Proposing A Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the proposed balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Specifically, the resolution prohibits total outlays from exceeding total receipts for each fiscal year unless a three-fifths supermajority of the whole membership of each House of Congress votes to override the prohibition. The resolution also requires a three-fifths supermajority of each House in order to raise the Federal debt limit.

There are only two conclusions one can reach about this legislation. Either it is fundamentally unserious--a facade designed to pretend that Republicans, on the heels of a massive Republican tax giveaway to corporations and the very rich that will increase the deficit by at least $1.5 trillion over the next decade, have a shred of credibility when it comes to claims of fiscal responsibility; or it is deadly serious--the first step toward their ultimate goal of slashing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and other critical elements of the social safety net--because you cannot have these enormous tax cuts and balance the budget without slashing spending programs that most Americans depend on.

Understand the context in which we are considering this legislation. White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney recently admitted that the Republican tax windfall for the rich would cost the Federal Government $1.8 trillion in revenue over the next decade.

In the wake of their budget-busting tax scam, House Republicans have the nerve to now seek to have us vote on this balanced budget amendment because they want to maintain the illusion that they care about fiscal responsibility. This is the height of hypocrisy.

But if we assume that Republicans actually intend to pass this legislation, we should recognize the catastrophic consequences it would have on senior citizens or the disabled and on low-income people. That is because it would require radical spending cuts to achieve balance, with the principal targets being social safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that millions of Americans depend on.

I want to commend Mr. Goodlatte for his honesty. He has spent part of his speech talking about how we have to cut entitlements.

What are the chief entitlements? Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

He talks about the lower percentage of expenditures that went for entitlement programs years ago before Medicare and Medicaid were enacted. Of course, we spend more on entitlements now that we have Medicare and Medicaid.

But what is really causing deficits is not Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. It is the Republican tax cuts. In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was elected, the total Federal national debt from George Washington through Jimmy Carter was under $800 billion. Then we had the Reagan tax cuts, and when George Bush left office 12 years later, the national debt had skyrocketed from $800 billion to $4.3 trillion. Then we had President Clinton, a Democratic Congress, and Newt Gingrich, who deserves some credit for it too, and we had 3 years of balanced budgets in the late 1990s. In 2000, the projection was for $5.65 trillion Federal surplus over the next 10 years.

Alan Greenspan, testifying in favor of the Bush tax cuts, said that we have to pass these tax cuts because otherwise we will totally pay off the national debt, and that is a bad thing for various reasons. So we passed the Bush tax cuts--the Republicans did--and between that and funding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars without a tax increase off the credit card, we greatly increased the national debt again.

So the Democrats have come in and cleaned up the messes that Republicans have left on the national debt by their huge tax cuts for the rich, and now they tell us we can't afford Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid because we must keep these tax cuts for the rich going.

This legislation would also undermine the Federal Government's ability to respond to an economic crisis. When the Nation's economy weakens, incomes of individuals and businesses decrease because of job and business losses because of unemployment increasing, which in turn automatically results in reduced tax revenues.

Meanwhile, spending on programs like unemployment insurance benefits and food stamps automatically increases as more people lack jobs and rely on unemployment benefits and food stamps to stay afloat. These programs also help overcome a downward spiral in the economy as they help stabilize the decline in consumer purchasing power and prevent a recession from turning into a depression.

But by requiring a balanced budget, this constitutional amendment would effectively prohibit the government from drawing on these critical stabilizers.

Although the resolution allows Congress to override the amendment's balanced budget mandate, it requires a nearly insurmountable three- fifths supermajority of the entire membership of the House in both Houses. By the time Congress could react to an economic crisis, it would have greatly delayed the stimulating effect of the stabilizers. This legislation would almost guarantee that a recession would become a depression. Meanwhile, millions of Americans who depend on these vital programs for food, shelter, and rent would go without assistance.

In addition to making it harder to avoid an economic crisis, this resolution could actually help to precipitate one. By requiring a three-fifths supermajority vote of each House of Congress to raise the debt limit, H.J. Res. 2 increases the probability that the government will default on its obligations and cause the Nation to spiral into a financial and economic crisis.

