Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to balancing the budget.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, this is no time for this body to be playing dangerous games with the American economy and with American jobs, and yet that's exactly what's going on on the floor of this House today. Our Republican colleagues are taking the position that unless and until we accept their radical budget plan, they will prevent the United States from paying its bills.

And what does their budget plan do? Yes, it is the same old plan to end the Medicare guarantee, to slash Medicaid, to cut education while protecting special interest tax breaks, like subsidies for Big Oil companies.

And here's what they're saying: Unless we do that, unless we take that, they're going to prevent the United States from paying its bills.

Remember, these are bills that are coming due on actions that this Congress has already taken. These are the bills to pay for two wars. These are bills to pay for the prescription drug plan that was never paid for. And one of the primary reasons we don't have enough revenue coming in to pay those bills is because of the tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 that disproportionately benefited the very wealthy.

It's interesting to hear some of our Republican colleagues who have been here for that entire period of time and voted on all those things saying that it's a sacrifice for them to accept responsibility and pay the bills for the things they voted for. Imagine if the American people took that position.

And what are the consequences of the United States failing to pay its bills? The same thing that would happen to an American family that decided not to pay its bills, whether it's its mortgage, its car payment, whatever it might be. It would undermine the creditworthiness of that American family.

And taking that action will undermine the creditworthiness of the United States. That will lead to a rise in interest rates and a sinking economy. It would hurt every American family. And it would increase-- not decrease--the deficit of the United States. That is the result our Republican colleagues are threatening in this bill if their demands are not met.

So let's dig a little deeper into those demands. As I say, what they want to do is impose the same budget plan that they voted on earlier in this House and we debated. It does end the Medicare guarantee, it does slash Medicaid and education, and it does protect corporate tax loopholes. Only this time it's worse, because they want to take that budget plan and implant it in the Constitution of the United States.

Now, nobody in this body should be fooled for one moment. This is not an ordinary balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. We can have that debate, and there are legitimate arguments. This does something very different and very sinister. It manipulates the Constitution of the United States in a way to graft the Republican budget plan into the Constitution. How does it do it? There are two devices, and the gentleman knows them well.

The first is, it says you can cut Medicare, you can cut Social Security, you can cut education, with a majority vote. But if you want to cut a subsidy for a Big Oil company for the purposes of reducing the deficit, if you want to

cut corporate jet loopholes for the purpose of reducing the deficit, that's not a majority vote. That's a supermajority, two-thirds vote. So it biases the Constitution itself in a manner that prefers cuts to Medicare beneficiaries who have a median income of under $22,000 before asking the very wealthiest in our country to return to the same tax rates that were in place during the Clinton administration.

Secondly, it says, we have to pass a constitutional amendment in the next 2 days that also includes an overall cap on spending. And if you look at the bill that came out of the Judiciary Committee, what that would impose is an 18 percent cap. Maybe 18 percent, maybe 19 percent in the end, we don't know, but you have to have a cap. And the one that's come out so far has an 18 percent cap.

Now, let's put that number into context. Not since 1966, just after we enacted Medicare to protect our senior citizens from health crisis, not since that time has the United States met that level of expenditures. We've been over that level of expenditures. So by putting that cap on, combined with the provision to make it easier to cut Medicare than it is to cut corporate tax subsidies, they are writing into the Constitution itself this bias. They're stacking the constitutional deck in favor of engrafting their budget plan into our founding document.

Now, I heard the gentleman say, and we hear it many times, and I hope we won't hear it again on this floor today, 49 of the 50 States have balanced budget amendments. That's true. But they don't have this kind of balanced budget amendment. They don't have balanced budget amendments with these pernicious features, with some exceptions.

Fourteen States have a supermajority requirement written into their constitution. For a good number of those, it's less than two-thirds, which is what this would require. Sixteen States write into their Constitution spending caps, and only seven States in the country combine the two.

So let's not talk about how every State can balance the budget, an argument which also ignores the reality that the Federal Government is not just any old State. It is the Federal Government of the United States of America. It needs to be able to respond to emergencies and wars and the like.

So let me close with this, Madam Speaker. We do need to, number one, make sure we pay our bills; and, number two, we need to get our deficits under control in a way that helps our economy, not hurts it. And that's why the President of the United States put forward a proposal that is modeled on the framework that was put forward by the Simpson-Bowles commission. It doesn't have every detail in it, but it adopts that framework that says let's cut the deficit by approximately $4 trillion over the next 10 years. Let's do it in a balanced way. In fact, it's tilted toward spending cuts--$3 of spending cuts for every dollar in revenue. He makes it very clear he wants to get the revenue, closing some of these corporate tax loopholes, asking the top 2 percent of income earners in the United States to just go back to the rates they were paying during the Clinton administration, a time we all remember when the economy was booming and we created 20 million jobs.

