Balanced Budget Amendment

Floor Speech

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Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I express my appreciation to the Senator from Maine for her leadership on the balanced budget amendment issue for so long now. This is a fight that people have fought for so long that some have become very cynical about whether we will actually ever act in a responsible fashion to deal with the runaway debt our country continues to accrue where about 40 cents out of every dollar being spent today is out of borrowed money.

We know this is not just a theoretical problem, it is very real. When we look at what is happening in Europe, with countries engaged in sovereign debt crises that have made promises they cannot afford to keep, the day of reckoning has come to Europe. The day of reckoning for the United States may not be far behind.

I think it is really important to lay a few foundational points. Let me start with the preface of the Constitution of the United States of America because what we are talking about doing is amending the Constitution--something we have only done 27 times since the founding of our country. But the Constitution of the United States starts this way:

We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is important to recognize that this is a constitution created by the American people. This is not something handed down from on high that we cannot change or should not change. This is our Constitution. We own it. It is within our power to amend the Constitution when circumstances make it prudent for us to do so.

Let me also refer to article V of the U.S. Constitution. This is the basis upon which we are seeking to amend the Constitution by this vote tomorrow. Article V says to Congress:

When two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to the Constitution.

And then should the joint resolution pass with two-thirds the vote in both Houses, then it goes to the States, where 38 States--three-quarters of the States--would have to ratify that amendment before it would become the fundamental law of the land.

There is another provision in article V that I will talk about in a minute which allows the States, in the face of inaction by Congress, to ask for a constitutional convention to be established for that purpose. As I said, I will save that for a later time.

Madam President, all 47 Members on this side have cosponsored S.J. Res. 10. But this doesn't have to be a partisan endeavor. Indeed, the last time, in 1997, when there was a vote on a constitutional amendment--and it failed by 1 vote in the Senate--11 Democrats joined Republicans to come within 1 vote of passing that joint resolution, which had already passed the House of Representatives. So this doesn't have to be and indeed should not be a partisan undertaking.

Let me remind my colleagues, what did our financial situation look like in 1997? Our deficit was $107 billion--that is right, $107 billion. Today, it is roughly $1.3 trillion. Our national debt, which recently broke the $15 trillion mark, back then was roughly $5 trillion. So we have seen almost a threefold increase in our national debt since 1997, when we came within one vote of passing a constitutional amendment and sending it to the States.

We know that throughout American history, our government has faced fiscal challenges. Our Founders had their own when they had to amend the Articles of Confederation to provide for a constitution that allowed us to deal with our financial problems. But what are the differences between those faced by the founding generation and those we face today? Back then, government was the solution to the problem. Today, the size and growth of government is the problem. The American people understand the difference, clearly.

As I said, the American people are absolutely repulsed by the idea that Congress continues to spend 40 cents out of every dollar that is spent in borrowed money. I know people like to say this is a problem for the next generation and beyond, but all you have to do is look across the Atlantic Ocean to what is happening in Europe today, and you realize, no, this is our problem, in this generation now, in Europe.

The ramifications could easily extend to the United States and create a recession, if not worse, as we go through a sovereign debt crisis.

The American people also understand this huge debt we bear is a job killer because it dampens economic growth. Only by the private sector economy growing do you get the sort of job creation that will help get us out of this mess. Right now, we are muddling along at roughly 2 percent of GDP, which is not even enough to deal with the unacceptably high unemployment. Yes, we had a break last week, when we saw the unemployment rate come down a little bit. But a closer look at the statistics reveals it was because so many people had quit looking for a job. They gave up.

We also know this is a national security risk, this high debt. Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, said the debt was the single largest threat to our national security. This is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You wouldn't think that was part of his portfolio, but that is what keeps him awake at night and worries him--our debt, and the fact that China is the major purchaser of that debt, a country with interests that are not exactly aligned with ours, to say the least.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said the debt undermines our capacity to act in our own interests and sends a message of weakness internationally. Then there is a quote from a former colleague of ours way back in 2006, who said this:

Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally.