Beyond its devastating economic and social consequences, this resolution is also anti-democratic. To the extent that it requires a supermajority to undertake certain steps, such as waiving the balanced budget requirement or raising the debt limit, it shifts power away from the elected Representatives of a majority of the American people to a determined minority that can thwart the majority's will.

Moreover, this bill inappropriately seeks to enshrine into the Constitution one particular economic view that would bind future generations and future Congresses that they elect.

Whatever anyone may think about economic policy and government financing, those kinds of policies should be enacted as legislation that can be modified, amended, or repealed by future majorities, not enshrined in the Constitution to bind future generations to the opinions of this generation. That is fundamentally undemocratic and tyrannical.

Finally, this resolution suffers from a fundamental flaw to its construction. There is no enforcement mechanism, and it is not clear what would happen if Congress ignored it and passed an unbalanced budget without the required supermajority. Presumably, it would somehow be resolved in the Federal courts. We would see judges ordering tax increases, or cuts in Social Security, or revising the transportation budget, you name it, without any legislative guidance, and on what basis they would make such decisions is anyone's guess.

We should not have judges determining inherently political questions regarding budgetary decisions, upending the principle of separation of powers and generating massive litigation over questions ranging from who has the standing to sue, to what remedies a court can impose if it found a violation.

This legislation is ill-conceived and deeply problematic. As I stated earlier, this resolution is either a farce--just for show and a few well-timed press releases--or it is a Trojan horse--an innocuous looking resolution that is really designed to enable the long-held Republican dream of dismantling Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, a goal they could never achieve politically but might achieve with a constitutional amendment on the balanced budget. Either way, this resolution is not worthy of this House.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose H.J. Res. 2, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. NADLER. Boyle).

Mr. BRENDAN F. BOYLE of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for yielding me this time.

Last week when I saw the vote calendar for this week and I saw on it was a schedule to vote on the balanced budget amendment, I actually laughed out loud. I assumed that it was surely a joke, because there is no way the Republican majority, just a few months after voting for a $1.9 trillion tax cut that would add more to the national debt than any other single vote in my lifetime, surely they wouldn't have the nerve to come back a few months later and, with a straight face, be pushing a balanced budget amendment. Yet it turns out it wasn't a joke. Here we are.

Mr. Speaker, my fellow Americans, this is part of a two-pronged attack. Part one of that two-pronged attack was the $1.9 trillion tax cut--83 percent of which goes to the richest 1 percent. Part two is to stand up here and say: Oh, my goodness, we suddenly have a debt problem. It must be because we are spending too much. And part two calls for pushing through a draconian bill that would mandate trillions of dollars of cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, veterans programs, and other critical spending.

Here are the statistics. Under this legislation, by 2028, $2.6 trillion would be cut from Social Security; $1.7 trillion cut from Medicare; $1.2 trillion cut from Medicaid, CHIP and the ACA; and finally, $250 billion cut from veterans disability.

We cannot afford these draconian cuts. We must stand up and reject this laughable attempt to simply push through the largest cuts in American history. We must say ``no.''

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Mr. NADLER. Davis).

Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the proposed bureaucratic approach of the balanced budget amendment says nothing about our national priorities, about what to do about massive and growing economic inequality, about addressing the impact of globalization on the American people.

It says nothing about infrastructure for sustainable energy, water, transportation, communication, health, education, housing, the opioid epidemic, climate change, or Social Security. It says nothing about addressing the great inequities facing women, African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community, the disabled, or the homeless.

The balanced budget amendment would wipe out trillions of dollars of Social Security, Medicare, military and civil service retirement trust funds, and the FDIC and Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation trust funds.

At a time when our Nation may be heading for a constitutional crisis because Congress is unable to find a simple majority for legislative guarantees, guaranteeing that no one man is above the law, a balanced budget amendment would create an ongoing scenario of endless potential constitutional crises should Congress be unable to find supermajorities to resolve budget shortfalls, creating the threat of political extortion by a congressional minority. The balanced budget amendment is a direct attack on our citizens and our democracy.

