Proposing A Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution

Floor Speech

Mr. JENKINS of West Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 2 and to thank Chairman Goodlatte for his leadership on this really critically important issue.

Washington is broken. After years of excessive spending and wasteful stimulus projects, our national debt now tops $21 trillion. That is more than $60,000 for each and every American. This is unsustainable. But we are here to pass a resolution, the balanced budget amendment. This is a solution to this $21 trillion debt.

Simply put, this amendment means Washington can't spend more than it takes in. It means Congress has to live within a budget, just like families in West Virginia. Families every day have to make careful choices about how to best spend their money. It is time for the Federal Government to do the same.

I am a proud cosponsor of this resolution and urge my colleagues to vote ``yes'' later today for a balanced budget amendment. It is time to get our fiscal house in order.

Pass this resolution. Pass the balanced budget amendment. Let's get our fiscal house in order. The American people are depending on us.

Mr. Speaker, as virtually every American now understands, Washington is broken.

For years, Congress has spent irresponsibly and with what seems to be little or no thought for how it might affect future generations.

We are passing along a bill that our children and grandchildren may never be able to pay, and it is as immoral as it is unsustainable.

Meanwhile, our Nation's top military officials have repeatedly warned Congress that the number one threat to our national security is our debt.

We have no choice now but to correct this wrong and institute policies that promote fiscal responsibility.

Currently, our national debt exceeds $20 trillion, and the number increases every second. Mr. Speaker, when I do townhalls back home, I put the debt clock up on the screen very often and allow our constituents to watch that clock toll. It is frightening.

The last omnibus package, which is a whopping 2,232 pages in length, allocated another $1.3 trillion. That is about $582 million of Federal spending per page.

Our government is out of control, and we have to put an end to the dangerous and clearly excessive spending patterns that are coming out of Washington and out of this body.

As I have said on more than one occasion, people all across America sit down at their kitchen tables and create budgets for their families. Small businesses make countless sacrifices to manage their balance sheets. And our government should act no differently.

We cannot continue to spend money we don't have and drive ourselves further into the debt of hostile nations like China, who is the primary creditor in holding all of our debt.

Passing a balanced budget amendment is a commonsense solution that will put us back on the right track and restore fiscal sanity to the Congress.

The balanced budget amendment will ensure our government acts as a good steward of America's tax dollars, not only today, but for all the days in the future. It has the potential to make the bloated budgets of Washington a thing of the past.

Opponents of this amendment will say that passing this will force serious cuts to our budget. And to that we respond and say: Of course it will. We simply cannot get out of the hole that we have created without making tough decisions. But that is our job. That is why we are elected as the duly elected representatives of the people.

Right now, our country faces a point of no return with our debt, and there should be nothing controversial about telling our Federal Government to act within its means. This is simply about aligning and agreeing upon our top priorities.

Thomas Jefferson said that the representatives of a nation should never take on more debt than they themselves can pay in their own lifetime.

We abandoned that principle a long time ago, and, unfortunately, we have already far exceeded that amount in this body and in our lifetime, and it is now our moral obligation to right this wrong.

This is really about who we are as Americans, if you listen to the Founders. That is why I urge my colleagues to support the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and help restore and preserve the American Dream for our children and for all future generations.

We owe that to the country. Fiscal sanity, responsibility, and good stewardship is why we were sent here, and it is what we must do.

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