So let's take a balanced approach to this. Let's not take the position that if our demands are not met, if we can not manipulate the Constitution of the United States to engraft our budget plan into that founding document, then we're going to let the United States fail to pay its bills and suffer the terrible economic consequences. It's not so much Members in this body that will be suffering those; its the American people. Let's not do that to the American people.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

Madam Speaker, I wish the gentleman had yielded because I think it would have become very clear that the Republican position is they won't close a tax loophole that generates one penny for deficit reduction, not one penny.

So you can't close a corporate jet loophole if it's going to deficit reduction. You can't say to the oil and gas companies we're going to end your subsidy if it's going to go for deficit reduction. We all know there are a lot of

Washington lobbyists that manipulate the Tax Code around here. Getting a tax break, a taxpayer giveaway to the Tax Code, is just like getting something through spending, and yet our Republican colleagues refuse to allow any cut in a loophole to go to deficit reduction, not one penny.

Again, we heard it from the majority leader, we're going to hear it I guess all day, 49 out of 50 States have balanced budget amendments. This is not the kind of balanced budget amendment States have. This writes into the Constitution of the United States again a preference for cutting Medicare and Social Security--that requires a majority vote--but in order to close one of those corporate tax loopholes for the purpose of reducing the deficit you need a two-thirds vote. You're going to imbed into the Constitution of the United States those policy preferences. That is exactly what this does.

So let's not hear about the 49 States. They don't all have these spending caps, and they don't all have that preference protecting special interest tax breaks from use for deficit reduction.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to our distinguished leader of the Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Larson).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I just want to make a couple of points in response to statements that have been raised.

Not only would this write in the Constitution a two-thirds requirement for getting rid of special interest tax breaks for the purposes of deficit reduction, it would make it easier to create new special interest tax loopholes than to eliminate them. If a Washington lobbyist is pushing for a big special break, you can do that with a majority vote under this constitutional amendment. But if you want to eliminate one of those special interest tax loopholes, whoops, you need a two-thirds vote.

Now let's be very clear on what the President has said. Yes, we want to close those corporate loopholes. He has also been very clear that beginning in 2013 we should go back to asking the very top income earners to pay the same rates they were paying during the Clinton administration, which, as I said, was a time when the economy was booming. Now every time we mention that fact we hear our Republican colleagues talk about small business and how they're going to protect small business. When you hear that language, you really know that they're using that as cover to protect some of these big special interests.

Why do I say that? We agree that small businesses are the engine of this economy; but if you look at the Joint Tax Committee report, July 12, nonpartisan, they say that 3 percent of all businesses would even be impacted--

only 3 percent. Less than 3 percent of all businesses would be impacted by the President's proposal, those that file as S corporations. And then it goes on to provide a warning here, specifically saying beware because these entities might not be ``small,'' in quotes.

In fact, they say in 2005, over 12,000 S corporations and 6,000 partnerships had receipts of more than $50 million. Among those are KKR and Pricewaterhouse. Now these are all good businesses, but I would ask my colleagues whether they are small businesses. And let's not use the rhetoric of small businesses to protect preferences for the big guys.

We all need to share responsibility for getting this deficit under control. We need a balanced approach to doing that.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz), my colleague on the Budget Committee.

Madam Speaker, the sponsor of the bill mentioned some House rules. I think he is well aware that you can always waive House rules by majority vote. Thank goodness you cannot just waive the Constitution of the United States. Our Founders made it difficult to get bad ideas into the Constitution. Again, I want to make it clear, this is not your garden-variety balanced budget amendment. This is manipulating the Constitution of the United States itself in a way that makes it easier to cut Medicare, easier to cut Social Security, and easier to cut education than it is to cut corporate tax loopholes for the purpose of reducing the deficit.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. McCollum), a member of the Budget Committee.

Madam Speaker, when we were all sworn in, we were also sworn to protect the Constitution of the United States, not manipulate the Constitution of the United States to protect special interest tax breaks for oil and gas companies or other special interests by implanting into that document a requirement that two- thirds of this body and the Senate have to vote to get rid of them for purposes of deficit reduction.

I also think that while we're all entitled to our own opinions, we're not entitled to our own facts. If you look at the Medicare trustees' report, it will indicate that the health care reform bill extended the life of the trust fund, and we also did it by getting rid of the overpayments to some of the Medicare Advantage plans that were being paid at 114 percent of what other plans were being paid for. Taxpayers were oversubsidizing those plans, as were Medicare recipients.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to a terrific member of the Budget Committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Tonko).

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, we have been making a point that this is not your garden variety constitutional amendment. This is--

I will yield on your time, Mr. Goodlatte, and I'm happy when you have some time to do that.

In fact, I think you're going to want an opportunity, because the gentleman from Virginia was asked at the hearing

on his proposal for a constitutional amendment, which was voted out of the committee, to identify one budget that would meet the requirements of their version, this version of the constitutional amendment, and it was pointed out that even the draconian--

I will not yield on my time.