Mr. Speaker, let us end this facade of reality and vote down this assault on real government.
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Mr. NADLER. Jackson Lee), the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations and a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I think it is important for those of us who have served here that we are down this frivolous route again: this unconstitutional effort to remedy the disaster that has been perpetrated by the Republican tax scam.

Let me tell you what the CBO Director said, who is known to be the bipartisan, nonpartisan arbiter of the work that the Congress does.

First of all, they say the tax cut will create deficits of historic proportions. Not Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security. An $800 billion deficit in 2018, $1 trillion in 2019, and $1 trillion in 2020. That is what the Republicans have created.

Now, in this false and ridiculous, possibly unconstitutional effort, here we go again with a balanced budget amendment that will, in fact, deny and implode the needs of those who need Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.

This balanced budget amendment is antidemocratic in that it requires a supermajority in Congress to increase the debt limit, deficit spending, or raise revenue. All would have been unnecessary if we had not passed the tax scam. Remember, we gave the corporate tax relief a 21 percent number, instead of 25 percent, coming from 33 percent, when they didn't ask for it.

It is antidemocratic because it enshrines one particular economic theory into the Constitution: depriving future voters and future Congresses of the ability to adopt other economic approaches. That is our responsibility as leaders giving oversight to the needs of the American people, to the needs of the Pentagon, and to the needs of domestic spending.

By the way, this deficit will be more than domestic spending and defense spending. It raises separation of powers concerns because it would open the door to allowing Federal courts to make budget policy decisions. It is economically harmful because it would hamper the ability of Congress to respond to economic downturns and other emergencies.

Were anyone here in 2007 and 2008, particularly when the Secretary of the Treasury under the Bush administration came and told this Democratic Congress, of which I was a Member of, that America, as we knew it, was getting ready to end, that we saw the demise of Lehman Brothers and the collapse of the market, it wasn't Democrats who did that, it was Republicans. It is economically harmful because it would hamper the ability again for us to deal with those kinds of downturns.

It jeopardizes funding of Social Security and the military and civil service retirement system, and it undermines the Nation's financial system, including deposit insurance. It is unnecessary because Congress was able to achieve a balanced budget in the 1990s, of which I was here through the existing political process, and created the Children's Health Insurance Program.

Therefore, this balanced budget amendment is an amendment that creates havoc. What we should do is to undo the tax scam, repeal it, start again, and not implode Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. To the seniors who are living there: don't buy into a balanced budget amendment which is unconstitutional, buy into repealing the tax scam and standing for the American people.

I conclude by saying many national groups oppose this.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 2, the so- called Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which properly should be called the ``Cut, Cap, and End Medicare and Destroy Social Security Act'' because this is exactly what will happen if this amendment is passed by Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the several states.

A balanced budget amendment is a perennial gimmick periodically dusted off by House Republicans to divert attention from their manifest inability to govern competently or to manage the nation's finances.

H.J. Res. 2 is no exception coming as it does on the heels of the report by the Congressional Budget Office documenting that the Trump/ GOP budget deficit continues to climb and is projected to exceed $800 billion this year and to top $1 trillion next year and to remain at that level for foreseeable future.

Moreover, the CBO report confirms that the GOP TaxScam passed last year by this Republican Congress on a party-line vote will not pay for itself and is in fact the major cause of the rising the deficit.

Mr. Speaker, if our friends across the aisle really want to shrink the deficit, reduce the national debt, practice fiscal responsibility, and bring about sustained economic growth and prosperity, there is a much better, easier, and more certain way to achieve these goals than by tampering with the U.S. Constitution.

The easier and better way is for the American people to put a Democrat in the White House and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.

In the 1990s under the leadership of President Clinton the budget was balanced for four consecutive years, the national debt was paid down, the national debt, 23 million new jobs were created, and projected surpluses exceeded $5 trillion.

Under President Obama the financial crisis and economic meltdown inherited from his Republican predecessor was ended, the annual deficit was reduced by 67 percent, the auto industry was saved from collapse, and 15 million jobs were created.

In contrast, under every Republican administration since President Reagan the size of the deficit bequeathed to his successor was substantially larger than the one he inherited, a major economic recession occurred, and economic growth was lower than the.

