Proposing A Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution

Floor Speech

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Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Speaker and I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee for bringing this measure to the floor today.

I stand in support of H.J. Res. 2, a straightforward, long overdue effort to have a new tool to balance the budget, something my constituents in Arkansas have long talked about.

When Arkansans sent me to Washington, they demanded leadership and accountability and for me to be part of the solution to Washington's top-down one-size-fits-all approach to spending. With just over $8 trillion, Mr. Speaker, added in debt over the past 8 years, my constituents continue to argue that same point they did when I was elected 3 years ago, that the government is too big, it tries to do too much, and there has been no serious effort, bipartisan or otherwise, to rein that spending in.

Today's vote is something that--like my friend from Maine--is a measure I cosponsored upon arriving at the House. It is a significant step to getting our fiscal House in order and delivering the kind of accountability and transparency that my constituents demand of their Federal Government.

Why? Why now? Why today? And I approach this, Mr. Speaker, without the cynicism of the other side or the condemnation of this effort, because when our debt was only $5 trillion in 1995, the Senate and the House had a balanced budget amendment before them, and it failed to pass by a single vote in the Senate. So it was a bipartisan effort to get spending under control using a balanced budget amendment, and that maybe led, Mr. Speaker, to the constructive comments that some have argued today about reining in spending on a bipartisan basis, as was the case in the 1990s, combined with economic growth.

Now, with our tax cuts, we have economic growth--economic growth we haven't seen since 2005, according to the CBO, but the national debt is now, because of that $8 trillion increase, at $21 trillion, 76 percent of GDP.

I am convinced this amendment is now the tool necessary, because we have tried budget caps, sequester, rescissions, Gramm-Rudman caps, and we are now left with a tactic, a strategy that all of our States, all but one of our States used, which is some form of a balanced budget amendment, which is why I come here, Mr. Speaker, to support this effort.

It starts that conversation that was as constructive as I hope in the 1990s, that we have a national discussion about spending priorities in this government and how we can return our budget to long-term fiscal health, how we can prioritize the only 30 percent of the budget that we debate on this House floor, discretionary spending, and have long-term strategies for two-thirds of our spending, our mandatory spending.

We want a bright future for our children and grandchildren, and I urge a ``yes'' vote.

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