The gentleman pointed out that not even the Republican budget that passed the House, that ends the Medicare guarantee and is draconian, not even that would meet those requirements, that the budget that would meet those requirements was that passed by the Republican Study Group, which is like the Republican plan on steroids. In fact, a lot of Members on the Republican side decided that was way overboard. That would require slashes in things like Medicare and Social Security even more than the Republican budget that passed the House.

So that is the one budget that was identified as meeting the requirements of that constitutional amendment. This is not a simple constitutional amendment. They know that that's a popular idea.

So they're dressing up their particular version of it in that language, talking about 49 out of 50 States have this. Again, two devices: One, supermajority; a two-thirds vote required to cut corporate tax loopholes when only a simple majority is required to cut Medicare and Social Security. We don't think things like that belong in the Constitution of the United States.

I yield 3 minutes to a distinguished member of the Budget Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass).

I would be happy to entertain a debate.

Here's the question----

Let me just say this. I would not want to prevent the United States from being able to respond in cases of war, in national emergency.

I'm happy to work with the gentleman on that enterprise, but that's very different than what you're talking about.

I would just remind my colleagues that the President has put on the table a balanced approach to reducing the deficit. It would cut about $4 trillion from the deficit over the next 10 to 12 years. It's a balanced approach, again, based on the overall framework of the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles Commission. It calls for $3 in spending cuts for $1 in revenue. It would be raised after 2013 by closing special interest tax loopholes and asking the folks at the very top to go back to the same rates that were in place during the Clinton administration. That's what the President said.

It's hard to have a conversation when the other party to the negotiations takes the position that they will not allow one cent from closing a corporate tax loophole to go for the purposes of deficit reduction. And now we see them trying to enshrine within the Constitution a limitation on our ability to get rid of those special interest tax loopholes. They would now require a two-thirds vote. That is a Washington lobbyist's dream in the Constitution.

I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Small Business Committee, the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Velazquez).

Madam Speaker, nobody is saying that we shouldn't balance our budget. We should balance our budget. In fact, the last time it was in balance was during the Clinton administration when they took a balanced approach to reducing the deficit, including having in place sufficient revenues from the folks at the very top to help cover our bills.

Then what happened in 2001-2003 is that we had back-to-back tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the very wealthy, which are a significant contributor to why there is now a mismatch between the bills we have to pay and the revenue coming in, which is why the President of the United States has said, Let's reduce the deficit. Let's do it in a balanced way. Let's do $3 in cuts to $1 in revenue.

I go back to the fact that the Republicans in the House want to insert in the Constitution of the United States a provision that would require a two-thirds vote to get rid of a special interest tax loophole for the purpose of deficit reduction. That kind of makes it difficult to have a balanced plan.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Farr).

Madam Speaker, the one surefire way that we're going to send interest rates up in this country and add to the cost of living for every American is if the United States doesn't pay its bills--bills for obligations that we've already taken on, which is what this is about. Some people, again, think it's a sacrifice to pay bills for actions and decisions that they've already supported and voted for. I would also point out that the Republican budget that passed the House and that would be put into this bill would require us to raise the debt ceiling by $8 trillion between now and 2022. So let's not play this game with respect to paying our Nation's bills.

We have to do two things: We have to pay our Nation's bills--every family knows they have to pay their bills--and we have to come up with a deficit reduction plan.

The reality is the President has put a plan on the table. The reality is our Republican colleagues don't happen to like it because, as I said, for every $3 in spending cuts, it would ask us to have $1 in revenue from closing these special interest tax loopholes. Again, they want to manipulate the Constitution of the United States to protect those loopholes, to make it hard to get rid of them.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews).

(Mr. ANDREWS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, as part of the plan the President has put on the table that would reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over about 10 to 12 years, he has about a trillion dollars in cuts in discretionary spending. He does ask the Pentagon, which is the one agency that has never passed a GAO audit, to help contribute toward resolving that deficit problem. And he also does it without making deep cuts in critical investments for our country like education, like investment in infrastructure.

We're going to see in a couple of weeks a bill that may come out of the Transportation Committee that dramatically slashes infrastructure investments at a time when we have 20 percent unemployment in the construction industry.

So, yes, we have to make these cuts. The President's plan makes the cuts. But let's not take a hatchet to education investments. Let's not take a hatchet to investing in critical infrastructure, and let's not enshrine in the Constitution of the United States a preference for cutting Medicare and Social Security over cutting special interest tax loopholes. That's what this provision will do.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. Speaker, I think the American families gathering around their tables do not have the option of not paying their bills on obligations they've already incurred. They can't say, Oh, it's okay to not pay my car payment, but I will pay my mortgage. They don't have that choice; and, frankly, the United States Government should not be saying that we're going to make those choices. We should be paying all our bills. And I would remind my colleagues that the reason we have to raise the debt ceiling is for obligations that have already been incurred, votes that have already been taken. For example, two wars, an unfunded prescription drug bill, and the reality of two tax cuts that disproportionately benefited the very wealthy.

