The first of that series of 
steps was accomplished tonight. Now it's the Senate's turn to pass that 
balanced budget amendment provision, have both Chambers pass it, and 
have a majority of the States ratify it. This is what the American 
public wants. They want us to balance our checkbook, just as they do 
theirs.

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