S.Amdt. 4315

SA 4315. Mr. CORNYN submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by him to the concurrent resolution S. Con. Res. 70, setting forth the congressional budget for the United States Government for fiscal year 2009 and including the appropriate budgetary levels for fiscal years 2008 and 2010 through 2013; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the appropriate place, insert the following:

SEC. __. STOP GROWING THE DEBT.

(a) Stop Growing the Debt.--The concurrent resolution on the budget for the budget year shall include spending and revenue levels that result in the gross debt for the budget year and any subsequent fiscal year covered by those projections that is less than its historical thirty-year average, as a percentage of the United States Gross Domestic Product and shall include such provisions as are necessary to protect Social Security and facilitate debt reduction.

(b) Point of Order.--It shall not be in order in the Senate to consider a concurrent resolution on the budget or any conference report thereon that fails to project the gross debt to be less than its historical 30-year average, as a percentage of the United States Gross Domestic Product.

(c) Suspension of Requirement During War or Low Economic Growth.--

(1) Low growth.--If the most recent of the Department of Commerce's advance, preliminary, or final reports of actual real economic growth indicate that the rate of real economic growth (as measured by real GDP) for each of the most recently reported quarter and the immediately preceding quarter is less than 1 percent, this section is suspended.

(2) War.--If a declaration of war is in effect, this section is suspended.

(d) Supermajority Waiver and Appeals.--

(1) Waiver.--Subsections (b) and (c) may be waived or suspended in the Senate only by an affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members, duly chosen and sworn.

(2) Appeals.--Appeals in the Senate from the decisions of the Chair relating to any provision of this subsection shall be limited to 1 hour, to be equally divided between, and controlled by, the appellant and the manager of the bill or joint resolution, as the case may be. An affirmative vote of three-fifths of the Members of the Senate, duly chosen and sworn, shall be required to sustain an appeal of the ruling of the Chair on a point of order raised under this subsection.

(e) Budget Year.--In this section, the term “budget year” shall have the same meaning as in section 250(c)(12) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985.