Now, I would urge my colleagues to read the bill. The section the gentleman referred to dealt with the sequestration. There's nothing in the bill that says not to cut Medicare or Social Security as part of reaching those targets. In fact, they're going to implant in the Constitution of the United States a spending level that we have not achieved since just after we passed Medicare.

So what they would do through this is call for deep cuts in Medicare. The numbers in this particular statutory provision track the budget that the Republicans passed off this floor. The CBO analyzed that. It looked at the impact on Medicare beneficiaries, and it's in a letter dated April 5, 2011, to the chairman of the Budget Committee, pointing out that under the Republican budget plan, Medicare beneficiaries will end up paying about 60 percent of the costs compared to 25 to 30 percent under Medicare today.

It's interesting that Members of Congress have written into the statute provisions that say for Members of Congress, we will have about 72 to 75 percent of our premiums and costs covered when we're saying to seniors on Medicare, let's put in these spending caps that will require you to pay a whole lot more.

With that, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan), a distinguished member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, again, the President has said two things: Number one, America pays its bills for the obligations that it's incurred. Number two, he put a plan on the table to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion; again, $3 in spending cuts for $1 of revenue.

I would point out to the gentleman, the President was very explicit. He said that the revenue component would begin in January of 2013; and in the meantime, he's actually proposed extending the payroll tax for another year during the year 2012 so that consumers would have more money to generate more demand in the economy, which is very fragile right now.

But make no mistake: Our long-term challenge is getting the economy going again and reducing our deficit, and the economy needs that to happen, and it should happen in a balanced way.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Neal) a member of the Ways and Means Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I agree with much of what the gentleman said, especially that we need to take responsibility for our own actions. And that's why nobody should be taking the position that we won't pay the bills of the United States of America unless we get a plan that's 100 percent our way.

American families can't say to the mortgage company, you know what? I don't like the way you're handling this. I'm not going to pay you, or whatever. And so we need to take that same approach.

Decisions have been made in the past. We're obligated to pay the bill for those decisions. Let's not try and duck those responsibilities for our own actions.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Levin), the distinguished ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee.

(Mr. LEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Welch).

Mr. Speaker, I would again remind my colleagues that the last time we were running a budget surplus was during the years of the Clinton administration. During that period of time our spending was at a level that was higher than the limitation in here, and we were paying our obligations. What this would do would create an anti- majoritarian, anti-democratic provision in the Constitution that says you can't balance your budget at 19 percent of GDP, even if that's the will of the American people, even if it's how we did it back during the Clinton administration.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I know that the gentleman is new to the body, but there were lots of decisions made over the past years for which the bills are coming due now. For example, in 2005 when our Republican colleagues headed up the House, we passed a prescription drug add-on to Medicare which was not funded, not one penny. It was all put on the credit card. Two wars were put on the credit card; and again, tax cuts in 2001, 2003 that disproportionately benefited the very wealthy that created this gap.

So I agree with the gentleman. It is time, sir, to take responsibility for our actions. And it is interesting to hear some folks say that it is a sacrifice for us to have to pay bills for decisions that were made in the past.

Now, yes, we need to get the deficit under control. And again, the President of the United States has put on the table a balanced approach over 10 years, $3 of spending cuts to $1 of revenue. And again, our Republican colleagues have walked away from the table because they don't want to raise one penny of revenue from closing corporate tax loopholes.

Just to be clear, the President's plan would extend middle class tax cuts beyond 2013. The President's plan would say let's extend the payroll tax cut for 2012. But he says let's get serious about our deficit and let's do it in a balanced way with shared responsibility.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), a member of the Ways and Means Committee who knows a lot about the importance of shared responsibility.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I would just ask my Republican colleagues to consider why they want to write a provision in the Constitution of the United States that would make it harder to shut down a special interest tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit for our children and grandchildren.

I now yield 4 minutes to our very distinguished Democratic whip and my colleague from the State of Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

I yield the gentleman an additional minute.

This is a time for choosing. We have to reduce our deficit. We have to get the budget in the balance. The question is, how we do this? And we believe that it is a corruption of the Constitution to write into the Constitution itself a provision that says a majority vote can cut Medicare and Social Security but you need a two-thirds undemocratic vote to close a corporate tax loophole for the purpose of reducing the deficit.

I yield 1 minute to gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

I would hazard a guess that Thomas Jefferson would not want to write into the Constitution of the United States anti- democratic provisions that said you need two-thirds in order to close special interest tax loopholes for the purpose of deficit reduction or to say that we're going to decide now, for all time, that we have to balance our budget at 18 percent of GDP rather than some other number that may be the will of the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, once again, the President had a plan to reduce the deficit by about $4 trillion over 10 years--$3 in cuts, $1 in revenue. Our Republican colleagues walked away from the table because they didn't want $1 of deficit reduction from closing special interest tax loopholes.

With that, I yield 3\1/4\ minutes to the distinguished member of the Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler).