Turning to the joint resolution before us, I strongly oppose this latest gimmick for the following reasons:

1. it is anti-democratic in that it requires a supermajority in Congress to increase the debt limit, deficit spending, or raise revenue;

2. it is anti-democratic because it enshrines one particular economic theory into the Constitution, depriving future voters and future Congresses of the ability to adopt other economic approaches;

3. it raises separation of powers concerns because it would open the door to allowing federal courts to make budget policy decisions;

4. it is economically harmful because it would hamper the ability of Congress to respond to economic downturns and other emergencies;

5. it jeopardizes funding for Social Security and military and civil service retirement systems;

6. it undermines the nation's financial system, including deposit insurance; and

7. it is unnecessary because Congress was able to achieve balanced budgets in the 1990's through the existing political process.

It is for these reasons that numerous outside groups committed to the economic well-being of the United States as well as organizations concerned with the needs of the elderly, the middle class, children, and other basic needs of national importance strongly opposed a measure in the 112th Congress virtually identical to Chairman Goodlatte's current H.J. Res. 2, and that measure failed to garner a supermajority as required by the Constitution.

These groups included a coalition of 123 religious, labor, education, civil rights, child advocacy, and other organizations; a coalition of six national environmental organizations representing over one million members and activists; OMB Watch (now the Center for Effective Government); the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO); the Service Employees International Union (SEIU); the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME); the National Education Association (NEA); the National Women's Law Center, Committee for Education Funding, and the Coalition on Human Needs.

Although there is a clear need to lower the long-term federal budget deficit, requiring a balanced budget through a constitutional amendment would be disastrous for the U.S. economy.

This Amendment is portrayed as the alternative to our country's deficit issue, but in reality, a Balanced Budget Amendment truly undermines the goal of a balanced budget by threatening the survival of such critical programs as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that serve as fundamental safety nets for millions of Americans.

These important social programs face greater demand when federal receipts are in rapid declines.

Requiring a balanced budget would force cuts to these and other important programs or force tax increases.

Either prescription would risk tipping a faltering economy into recession or making recession worse.

Any constitutional balanced budget amendment would limit the ability of the federal government to make important investments in worthy causes, including crucial public safety and homeland security programs.

Even at times of fiscal austerity, we must continue to provide for the country's public safety and homeland security needs.

Any constitutional balanced budget amendment would grossly undermine the ability to protect the lives and well-being of Americans nationwide.

Further, this Amendment will gridlock Congress during an economic downturn.

There has never been such a blatant effort to ransom the American economy in order to extort from the American public.

While I support bipartisan efforts to increase the debt limit and to resolve our differences over budgetary revenue and spending issues, I cannot support a bill that unduly robs average Americans of their economic security and ability to provide for their families, while constraining the ability of the Congress to deal effectively with America's economic, fiscal, and job creation challenges.

We need to change the tone here in the Congress.

There has been a theme in previous Congresses and in this Congress of focusing on cutting programs that benefit those who need it most, while ignoring the need to focus on real and contemporary job creation and economic recovery.

And by real and contemporary job creation, I do not mean Trump's unsubstantiated and impossible promise of coal jobs.

The creation of coal jobs is one of the many myths and false hopes peddled by the current White House.

The promise that jobs in coal are just around the corner is fake news.

Our time could be better spent focusing on ways to increase American jobs, growing our economy, and investing in our people, paying our bills, and resolving our differences.

That is the way you make and keep America great.

A balanced budget is not something that should be mandated in our Constitution, nor is it something that should be required every year, proposing an idea that offers little guarantee of success.

In particular, during economic downturns, the government can stimulate growth by cutting taxes and increasing spending.

And in fact, the cost of many government benefit programs is designed to automatically increase when the economy is down--for example, costs for food stamps (SNAP) and Medicaid increase when more people need to rely upon them.

These countercyclical measures lessen the impact of job losses and economic hardship associated with economic downturns.

The resulting temporary increases in spending could cause deficits that would trigger the balanced budget requirements at the worst possible moment.

