"The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
Roman author, orator, & politician (106 BC - 43 BC)
WHAT HAPPENED IN USA, all WISDOM is LOST?
Congressman Bob GOODLATTE June 24, 2011
We are at a crossroads in America. The debt ceiling debate is one piece of a much larger spending problem we must get serious about addressing before it is too late. Ultimately, we must make the tough decisions necessary to balance our budget and pass a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution, helping to assure that future governments live within their means and ensuring that our children and grandchildren are not saddled with debt that is not their own.
BALANCED-BUDGET CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
JANUARY 24 (legislative day, JANUARY 10), 1995- Ordered to be printed
III. DISCUSSION
While Congress has the ability to balance the Federal budget, it lacks the discipline to make the difficult, but necessary, decisions. The national debt is now over $4.7 trillion, over three times what it was 10 years ago. Although persistent deficits threaten the Nation's long-term prosperity, the Federal Government has shown itself unwilling or unable to act in a fiscally responsible way. The search for popular, painless ways to limit deficit spending has proved to be futile. A balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution may be the only way to provide the fiscal discipline the Nation desperately needs.
DANGERS OF A BUDGET DEFICIT
Influenced by individuals such as Adam Smith, David Hume, and David Ricardo, the drafters of the Constitution and their immediate successors at the helm of the new government strongly feared the effects of public debt. The taxing and borrowing provisions of the new Constitution reflected a need of the new Republic to establish credit and governmental notes and negotiable instruments that would spur commerce.
The Founders and early American Presidents were in virtual unanimous agreement on the dangers of excessive public debt. Consequently, for approximately 150 years of our history--from 1789 to 1932--balanced budgets or surplus budgets were the norm.
Indeed, throughout most of the Nation's history, the requirement of budget balancing under normal economic circumstances was considered part of what has been called our `Unwritten Constitution.'
Once that unwritten rule was broken, Pandora's Box was opened. In 1929, Federal expenditures of $3 billion represented just 3 percent of GNP. By 1950, the Federal share had risen to 16 percent of GDP or about $43 billion. For fiscal year 1993, Federal Government spending of over $1.4 trillion commanded nearly 23 percent of GDP.
To illustrate this growth in another way, the first $100 billion budget in the history of the Nation occurred as recently as fiscal year 1962, more than 179 years after the founding of the Republic. The first $200 billion budget, however, followed only 9 years later in fiscal year 1971. The first $300 billion budget occurred 4 years later in fiscal year 1975; the first $400 billion budget 2 years later in fiscal year 1977; the first $500 billion budget in fiscal year 1979; the first $600 billion budget in fiscal year 1981; the first $700 billion budget in fiscal year 1982; the first $800 billion budget in fiscal year 1983; the first $900 billion budget in fiscal year 1985; and the first $1 trillion budget in fiscal year 1987. The budget for fiscal year 1993 was over $1.4 trillion.
This tremendous amount of Federal spending does damage to the economy. By consuming such an overwhelming part of the capital in the economy, the Government `crowds out' private sector investment. Thus, when government spending rises unchecked by fiscal responsibility, it chokes off the primary engines of economic growth and risks our long-term security.
In spite of these dangers, during the past three decades the Federal Government has run deficits in all but a single year. The deficits have come during good times, and they have come during bad times. They have come from Presidents who have pledged themselves to balanced budgets, and they have come from Presidents whose fiscal priorities were elsewhere. They have come from Presidents of both parties. Once Congress began to engage in deficit spending it started down the path of sacrificing the long-term health of the economy for short-term gain.
The time has come for a solution strong enough that it cannot be evaded for short-term gain. We need a constitutional requirement to balance our budget. S.J. Res. 1, the Balanced-Budget Amendment, is that solution.
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