I yield the gentleman an additional 10 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, again, the choice is not whether we put in place a plan to reduce the deficit and balance the budget. The issue is how we do that. That is the difference here.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would remind my colleagues that this provision that they're talking about, the constitutional proposal that came out of the Judiciary Committee, would prohibit the Congress from balancing the budget at 13 percent of GDP expenditures. It would say you cannot make that choice. It would also say you have to reach a two- thirds hurdle to reduce the special interest tax breaks for the purpose of deficit reduction.

So we keep hearing about this balanced budget amendment without any mention from our colleagues that they've inserted these two devices into the Constitution that would limit our ability to balance the budget in a balanced way.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, that's right. A few years ago during the Clinton administration when they took a balanced approach to deficit reduction, we did run surpluses.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

Mr. Speaker, it does not throw Americans a lifeline to write into the Constitution of the United States a provision that creates a preference for cutting Medicare and Social Security over cutting subsidies for oil companies.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would point out that when Ronald Reagan was President, he raised the debt ceiling 17 times and specifically wrote to the Congress, saying that failure to pay our bills would jeopardize the creditworthiness and trustworthiness of the United States. Let's not make that mistake. President Reagan didn't want to make that mistake.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah).

Mr. Speaker, I still fail to see how it helps our kids and helps our seniors to write into the Constitution of the United States a bias in favor of cutting Medicare and cutting Social Security and cutting education before cutting special interest tax breaks. They would require only a majority to cut Social Security and Medicare, but two-thirds to get rid of special interest tax breaks for the purpose of reducing the deficit. That's why this is a question of priorities and a question of balance.

How do we reduce the deficit? How do we get it into balance?

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. Maloney).

Here's the question. As you know, this requires that we later pass a constitutional amendment. In fact, between now and August 2 we have to pass a constitutional amendment which, of course, requires two-thirds in the House. We'll find out by later this evening whether or not this bill will even get two-thirds in the House.

The point is, this bill says you can't continue to pay the bills unless, between now and August 2 or whenever----

We pass a constitutional amendment with the provisions that you have in here. And so it will be a test today whether you can get the two-thirds to change the Constitution in the ways you're talking about.

I've already indicated that there is a conversation to be had with respect to what is a reasonable approach, but that is absolutely not what we're dealing with in this particular bill as we've debated.

We believe, as the President said, the best way for us to balance the budget is to get together and hammer out a deal sooner rather than later.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, if what the gentleman is saying is that we think we should get rid of a lot of the pork barrel spending in the Tax Code, whether it's oil subsidies or whether it's for corporate jets, yes, we think we should get rid of some of that stuff for the purpose of reducing the deficit.

We have a lot less time; otherwise, I would.

If the Speaker would tell us how much time is remaining.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge my colleagues to look at the Congressional Budget Office analysis of the impact of the Republican budget on senior citizens on Medicare. Essentially what they do is give seniors a raw deal compared to what Members of Congress get themselves, a raw deal in a big way.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, American families don't have the luxury of saying if we don't get things 100 percent our way, we won't pay our family bills.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, today is an historic today. We have an opportunity in this body to send a strong signal to the country that we're going to live within our means. At the heart of this discussion is a discussion about whether or not our country is going to live within its means.

What we ask for at the heart of this proposal is that we balance our budget. It's something that families do. It's something that businesses do. A balanced budget amendment is something that 49 States across the country have.

Unfortunately, in Congresses past, Presidents past, we have not lived within our means. I have heard the argument that says, Oh, we don't need a constitutional amendment; we just need to do our job.

Madam Speaker, we find this Nation more than $14 trillion in debt. We're paying more than $600 million a day in interest on that debt. Now imagine, imagine the United States of America without that debt. We don't get anything for that $600 million. But it's an obligation. We need to live up to those obligations.

What this bill says is very simple:

We're going to cut. We're going to make an immediate cut to some spending, a paltry $111 billion in the first year. Number two, we're going to cap as a percentage of our gross domestic product the amount of money that we're going to spend going forward so that there are targets in place for future Congresses to consider and weigh and make the good decisions that need to be made. How are we going to prioritize things? And, number three, we are going to seek to have a balanced budget amendment come to the floor of the House, come to the Senate, and pass both bodies.

If we can make that historic move and pass to the States a balanced budget amendment, then we will solve the underlying challenge that faces this country: We are spending too much money. I think everybody understands that. But the question is: Are we really going to do something about it?

The question for the President, the question for this body moving forward, is: Do we have the fortitude to actually put before the States an amendment? That's all we ask. Can the States have a say in this?

To my Senate colleagues, Madam Speaker, I would encourage them, they are to represent the States. What are they afraid of if they won't send a balanced budget amendment forward for their ratification?

We have to change the way we do business in Washington, D.C. America gets it. America understands it. But this body, in its history, has not lived up to that call. The future of our Nation depends upon it.

There is going to be all kinds of rhetoric about how we're cutting Medicare. It's not true. It simply says we're going to have to put ourselves on a glide path to get some fiscal sanity back here.