He also said:

It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government's reckless fiscal policies.

You may have guessed who said that. Yes, that was then-Senator Barack Obama.

What I think people find absolutely unnerving, disappointing, and, yes, even shocking is the lack of leadership on this issue, not only because our national debt is a growing fiscal problem as well as a national security risk, but it has created a crisis of confidence in our political system and people's confidence in the Congress's ability to do what we get paid for, what we got elected to do, and that is to solve our Nation's problems, including our Nation's fiscal problem.

President Obama understands this very well. That is why he appointed a bipartisan fiscal commission, now called the Simpson-Bowles commission, which came up with $4 trillion in debt reduction along with other recommendations, such as tax reform, which would make us more competitive globally. But since December 2010, when that report was rendered, what has the President done with regard to that report that received bipartisan support--I believe it was 11 out of the 18 members, including 3 Republican Senators at that time, Judd Gregg, Mike Crapo, and Tom Coburn? The President walked away from it. He walked away from it. What did he do when he gave his State of the Union speech shortly thereafter? He didn't even mention it.

But what did he do? Did he come up with a counterproposal or a different proposal? No, he held back, and he waited until the chairman of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, and House Republicans passed a budget out of the House--something that has not happened in the Senate for more than 900 days--and then the President attacked. He engaged in scare tactics that I believe are beneath the dignity and responsibility of the Office of the President of the United States.

Leadership on the national debt has not only been lacking from the White House, but Congress hasn't done much better. It is true what the Senator from Maine has said, the basic conundrum we have had at times when we have passed deficit reduction legislation, such as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and others, is that purely statutory fixes are fine but they can't bind future Congresses. We need a constitutional amendment that will make it the law of the land that cannot be ignored by future Congresses. This is what I hope we will do by embracing our responsibility and passing this constitutional amendment.

The facts show that the time for a strong balanced budget amendment is now. It is today. Joint Resolution 10 is a strong balanced budget amendment that will protect the American people from runaway deficits and reckless spending. If ratified by three-quarters of the States; that is, 38 States, it would require a two-thirds supermajority of Congress in both Chambers to approve a deficit in any fiscal year. A supermajority would be needed in times of emergency to approve a deficit in any given year. And it can't be open-ended. It has to happen each year a deficit might be run.

We can imagine that emergencies could occur, but it shouldn't be a routine matter, as it is now, where we engage in deficit spending. This amendment would provide exceptions where it would require a majority of both Chambers to approve a deficit during a time of declared war and a three-fifths supermajority in both Chambers could approve a deficit during military conflicts.

So for those of our colleagues who are worried this balanced budget amendment would provide such a straitjacket it would deny us the flexibility to respond to our Nation's emergencies, the amendment itself provides the means to deal with those extraordinary circumstances.

Joint Resolution 10 would also require a two-thirds majority to approve outlays beyond 18 percent of GDP. That is roughly what our revenue has been--roughly 18 percent of GDP--although today our spending is at 25 percent. Because of the recession and the fragile economic recovery, our income is roughly 15 percent. So we are running at roughly a 10-percent annual deficit.

This amendment would require a two-thirds majority to raise taxes. We don't have a tax problem; we have a spending problem, and we are not able to keep up with the promises we have made both in terms of entitlements and other spending. This would require the discipline of a two-thirds supermajority to raise taxes in order to balance the budget. So we could do it when there was a broad consensus that it was necessary but not provide the easy out to raise taxes in order to balance the budget unless two-thirds said that was all right. It would also provide for a three-fifths supermajority to raise the debt limit.

Finally--and this is important--the balanced budget amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 10, would require the President to submit a balanced budget to the Congress each year. The President has historically submitted a budget in, I believe, roughly February of each year, but it is rarely balanced. Indeed, the last budget submitted by President

Obama was not even brought up for a vote by our friends across the aisle. When we insisted upon a vote on that budget, it lost 97 to 0. No Democrat and no Republican voted for President Obama's last budget because it continued the reckless spending and the debt.