A constitutional amendment requiring the Congress to cut spending to match revenue every year would both limit the Congress's ability to respond to changing fiscal conditions and would dramatically impede federal responses to high unemployment as well as federal guarantees for food and medical assistance.

As with the outlay cap that a Balanced Budget Amendment would bring, tying outlays to a percentage of GDP would impose arbitrary limits on government actions to respond to an economic slowdown or recession, when GDP declines.

Cutting spending during a recession could make a recession worse by increasing the number of unemployed, decreasing business investment, and withholding services needed to jump-start the economy.

The proposed Balanced Budget Amendment would render Social Security unconstitutional in its current form due to the Amendment's prohibitive stance on that system of spending.

Capping future spending below Reagan-era levels would force devastating cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, Head Start, child care, Pell grants, and many other critical programs.

Because this proposal would make it impossible for the Congress to increase revenues rather than to cut spending, it is virtually a political ploy that reflects the Republican priorities of ending the Medicare guarantee while cutting taxes for millionaires.

The need to raise the debt ceiling has no correlation to whether future budgets are balanced; increases in the debt ceiling reflect past decisions on fiscal policy.

And as demonstrated by current disagreement about whether and when to raise the debt ceiling, Congress does not need to impose further barriers to its consideration.

Treasury has warned that failing to raise the debt ceiling and the resulting government default, which would be unprecedented, would have catastrophic impacts on the economy.

Interest rates would rise, increasing costs for the government and for American businesses and families.

Any cuts made to accommodate a mandated balanced budget would fall most heavily on domestic discretionary programs; the immediate result of a balanced budget amendment would be devastating cuts in education, homeland security, public safety, health care and research, transportation and other vital services.

Under H.J. Res. 2 total funding would be cut for non-defense discretionary programs, including veterans' medical care, most homeland security activities, border protection, and the FBI.

Therefore, these cuts will impact funds to protect our nation's food and water supply, environmental protections, medical research, education, and services for disadvantaged or abused children, frail elderly people, and people with severe disabilities.

The Founders purposely made the Constitutional amendment process a long and arduous one.

It is foolish, reckless, and decidedly not conservative to rush to pass an amendment altering our nation's founding document on such short notice and without reasonable time for debate.

Republicans who support this proposed amendment to the Constitution have demonstrated, at this critical juncture in American history, that they are profoundly irresponsible when it comes to the integrity of our economy and utterly bereft of sensible solutions for fixing it.

Medicare covers a population with diverse needs and circumstances.

Most people with Medicare live on modest incomes.

While many many beneficiaries enjoy good health, 25 percent or more have serious health problems and live with multiple chronic conditions, including cognitive and functional impairments.

Today, 43 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries are between 65 and 74 years old and 12 percent are 85 or older.

Those who are 85 or older are the fastest-growing age group among elderly Medicare beneficiaries.

With the aging and growth of the population, the number of Medicare beneficiaries more than doubled between 1966 and 2000 and is projected to grow from 45 million today to 79 million in 2030.

For these reasons, I am strongly opposed to despoiling the Constitution by even considering the Republicans' latest Balanced Budget Amendment gimmick.
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Mr. NADLER. Judy Chu).

Ms. JUDY CHU of California. Mr. Speaker, after years of irresponsibly adding to our national debt in order to make the rich richer, Republicans are now trying to con the American people with this insidious and insincere balanced budget amendment.

I say insincere because Republicans have been the greatest contributors to our national debt. They eagerly supported and even extended President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, which added more than $5 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. And at the start of this Congress, they rushed headlong into another $2.3 trillion tax scam that the Congressional Budget Office says will put our deficit over $1 trillion within just 2 years.

And what do the American people get for all of that? Very little, if you are not already rich, since 80 percent of that $2.3 trillion goes straight to the top 1 percent.

Here is why I say this is insidious. First, they pass a Robin Hood tax scam that robs the coffers and gives it to the wealthiest, then they use that debt that they themselves created to justify draconian cuts to the vast majority of Americans who are not millionaires.

In his budget, President Trump proposed cuts of $1.4 trillion from Medicaid, $500 billion from Medicare, $65 billion from Social Security.