Now, there is a timetable that is before us. We're going to run out of money. We're spending money we don't have. But there is a timetable before us. And so in just 2 weeks, we're going to come upon this deadline. This is a real plan that can solve the problem and something that should be widely embraced on both sides of the aisle.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I would ask the gentleman if he could give us a copy of that plan right now here during this debate, we would certainly appreciate it.

The second thing is what we're talking about is a balanced budget. That's really what we're talking about.

I now yield 1 minute to our leader, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor).

For 2 years under Barack Obama, the Democrats had the House and Senate and the Presidency, you didn't do a thing to touch those so-called ``loopholes.'' To try to feign how exasperated you are at this point is somewhat disingenuous to somebody who sat here for 2 years with you having the House, the Senate, and the Presidency and doing nothing about it.

What we're fighting for is more taxpayers, not more taxes. When the President said he was going to veto this bill, it provided a whole lot of clarity to a guy like me. Because if we can't find common ground on balancing the budget--how dare we offer that we want to balance the budget? That's all we ask for in this country, is put us on a trajectory to balance the budget.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price), the chairman of the House Policy Committee.

Madam Speaker, the only thing Cut, Cap, and Balance is bad for is for Members of Congress because we are going to actually rein in spending. They're actually going to have to live within a balanced budget.

I would also highlight rule XXI, section 5(b). I have heard a lot of rhetoric in the news and other places about how there is going to be such a higher standard. It should be noted that the passage of a tax rate increase, a bill or joint resolution, amendment, or conference report carrying a Federal income tax rate increase may not be considered as passed or agreed to unless so determined by a vote of not less than three-fifths of the Members voting.

It was that same standard and threshold when Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House as it is today, so we have had that higher standard for raising taxes. That is nothing new.

At this time, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ribble), a freshman Member.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Flores), a member of the House Budget Committee.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I love that: foolish gimmicks, balancing our budget.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte).

(Mr. GOODLATTE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I believe the gentleman said he would answer a question if we asked it on our time. The question I have for the gentleman is: Would you support any balanced budget amendment? Is there any balanced budget amendment that you would support?

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

It's just a ``yes'' or ``no.''

It's a simple ``yes'' or ``no.''

Reclaiming my time----

Reclaiming my time, I will now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee, Diane Black, who is here as a freshman in the House of Representatives.

We have 9 percent-plus unemployment, Madam Speaker. We've been north of that for a long time. And we're now also saddled with more than $14 trillion in debt.

I would now like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford), who is on the Budget Committee.

Madam Speaker, I can hear the chant on the other side with regard to the some 90 times the debt ceiling has been raised. That's the problem. I can hear the chant on the other side: One more time. One more time. One more time.

That's why we're in this mess. It's that Congresses in the past have not heeded the call. They have not said, ``Enough is enough.'' Now, as our debt ceiling starts to reach a panic, we're going to get close to 100 percent of our gross domestic product.

Enough is enough.

I would now like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Young).

I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Speaker, at any time we would love to see the Democrats' plan.

If you could actually slide it across the table to us, we would certainly appreciate it.

I would like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).

(Mr. HUELSKAMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

It's always compelling, Mr. Speaker, when they have to use a poll to figure out how to do public policymaking. And to suggest that there would be no more mortgages is just fantasy. It's amazing what gets made up in this discussion instead of a serious discussion about balancing our books.

I would now like to yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Mulvaney).

Mr. Speaker, all we ask for is a balanced budget amendment. All we ask for is for people to live within their means. If you listen to the Democrats and what they suggest, just go ahead and spend more. Go ahead and keep racking it up on the credit card. There are no consequences. There are consequences.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Stutzman).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Guinta).

Mr. Speaker, the President submitted a budget, a budget that never balances. In fact, it doubles and triples the debt. It went to the United States Senate, and 97-0--97-0--not one Democrat voted in favor of that.

Has the President submitted any sort of adjustment or amendment to that? No, he has not. The reality is this President has no plan. We have a plan. We can solve the underlying problem and take care of paying our bills on August 2.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. McClintock), a member of the Budget Committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. West).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1\1/2\ minutes.

I rise today in support of a plan, an actual plan, to address our fiscal crisis, to cut, cap and balance.

Now, Mr. Speaker, with our debt now topping $14 trillion, we have no other choice but to start sending clear, immediate signals to the marketplace and the world that we are serious about spending and debt reform. And to show that we are serious, we need to put skin in the game in the form of immediate spending cuts today, caps on spending that occurs tomorrow, and a balanced budget amendment to protect us from spending too much in the future.

You know, I find it interesting that the proponents of a debt limit increase without any substantial reforms point to the so-called financial meltdown-type scenarios of failing to raise the debt limit by August 2. We hear that interest rates for U.S. Treasuries would skyrocket, causing the cost of servicing current debt to increase, which in turn would require more borrowing and disastrous consequences for the Federal budget and also the global economy.

But you know what the other side fails to mention in any of these scenarios is what would happen if we don't get spending under control. The challenge is clear. What are the solutions, though, to it?