It is important this body support a strong balanced budget amendment and not a fig leaf or cover vote, because Senate Joint Resolution 10 has the strongest provisions on spending and taxes in addition to provisions that would allow us to balance the budget.

I know there is another alternative that will be voted on, but I am afraid this alternative offers more of a mirage than a real solution. First of all, it does not include all spending. This would make government accounting even more mystifying, even more opaque, less transparent. Can you imagine families and small businesses doing something such as that, saying, well, we are going to balance our budget, but we are not going to include all the spending we do? Small businesses and/or families don't have the luxury of moving things off the balance sheet--in sort of Enron-style accounting--and neither should their government. Either you balance the budget or you do not.

The alternative we will be presented an opportunity to vote on, next to this strong balanced budget amendment, does not protect the middle class from higher taxes. It would not have stopped the 21 tax increases that were enacted in the first 3 years of the Obama administration. That is right, 21 tax increases during the first 3 years of this administration. The problem in Washington is not that it is too difficult to raise taxes, the problem is it is too easy.

A real solution to our debt crisis must permanently change the propensity to tax and spend with reckless disregard. A strong balanced budget amendment will actually solve the problem. Let's remember the disease here in Washington the balanced budget amendment is designed to cure is out-of-control Federal spending, and big deficits are a symptom of that disease. Any doctor will tell you just treating the symptom doesn't cure the disease. Without treating the underlying cause of those symptoms, we would not be making matters better, we would be creating again another illusion of a solution.

The strong balanced budget amendment which I support, along with 46 of my Republican colleagues--and I hope a significant showing on the other side--will treat the disease along with the symptoms. An amendment with too many exceptions and loopholes will not. A strong balanced budget amendment will reassure financial markets and the American people that we understand the magnitude of the problem.

As I talk to my constituents in Texas and others around the country--who are the type of people we are looking to to create jobs by making the investments, by starting businesses, and by growing existing businesses--they tell me with the growing debt, with uncertainty about tax policy, with overregulation, and with Washington's unwillingness to deal with a potential sovereign debt crisis, and slow economic growth in the private sector, they are going to sit it out. They are sitting on the sidelines. They are not going to take imprudent risks with the capital they have acquired after going through this recession and becoming leaner and becoming more efficient. They are not ready to get back in the game until they get a signal from us we are actually serious about solving our financial problems.

Unfortunately, the President not only has neglected his own bipartisan fiscal commission--the Simpson-Bowles commission--and fallen for the siren call of his political advisers to not offer a constructive solution but, rather, attack those who do, the President has compounded his mistake in this area by saying, ``We don't need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs.'' Presumably, that refers not only to our balanced budget amendment but to an amendment offered by the Democrats as an alternative to the Senate Republican balanced budget amendment.

The President has claimed a balanced budget amendment is not necessary because ``the Constitution already tells us to do our jobs and to make sure that the government is living within its means and making responsible choices.'' Who does he think he is fooling? Who does he think he is kidding? The President does himself no credit, and, indeed, I think demonstrates a lack of commitment to dealing with our Nation's problems when he says things such as that. He knows the experience of this Congress--whether it is Republican administrations or Democratic administrations--has been that without a balanced budget amendment we simply are not going to have the tools necessary to get the job done.

According to one White House spokesman, balancing the budget is ``not complicated.'' Well, if it is not complicated, why hasn't the President of the United States submitted a balanced budget proposal? His last one broke the bank, made the debt worse, didn't solve the problem, and was rejected 97 to 0 by a bipartisan vote in this body.

The same White House spokesman said:

All that is needed is that we put politics aside, quit ducking responsibility, roll up our sleeves, and get to work ..... get beyond politics as usual.

I have to say, what bunk is that? Don't they know how little credibility that sort of rhetoric has when it comes to solving the problem?