Fortunately, Democrats blocked these cuts, but if this amendment passes, look out, America. The programs you depend on will be pillaged to pay for the Republican tax cuts, despite our warnings that it would result in exactly this situation.

In fact, the latest Center on Budget and Policy report said that the cuts mandated by this amendment would result in Social Security being cut by $25 billion in 2025 alone.

On seeing the CBO's deficit report, Senator Bob Corker, referencing the tax scam, said: ``It could be one of the worst votes I have ever made.''

Well, we tried to warn you, but now the American people shouldn't be the ones to pay for the mistake.

If Republicans want to balance the budget, there is nothing stopping them. It is time that we stop the tax scam.

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Mr. NADLER. Mr. Speaker, I would note that most households do not balance their budgets. They borrow to buy the car, they borrow for the mortgage, and if they didn't do that, they wouldn't have a car or a mortgage.

Wasserman Schultz).

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to this balanced budget amendment.

Just a few months ago, Republicans plunged this Nation nearly $2 trillion deeper into debt with a tax scam bill that gave massive handouts to corporations and the ultra wealthy.

Another trip down memory lane reminds us that Republicans care so much about balancing our budget, that one of the first things that they did upon taking the majority back in 2010 was repealing paygo rules that required Congress to pay for our spending.

What better way to cover up yesterday's fiscal malfeasance than to hide behind a cynical and hypocritical promise to be more fiscally responsible tomorrow?

There are really only two possibilities here: either my Republican colleagues can't do simple math or something more sinister is going on. One thing is clear: Republicans have proven time and again that they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

When Republicans preach the virtues of fiscal responsibility, what they really mean is that they want to take away the Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits that millions of Americans have earned. That is not fiscal responsibility; that is moral cruelty.

By creating a massive hole in the deficit with the Republican tax scam, this middle class con was the first step of a scheme to undermine Social Security and Medicare. This disgraceful amendment being considered today is the second step.

We have seen this movie before. Republicans followed the budget- busting Bush tax cuts for the wealthy with an attempt to privatize Social Security and they followed the budget-busting Bush recession with an attempt to voucherize Medicare.

The best way to clean up the fiscal mess made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle is to repeal the Republican tax scam. We do not need to amend the Constitution, and we must not force their fiscal mess to be cleaned up at the cost of our seniors' health and dignity.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the amendment and to keep fighting against the Republicans' perpetual crusade to break the promises we have made to our seniors.

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, in December, Republicans rushed, and I do mean rushed, sped to pass with little thought, debate, or consideration for the long-term impact, a tax overhaul that has since been exposed over and over again for its structural and fiscal flaws.

Contrary to the false bill of goods that they are still marketing to the American people, this scam would shower wealthy households and big corporations with the dollars shaved off of the incomes of working Americans nationwide. It further widens the already gaping divide between the ultra rich and the middle class.

In New Jersey, my constituents will be among those hardest hit as it guts the Federal deduction for State and local taxes, the exact opposite of the cuts and breaks Republicans have given so much lip service to.

Now, months after patting themselves on the back, Republicans are backtracking. It seems that, on second thought, lining the pockets of millionaires and corporations to the tune of $1.5 trillion isn't a sound fiscal decision, and to fix it, they decided to revive the so- called balanced budget amendment.

To be very clear, this isn't about fiscal responsibility. This is just another scam, hoodwinking working Americans as they cut, slash, and burn away the programs and services that keep families going, that help keep food on the table during rough spells, and that maintain basic living standards and help people find jobs.

To save the cuts they made for millionaires, they will use this amendment to slash healthcare access and the retirement security of our seniors through cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

To save the cuts they made for millionaires, they will use this amendment to cut employment insurance, early childhood education, and nutrition programs.

To save the cuts they made for millionaires, they will use this amendment to wreak havoc for working families.

Instead of more cuts, we should be focused on investments that will produce jobs and economic growth, building new roads and bridges, ensuring workers make decent wages, and giving our young people the best chance at a good education and a bright future.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this so-called balanced budget amendment and the harm it represents.

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