Proposing An Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Requiring A Balanced Budget for the Federal Government

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, from the same folks who brought us $4.7 trillion in additional Federal debt and who worship the ``king of debt,'' Donald Trump, as he describes himself, they present this unbalanced budget amendment.

Apparently, this proposal, which reeks of hypocrisy, is designed by those who gave us so much more debt to protect us from them doing even more harm. However, I think it really should be known as the protect our billionaire buddies act because that is what it is really designed to do: to prevent a future Congress from ever demanding a fair contribution from the billionaires and the multinational corporations that pay a tax rate lower than that for a teacher or a nurse, and to shift our jobs overseas.

Our loophole-filled tax code has more holes than swiss cheese. By imposing this first-in-history supermajority requirement before any tax can be increased, they prevent plugging those holes and doing anything about the injustice and inequities in our tax code that shift the burden onto working people and small businesses.

These Republicans aren't really deficit hawks. They are war hawks these days, and they created a special loophole in their own amendment for war, to ease the funding of the war machine. With Trump in office, we can expect more wars wherever his latest whim and ego take him, endangering all of us.

Mr. Speaker, there is nothing balanced about this amendment. Let's reject it.

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