Just saying it does not make it so. What people are looking for is concrete action by the Congress.

The strange thing to me was, when the President of the United States invited the Republican conference over to the executive office building several months back, he asked for ideas around the table. Several of us, including me, told him: Mr. President, if you would embrace solutions to solving these problems, we would work with you because we are Americans first and not members of political parties first. We are Americans. We didn't come here just to posture and to act like we were solving the problem while doing nothing. We actually are willing to do it because, frankly, we are concerned. Many of us are beyond concerned; we are scared. This is no longer just for our children and grandchildren. This is about the present generation. This is about us, and all we need to do is look at what is happening in Europe, and it could be our problem in the foreseeable future. I am not just talking about decades, I am talking about years. It could be earlier.

Everything we read about the sovereign debt crisis in Europe and the history of these crises in the past is, once the public loses confidence in the ability of a sovereign nation to pay back its debt, then things slip away very quickly. We have seen that happen in Europe with the price of the debt on Italian bonds and Greek bonds going through the roof because people know they can't be paid back. If people begin to doubt for a minute our lack of resolve at dealing with this fiscal crisis and this debt crisis, we could well be not just in a similar mess, we could be worse off because there will be no European Union, there will be no IMF to bail out the United States of America, the largest economy of the world.

Let me close for now by saying this is not just a matter of conjecture whether a balanced budget amendment would help and would work; 49 different States have some form of balanced budget requirement. Vermont is the only one that does not. Of these, 32 States have constitutional provisions. Additional States require that their Governor actually propose a balanced budget or require a balanced budget indirectly by prohibiting the State from carrying a deficit into the next year.

But the point is, this is not just a matter of conjecture and guesswork. We know because we have seen at the State level that balanced budget requirements are effective. What do they do? Well, we know State balanced budget requirements are only effective when combined with limitations on taxing and spending. States with limitations on taxing and spending are less likely to raise taxes to balance the budget than States without such a limitation. States with taxing and spending limitations have a slower growth of government than States without such limitations.

In other words, States with taxing and spending limitations have a slower rate of growth and cost and size of government than States without them. So we know a balanced budget amendment could work.

I hope my colleagues--as frustrated as I am, on a bipartisan basis, with the lack of leadership on this--will show leadership. We shouldn't just look for leadership at the White House or anywhere else. We ought to look at ourselves in the mirror and ask what can we do to solve this problem. I submit that a balanced budget amendment would go a long way to putting us on the path to fiscal responsibility.

Now, we can't do it overnight because we didn't get into this mess overnight. But just as Vice President Biden said back in 1995:

I have concluded that there's nothing left to try except the balanced budget amendment.

That is what Vice President Biden said in 1995. I agree with him. But if it was true then, it is even more true now.

So I hope tomorrow, when we have a chance to vote, we will vote for a real solution--a real balanced budget amendment, S.J. Res. 10--that will avoid the temptation to act once again as if we are doing something, without actually delivering a solution to the problem, by providing a cover, a fig leaf that, once again, will undermine the public's confidence in our commitment, in our willingness, in our leadership when it comes to the Nation's problems. Ultimately, the American people will have the final say. If we don't do it tomorrow, then the American people will have another chance to have an election and vote and presumably choose people who will deal with the problem.

Ultimately, we know--getting back to article V of the Constitution--if Congress does not propose a solution, to quote article V, the Congress ``on the Application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments.''

So the final word is not with the Members of Congress. Although we can solve the problem tomorrow if we voted on it and we passed it and encouraged our colleagues in the House to pass it, ultimately, there will be an intervening election. But, ultimately, beyond that, the Constitution--which is the Constitution of we, the people of the United States--the people of the United States will have the final word, whether it be in the next election in 2012 or by means of a constitutional convention called on the application of two-thirds of the States, of which I am told about 20 applications are already pending.

Mr. President, I yield the floor, I reserve the remainder of my time, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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