House Republicans today are demonstrating that we are committed to confronting our country's addiction to spending and debt with bold and decisive action and with a plan in place. The cut, cap, and balance plan is not only the right prescription to address our fiscal crisis, it is the only plan on the table that makes structural changes to right our fiscal ship. In fact, it is the only plan in place.

Nobody wants to raise the debt ceiling, but if it's going to be raised, we should use it as an opportunity to finally implement comprehensive reform measures to ensure that we never find ourselves in this situation again; because if we do nothing, we put off the tough decision for another day, the only one to blame is ourselves. This is our moment. This is our time to act.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita).

I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Michigan (Mrs. Miller), who is concerned not only about the soul of the Nation today but the soul of the Nation for our posterity as well, who is not willing to duck the hard fiscal issues.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Coble).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Olson).

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Graves), who recognizes that if the balanced budget amendment was appropriate back in 1995, with debt now reaching over $14 trillion today, how much more so is it relevant to pass today.

Mr. Speaker, just to remind the other side of the aisle with regard to the radical plan that we talked about here with regard to changing or amending the Constitution, it was Thomas Jefferson who said, in a letter to John Taylor, I wish that it were possible to obtain just a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone, that our government would return to the genuine principles of the Constitution. And he was speaking, of course, of what we're doing here today, what Thomas Jefferson wished that we had done over 200 years ago: a balanced budget amendment.

With that, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Washington (Mrs. McMorris Rodgers).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kline).

Just to the gentleman from the other side of the aisle who made the point regarding what sort of amendment that Thomas Jefferson may have been looking for today, whether he actually would be looking for one, what we call a supermajority, what have you, in point of fact I believe Jefferson would be going even further than what we are doing here today and simply say that Congress should not have the ability to borrow at all. The amendment that we are putting forward would actually give us greater flexibility with that in time of emergency, in time of war, and Congress can take it upon themselves to borrow. Jefferson understood that first and foremost that Congress, just like the businesses and families at the time, needed to live within their means. And he saw it as immoral, basically, to take the responsibilities of this generation and place them on future generations.

At this time I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Womack).

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

We are also reminded that Jefferson said in 1816 that he sincerely believed that the principle of spending money today that we don't have, to be paid for by posterity, is but swindling future generations--something this Republican Party does not wish to do.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Johnson).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Scalise).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Gibbs).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), who, while the White House says that leadership is not simply proposing a bill to vote up or down, recognizes that the White House has not given us any plan of leadership so far on this issue.

(Mr. STEARNS asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Berg).

Would that we had the problem of this Congress over the last 2 years trying to balance the budget, what with $1 trillion in additional stimulus spending, $2 trillion in the cost of ObamaCare, $3 trillion overall added to the budget deficit. Would that be the problem that we'd look to the other side of the aisle to try to live within our means. Unfortunately, that's not the case. And that's the reason why, as our Founders understood and as we spoke of Jefferson before, the need to try to constrain ourselves with cutting spending now, placing legislative caps offered tomorrow, and then going forward in the future with a constitutional balanced budget amendment.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), who understands the importance of living within our means.

Mr. Speaker, I would just remind Members of what the leader on the other side said, wondering whether Members have actually read the bill. If Members do read the bill, they understand that Cut, Cap, and Balance, as provided before us, actually does those three things and allows us to pay the bills at the same time.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Ross).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Palazzo).

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton).

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

At this point, I will yield that 30 seconds to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Duncan).

Many of our colleagues on both sides of the aisle would not be

here today if President Jefferson had not borrowed to finance the Louisiana Purchase.

Mr. Speaker, this bill promises all the fun of a constitutional amendment without actually amending the Constitution. It simply says that the United States should default on our debts and destroy our economy if we don't amend the Constitution.

If we default on our debts, we will do more damage to our economy than large deficits, tax increases and draconian cuts combined. Right now, we enjoy very low interest rates because we are still the most stable, reliable and wealthy country in the world.

If the markets get the idea that we are too dysfunctional to pay our debts, even though we are certainly wealthy enough to do so, nothing else will matter. Interest rates will climb. Homeowners and businesses will be pushed out of the credit market. The stock market will crash.

Never before in the history of this country has anyone been irresponsible enough to play chicken with our full faith and credit. Never.

We know how to balance the budget, because we've done it before. In the not-too-distant past, we managed, in working with President Clinton, not only to balance the budget but to run surpluses and begin paying down the debt. Unfortunately, President Bush and a Republican Congress managed to turn record surpluses into record deficits in record time.

Rather than admit to serious Republican economic mismanagement and finding responsible solutions, we get this dusted-off quack cure from the past. The so-called balanced budget amendment requires a balanced budget much sooner than does the Republican budget that the House recently passed, the one that abolishes Medicare and turns Medicaid into a block grant.

I asked the sponsor of the balanced budget amendment, the gentleman from Virginia, how he thought this could be done. He answered that the Republican Study Committee budget, which is even more radical than the Ryan budget, would be in balance in just 9 years. That's what we're really voting for today--an accelerated version of the Republican Study Committee budget. Anyone voting for this should be prepared to go home and explain that vote, including Republican members who voted against their study committee budget.

