Proposing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, while this House does sometimes act in ways that border on the insane, applying this constitutional straitjacket is hardly the appropriate treatment. It basically imposes the tyranny of the minority. Two-fifths of the Members of this House can block action. And America has seen how well that works across the Capitol in the United States Senate, where a three-fifths rule already applies, and too often has rendered the Senate largely impotent, unresponsive to public demand for action on key national issues, unable to overcome the threat of a Republican filibuster.

Today's proposal would broaden that impotence to both sides of the Capitol. On a critical budget question, if we take a vote in this House and 260 people vote in the majority, and 175 vote in the minority, the minority rules. Democracy loses.

Of course, there is a major exception to this proposed new rule, and it is an exception that may well eat the entire rule. So long as a majority of the House determines, probably through the fine print of some huge, voluminous piece of legislation, that the country faces an imminent and serious threat to its national security, well, in that case this purported constitutional amendment is totally nullified. What year, since 9/11, would a majority of this Congress have been unwilling to make such a finding and render the proposal meaningless?

A constitutional amendment is not a path to a balanced budget. It is only an excuse for Members of this body failing to cast votes to achieve one.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentleman has expired.

Mr. NADLER. I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.

Mr. DOGGETT. I voted for a balanced budget. I voted for a balanced budget when I voted against launching an unnecessary war on borrowed money. I voted for a balanced budget when I voted to reject the distorted Republican theology that when the question is taxes, less always means more. It's political alchemy. It's like turning hay into gold. The more the tax cut theology is proven wrong over and over and over again, the more the Republican faithful demand another tax cut to drive us deeper into debt.

This is the kind of extremism that causes a stage full of Republican Presidential hopefuls to declare that they would reject any budget agreement that cut spending by $10 if it raised taxes by even $1. A few months ago, such irresponsibility took us to the brink of default and jeopardized our economic recovery. They just could not overcome their ideological restraints.

Don't jeopardize our economic future. Don't play games with veterans and retirement security and law enforcement just because Republicans cannot accept the economic reality, as they often cannot except basic science.

Reject this misbegotten amendment.

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