Economists have long known that, in good times, you should balance the budget and pay down the debt but that, in times of recession, when tax revenues plummet and the economy contracts, you have to spend money on unemployment insurance and on putting people back to work. You must run a deficit to get the economy going again. The balanced budget amendment would force us to do the exact opposite and turn every recession into a depression.

This constitutional amendment does a whole lot more than require a balanced budget. Many of its provisions simply cement into the Constitution the policy preferences of the current majority and bind our children and grandchildren to those preferences.

The two-thirds requirement, for example, to increase revenues would have the perverse effect of allowing special interest tax loopholes to be slipped into law with a majority vote, but would require a supermajority to repeal them. This is not just antithetical to a balanced budget; it would also cement the most corrupt aspects of our Tax Code into the Constitution.

The amendment would also require a two-thirds vote for any budget that exceeds 18 percent of GDP. The CBO tells us: ``Outlays have averaged close to 21 percent of GDP over the past 40 years.'' Federal outlays have not dropped below 18 percent since 1966--that is, since the enactment of Medicare.

Regardless of what other parts of this bill may say, there is no way to meet these restrictions without destroying Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans' programs, and military preparedness. That's just arithmetic, and no amount of rhetoric will change it.

The real problem is that tax revenues have declined from 20\1/2\ percent of GDP in 2000 to 14\1/2\ percent of GDP because we no longer tax the millionaires, the billionaires and the large corporations the way we used to.

Let's start doing that, and we can have a balanced budget without phoney constitutional amendments which promise balanced budgets, without showing how, but that do protect the millionaires from paying their fair share.

I thank my friend, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, Mr. Van Hollen, for yielding.

The American public are rightfully very distressed with the Congress of the United States. They're distressed that at a time of great challenge and great risk, that we fiddle while the debt threatens to burn us, to place our country in the position of being adjudged uncreditworthy. That is not worthy of this Congress or any one of us that serves in this Congress.

We have 14 days, according to the Secretary Treasurer, until such time as America will be unable to pay its obligations, whether to foreigners or to people in this country. That is not a situation that will be looked at positively by the financial sector or by any one of our constituents whose ability to save, to have a 401(k) that is stable, to purchase an automobile or a refrigerator or send their kid to college will be put at risk because of increased interest rates. Not one of us will be held

harmless if this Congress fails to do its duty.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have had a number of efforts to get us to where we needed to be to get back to fiscal responsibility. I'm amused when I hear our new Members talk about the fiscal irresponsibility, because I've served here long enough to know that the two Presidents under whom the debt was raised most were Ronald Reagan, a 186 percent increase from the $985 billion total debt when Ronald Reagan took office to over $2.8 trillion, and George Bush II, who increased the national debt 86 percent. Did he do it alone? Of course not. Did we all do it, Republicans and Democrats? Yes.

Democrats believe that the debt was raised because we bought things on the Republican watch that were not paid for. That's indisputable. You cannot argue that. Those are the facts. The fact is, did we do the same in the Obama administration? We did. Why? Because we had to respond to the deepest recession we have seen. We didn't create enough jobs. In fact, we lost jobs.

So we bring a bill to the floor some weeks ago to address the creditworthiness of the United States of America, and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee said, We offer this bill to fail. Not to solve the problem. To fail.

Now we bring a bill to the floor of the House of Representatives this day, 14 days before the debt limit is reached and America might default for the first time in history. This bill was written sometime late Friday or perhaps Saturday. How many of you said, Have you read the bill? How many hours have you taken to consider this bill?

I've read the bill, too, Paul. I guarantee you there is not an American who's not on the Budget Committee that reads this bill knows what impact it has, and the chairman of the Budget Committee is shaking his head and agreeing with me. The fact of the matter is you haven't had one second of hearing on this, there was no markup on this bill, and it has significant consequences.

Let me tell you, my friends on the other side of the aisle, I'm one of those who stands in this well who voted for the balanced budget amendment in 1995.

I voted because I believed we needed to get to fiscal responsibility, and in fact we did, and we balanced the budget 4 years in a row, and George Bush inherited a $5.6 trillion projected surplus. Not debt. Not deficit. And 22 million jobs having been created before he took office. Eight years later, we had increased the debt by $5 trillion.

I'm not going to vote for the balanced budget amendment, and I urge my colleagues to reject this bill, which has no chance of passage, and we need to stop fiddling. We need to do our work and make sure America can pay its debts, because if it can't, every one of our constituents will lose and our country will lose.

Our oath of office was to preserve and protect. Defeat this ill- advised, ill-timed, unconsidered piece of legislation and let us move to fiscal responsibility in a way that will bring us all together in a bipartisan way, as Bowles-Simpson tried to do, as Biden tried to do, and as, frankly, Mr. Boehner and the President tried to do. Let's get to that objective. The country deserves it.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore