Joint resolution proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. President, I care a great deal for my colleague from Colorado, and I appreciate his explanation of his amendment. Unfortunately, as I view his amendment, it might work as long as you accept the rachet up of spending and taxing. That is what we are trying to stop around here. His S.J. Res 24 would be a band-aid on the system. It does not address the cause of our unbalanced budgets. An amendment that does not limit spending and does not limit taxes will never solve this crisis. It is just that simple. And to work, they have to use budget gimmicks.

I wish to begin by thanking my friend, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, Senator Grassley. In his service on the committee, he has always been a champion of our limited government, and with his remarks today he has again proven himself a strong advocate of constitutional government. So, too, my good friend and collaborator on a balanced budget amendment, Senator Cornyn, deserves recognition, as well as my partner in the Senate, Mike Lee, and a whole raft of others--47, to be exact. Earlier today, Senator Cornyn highlighted admirably the threat our debt poses to the liberty and prosperity of all of America's citizens. And although he has not spoken yet, I know in advance that my friend and colleague from Utah, Senator Mike Lee, with whom I worked closely in drafting S.J. Res 10, will deliver powerful remarks later today in support of this amendment and about the importance of restoring meaningful limits on the power of the Federal Government.

Today we are engaged in a historic debate. You might not know it from the amount of time dedicated to the subject, but I am confident that when the history of our country is written, today will be marked as a turning point.

Today is the day that every Republican in the Senate stood up for a strong balanced budget amendment that will begin to restore this Nation's fiscal integrity. It is the day that conservatives stood up and supported a constitutional amendment that would reset the limit on the size and power of a federal government that has grown far too large. It is the day that the people of this country stood up for serious constitutional limits on Congress and the President, who have spent with impunity for far too long.

We are having this debate for a simple reason: Our Nation is now $15 trillion--actually more than $15 trillion and going up every day--in debt. This chart shows just how much it was just a few minutes ago. It is important to put this number in perspective.

The Nation achieved the ignominious landmark of a trillion-dollar deficit in President Obama's first year in office. We are now in our third straight year of trillion-dollar deficits. The Federal Government is now borrowing more than 40 cents of every dollar it spends. The burden of this debt is more than $48,000 for every man, woman, and child in America.

The Congressional Budget Office projects that interest payments alone on all of this debt will total $4.5 trillion, crowding out many other national priorities. For 2010, spending on interest on the national debt is greater than

the funding for most other Federal programs. Let's look at that. As you can see, in 1 year, spending on interest on the national debt is greater than funding for most programs--$656.7 billion for the Department of Defense; $414 billion for interest expense; $173 billion for the Department of Labor; $129 billion for the Department of Agriculture; $108 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs; and just one other I will mention, $92.9 billion for the Department of Education.

Well, the impact of this quickly escalating debt burden could prove catastrophic for economic growth and for American families. In a letter to the then-ranking member of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, the Congressional Budget Office determined that ``beyond 2058, projected deficits in the alternative fiscal scenario become so large and unsustainable that CBO's model cannot calculate their effects.'' That ought to tell you something. In other words, the CBO model crashes when it even attempts to calculate the impact of all of this debt on economic growth. Yet all of these numbers might be understating the Nation's debt burden. What happens if interest rates rise? Right now they are at historic lows, but that will not always be the case, and we are figuring on historic lows right now as though they are going to continue.

According to CBO's alternative fiscal scenario, which is our most realistic fiscal scenario, debt held by the public will reach 82 percent of GDP by 2021. Now, that is if they are right, and they have never been right yet over the long term; they are always low. Absent real fiscal reforms, it will reach 100 percent of GDP by 2035. But this does not tell the whole bleak story. The fact is, when you include the IOUs the government has issued to itself, intergovernmental holdings, our debt is already at 100 percent of GDP--larger than our entire economy.

When are our friends on the other side going to start thinking about these things and start realizing that they are taking us right down into bankruptcy in this country? This debt burden we have is simply not sustainable. If interest rates go back to their average in the 1990s, our public debt will increase by 77 percent over even these grim estimates I have just mentioned. We are spending at historical highs and going higher, and with interest on the debt taking a larger and larger share of spending, we need to be very concerned as a nation that we are entering a debt spiral from which we will have a difficult time extricating ourselves.

For these reasons, ADM Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, concluded that our national debt is the ``biggest threat we have to our national security.'' For these reasons, Standard & Poor's issued its historic downgrade of U.S. Treasuries this past summer.

The impact of this debt is more than academic; it will eventually lead to higher interest rates for all Americans, undermining the ability of people to purchase a home, buy a car, or even start a business. Most importantly, it will fundamentally alter the relationship of citizens to their government. It will further undermine personal liberty. It will lead to more government control of the economy. And it will jeopardize the livelihoods of American business owners and workers as ever-escalating debt and government spending embolden those who seek higher taxes to finance this leviation.

The solution to this problem is S.J. Res. 10, the balanced budget amendment supported by every Senate Republican, all 47 of us.

In the time I have been fortunate enough to serve the people of Utah, I have sponsored 5 balanced budget amendments and have been an original cosponsor of 18. These amendments have not been identical. Their provisions have been honed over time. I am confident this version strikes just the right balance.

It is the right amendment for the right time. We face a crisis of spending and a government that has clearly exploded in size. This constitutional amendment is the only one that will be debated this week that will address that crisis and would reduce the size of this Leviathan government.

The President has strongly opposed not only this balanced budget amendment but any balanced budget amendment. As he said: ``We don't need a constitutional amendment to do our jobs.'' My goodness. That is what he said on July 15 of this year.

I wish to spend a few moments considering the President's claim. The President claimed that 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.''

The President's spokesman, Jay Carney, elaborated in greater detail on why a balanced budget amendment is not necessary. According to him, balancing the budget is ``not complicated.'' All that is needed is that we put politics aside, quit ducking responsibility, and roll up our sleeves and get to work. Yet all I hear from the White House is that we have to have more taxes and more spending.

This is the lament of the tough chooser, a term coined by the journalist Andrew Ferguson. The tough chooser talks a lot about making tough choices. But when it comes to actually making them, the tough chooser goes missing.

Tough choosers, concerned about our deficits and debt, voted for ObamaCare, even though it increased spending by $2.6 trillion and taxes by over $1 trillion.

Tough choosers reject a balanced budget amendment because all that is required, in their view, is some tough choosing by legislators. The problem with this theory is that the so-called tough choosers never step up.

The past history of the balanced budget amendment is all the evidence we need that a constitutional amendment is required to force legislators and the White House to make these tough choices. But given President Obama's rejection of the balanced budget amendment, it is worth considering his own actions this year and his personal contributions to deficit reduction. That record is a weak one of denial and avoidance.

Following the clear statement of the American people last November that Washington needed to address deficits and debt, the President had an opportunity to lead with his fiscal year 2012 budget. Yet this is how the Washington Post described the impact of that budget. After next year, ``the deficit will begin to fall, settling around $600 billion a year through 2018, when it would once again begin to climb as a growing number of retirees tapped into Social Security and Medicare.''

So the President, who today is telling us that he and Congress are willing to buckle down and make tough choices to balance the Nation's books, gave us a budget that did little to put this country on a path toward long-term fiscal sustainability.

The President's budget landed with such a thud and was so unresponsive to the desire of the American people to tackle the debt, that he took a mulligan and attempted a budget do-over in the Spring. In an April 13 speech at George Washington University, President Obama offered a revised budget. True to form, he did not stick his neck out and actually offer anything that could be scored by the CBO. Yet Republicans did analyze the President's speech, and after stripping out the gimmicks and the rosy scenarios, they found that far from making any tough choices, his do-over actually added $2.2 trillion to the deficit.

This avoidance of tough choosing by Washington's tough choosers is, unfortunately, the norm.

We have heard the President's argument before. I have heard it now for 35 years, maybe not just from him but from others as well. We hear it every time a balanced budget amendment comes to the floor and is debated in the Senate. The opponents claim there is no need for a balanced budget amendment; all that is necessary is that we put politics aside and make the tough choices.

So how is that working out for our country?

When I introduced my first balanced budget amendment in 1979, the national debt was $827 billion. We thought that was astronomical. In 1982, when the Senate passed a balanced budget amendment that I cosponsored, the national debt had risen to $1.1 trillion. In 1986, when the Senate failed by one vote to pass a balanced budget amendment that I cosponsored, the national debt topped $2.1 trillion. By 1997,

when this body voted on a balanced budget amendment that I introduced, the national debt had passed the $5 trillion mark. Today, it is three times that amount--over $15 trillion.

The record is clear. Absent the constitutional restraint of a balanced budget amendment, Congress and the President do not make the tough choices. Instead, they take the path of least resistance. They gladly disperse Federal dollars today--to grateful special interests-- and then figure out a way to pay for it tomorrow, except they never figure out the way.

This is not the political and economic philosophy of the Founders, who warned at the birth of our Republic against debt and overspending. That is the political philosophy of J. Wellington Wimpy, who would ``gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.''

A balanced budget amendment is not an abdication of Congress's responsibility. On the contrary, it would force Congress to live up to its responsibilities. It would force Congress and the President to make the choices about national spending priorities they have thus far been unwilling to make.

I don't think there are many Americans who question whether our fiscal situation would be better today if we had enacted and the States had ratified a constitutional amendment when Ronald Reagan was President.

This is where we are headed as a country if we don't get our fiscal house in order. We are headed off a cliff. I could have put up a map of Greece, but that might have understated our predicament.

Yet to hear the opponents of a balanced budget amendment talk, one would think the problem we face as a country is the amendment, not the out-of-control spending that demands such an amendment.

These misplaced priorities fundamentally understate how much government spending is accelerating in this country and the threat this spending poses for personal liberty, constitutionally limited government, and free enterprise.

As I noted earlier, our true debt burden is already 100 percent of GDP. This is very dangerous territory. According to the economists Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, public debt burdens above 90 percent of GDP are associated with 1-percent lower economic growth.

I ask unanimous consent that a short article outlining their thesis be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, while one might quibble with the particulars of Reinhart's and Rogoff's assessment, failure to take it seriously, given the recent struggles of the eurozone, amounts to whistling past the graveyard.

To be clear, the long-term source of our fiscal problem is overspending, not a lack of revenue. Our friends at the Heritage Foundation have done an excellent job of putting all this spending into historical perspective.

I will run through some charts highlighting just how unusual and unsustainable recent levels of Federal spending have become. Any way we cut it, spending is up. Federal spending per household is skyrocketing, even with the $2.1 trillion in deficit reduction achieved by this summer's Budget Control Act.

In 1965, Federal spending per household was $11,431. In 2010, it was $29,401. It is projected to hit $35,773 in 2020. That is per household.

Federal spending is growing faster than median income. Between 1970 and 2009, total Federal spending rose by 299 percent, while median household income has gone up 27 percent in the same time period.

Federal spending that is far out of line with historical averages is the cause of our annual deficits and total debt--not the much reviled 2001 and 2003 tax relief extended by President Obama and a Democratic Congress.

Historically, revenues have averaged around 18 percent of GDP. As the economy recovers, CBO projects revenues to return to that historical average. Yet spending is going higher and higher.

The end result of all this spending is not pretty to look at. Our national debt is going to skyrocket. Up to 344 percent by 2050.

The problem the Senate Republican balanced budget amendment is meant to address is reckless spending. We will hear many arguments against this amendment. We will hear it prevents tax increases. We will hear it prevents deficit spending in an economic downturn. We will hear it hamstrings the Nation in times of military emergency and that it prevents spending in excess of 18 percent of GDP.

It does no such thing. What it does do is require a broad national consensus before Congress spends beyond its means. It makes certain that there is deep bipartisan agreement before raising taxes--a provision the Nation would have benefited from prior to the decision of the President and congressional Democrats to drive through $1 trillion in ObamaCare tax increases on nearly party-line votes, and it demands wide support for spending in excess of 18 percent of GDP.

As my friends at Americans for Prosperity put it in their letter of support for the Republican proposal, the amendment ``strikes a balance between allowing flexibility for some deficit spending in times of national emergency, while requiring supermajorities in both Chambers to do so. This assures citizens that the Federal Government will only run a deficit when there is broad consensus that a genuine crisis demands it.''

That sounds like pretty good language to me.

I ask unanimous consent that that letter from Americans for Prosperity be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, we will hear there is a reasonable alternative being offered. But we need to understand this for what it is. It doesn't put any spending limitations on Congress. It leaves wide the door for massive tax increases to pay for levels of spending that are far outside our constitutional traditions. Even the requirement for balance--that outlays not exceed revenues--lacks strength, if we read it carefully.

The bottom line is that there is no substitute for the strong balanced budget amendment being offered by the Senate Republicans.

A number of protaxpayer groups committed to liberty and constitutionalism have written in support of our balanced budget amendment--Let Freedom Ring, Americans for Tax Reform, the National Taxpayers Union, the 60 Plus Association, Americans for Limited Government, and the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, just to mention a few.

I ask unanimous consent that their letters be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I am so pleased conservative leaders such as Ed Meese, Dick Thornburgh, and Ken Blackwell have stood in support of a strong balanced budget amendment.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record at this point the op-eds to which I just referred.

While a number of liberal groups committed to more government spending have lined up against our proposal, there is hardly a groundswell of support for the Democratic alternative. In fact, the lack of support for that proposal demonstrates more than anything I can say that it is a proposal designed with politics in mind. It is designed to provide cover for Members who want to say they support a balanced budget amendment while opposing the only amendment that would actually reduce government spending.

The bottom line is that not all balanced budget amendments are created equal. The Senate Republican amendment is one to restore liberty and constitutional government by reducing the size and power of Washington. By contrast, the Democrats' alternative promises more of the same. It does nothing to rein in spending or address the fiscal crisis this Nation faces. The differences between these proposals highlight clearly the distinctions between conservatives in Congress and the President and his supporters.

Although I am ever hopeful, I am realistic about the chances the Senate will pass S.J. Res. 10 tomorrow. I suspect the vote for the Senate Republican amendment will be as low as any the Senate has taken on a balanced budget amendment. This, though, shows how stark the differences have become between the two parties. The Democratic Party is now openly the party of tax and spend, the party of bigger and bigger government.

That is why today's debate and tomorrow's vote represents what Ronald Reagan called ``a time for choosing.''

As President Obama's speech in Kansas showed the other day, he is not backing away from his goal of fundamentally reordering American society in a way that transforms individuals and businesses into the arms of the State. The President, having completely abandoned the political middle and thrown in with the far left to secure his reelection, is now arguing that it is wrongheaded to believe one's success in life is owing to one's own hard work. Because the President seems to believe that individual success is ultimately not the result of personal effort but, instead, due to society, adherence to and respect for property rights, and the simple notion that one owns the fruit of one's labors becomes for him and his supporters a quaint artifact of an earlier era in American history.

The candidate of hope and change has turned out to be the President of spreading the wealth around. To succeed, he has embraced the politics of envy and class warfare that is far outside the mainstream of our political heritage.

The Republicans' balanced budget amendment offers nothing so grandiose. All we seek is the restoration of some limits on the power of the Federal Government and meaningful reductions in spending, and we give the time to get there too in our amendment. All we promote is a decent respect for the right to one's own wages and the freedom promised in our Declaration of Independence.

The Senate Republican balanced budget amendment secures these blessings of liberty, and I urge every one of my colleagues to support it.

The opponents of this amendment will say it is somehow improper to constitutionalize a requirement for a balanced budget. Hogwash. Many of those same individuals do not bat an eye when five unelected Justices on the Supreme Court rewrite the Constitution to fit their own preferred policy goals. Yet it is somehow inappropriate for the Senate to send a balanced budget amendment to the people in the States for ratification.

What are they afraid of? The Constitution ultimately belongs to the sovereign American people. It is only law because of their sovereign actions of ratification and amendment.

It seems odd the Democratic Party that claims Thomas Jefferson as its founder would oppose giving the American people a voice on this foundational constitutional issue. After all, if President Obama, the progressive Democrat, was so confident in the strength of his arguments, he could rest easy knowing the people would decline to ratify a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

So what are they so afraid of? Why are they so afraid to send this amendment to the people for ratification? Thirteen States could defeat this amendment. All they need to do is get 13 States to go against this amendment. That is what it would take to defeat it. That is all it would take. But it would be the people who would decide, not just a bunch of people here. If that is all the opponents of this amendment need, why are they so worried about sending it to the States for ratification? Why the lack of confidence in their powers of persuasion?

I can tell you why. The people of this country would ratify this amendment so quickly its opponents' heads would spin. Those who oppose sending this balanced budget amendment to the States for ratification know the people are eager to ratify it. That is certainly the case in Utah. Earlier this year, Utah passed S. Con. Res. 201 expressing support for S.J. Res. 10, the balanced budget amendment I introduced, along with my friend and colleague from Texas, Senator Cornyn, and my friend and colleague from Utah, Senator Lee, as well as 44 other Senators, all of whom deserve credit for this amendment.

I commend to my colleagues the Utah Senate's Concurrent Resolution 201 of the 2011 Second Special Session.

Mr. President, I take the instruction from Utah's State representatives very seriously. The Utah Legislature made it clear it supported ratification of this amendment, and I am confident if the Members of this body listen to their own State legislatures--49 of which are required to balance their own budgets--similar instructions would follow.

Here is the bottom line. Liberal special interests oppose the Senate Republicans' balanced budget amendment because they know the people would ratify it. And if the people ratified it, the government-funded gravy train would come to an end.

I look forward to this debate today. It is an important one, and I am confident that eventually the American people will ratify a balanced budget amendment and restore the promise of America's Declaration of Independence and Constitution for future generations.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have listened with a great deal of interest to my good friend and colleague, and I do care a great deal for him. He has been budget chairman for quite a while. Frankly, he has been a lone voice over on that side, trying to get all of us to live within our means. I have great respect for him for at least trying.

But we call budgets line-by-line discussions of just exactly what are the inflows and outgoes as determined by the Budget Committees. He hasn't been able to pass a budget mainly because he can't get his side together to do it. It is a disgrace not for him but because our colleagues will not do it. Nobody wants to do that because if they truly had a budget, that would mean we would have to get spending under control. We can't just keep doing it by adding taxes. We have a low rate of income coming in right now mainly because spending is completely out of whack.

I listened to my colleague very carefully. I have to say he made a tremendous case for the constitutional balanced budget amendment because he kept going on and on about all the problems we have. He didn't mention we have been spending 25 percent of the GDP. Usually, that is around 20 percent. So 25 percent is a whopping amount of money. Our former CBO Director said: I guess the new normal will be somewhere around 23 percent. We have been spending around 20 percent, while the revenues are around 18 percent. Now they are spending 25 percent of our

Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of legislation I have authored to amend the United States Constitution to require that Congress balance the Federal budget. The Senate's debate on the balanced budget amendment, which will occur over the next few days, is an incredibly important debate. It is a debate that will spark a wide range of emotions and it will test our policies, goals, and philosophies. Thus, I want to recognize at the outset that we hold strong and differing opinions about the wisdom of adding a balanced budget amendment to our U.S. Constitution. Amending the Constitution is not something any of us in the Senate takes lightly. In fact, we have only amended our Constitution some 27 times in the history of our Nation. Our Founding Fathers in their wisdom designed the Constitution to discourage amendments. They created a high hurdle to clear before an amendment can be passed by the Congress and ratified by the States.

I intend today to make a case for why my proposal, which has been cosponsored by several of our colleagues, meets that elevated standard. Today I aim to explain why this balanced budget amendment will help restore the fiscal health of our Nation, protect our national security, and spur our future competitiveness in the global economic race.

Let me start by discussing some basic facts that color this debate. First, our government debt now totals over $15 trillion. That is $48,000 for every man, woman, and child in our country. Let me say that again: $48,000 for every man, woman, and child. Moreover, we borrow 40 cents of every dollar that the Federal Government spends. The total amount of public debt now held by us equals 68 percent, almost 69 percent, of our gross domestic product. That reflects a level rarely seen in our country's history.

Finally, in August of this year, one of the major credit agencies downgraded our Nation's credit rating because of Congress's inability to work in a bipartisan manner to reduce our debt. I don't think I have to tell the viewers that the last thing our struggling economy or job creation efforts needed was that downgrade. It is little wonder that Americans hold us in such low regard or that other countries wonder what we are doing in the Nation's Capitol.

I could go on and on, but I will not. These facts are appalling enough to most Americans. These are hard-working Americans who balance their checkbooks on a weekly and monthly basis. It is appalling to me that Congress is so unable to resist the temptation to spend without limit while also trying to keep taxes as low as possible. We have even been willing to watch the debt grow to a level where national security experts are telling us that our own self-created problem is a bigger threat than any of our enemies.

In the last several years Congress has taken steps to try to reach an agreement on how to reduce our deficit and pay down our debt. Many of us have spent countless hours working in bipartisan groups to chart a commonsense balanced debt reduction plan. I have not given up hope that we may eventually reach a comprehensive plan to cut spending, reform the Tax Code, and shore up programs such as Social Security and Medicare which are critical to our Nation's middle class. To give up on that goal would be to say to hard-working Americans, we are not serious about ensuring that the American dream is within everyone's reach. After watching Congress struggle to reach even a basic plan to cut spending or reasonably raise new revenues to pay our bills, I am convinced we need additional tools that force fiscal discipline. If we don't put limits on how Congress does its budgeting, the question won't be whether we can stop the bleeding, it will be how much do we cut to the bone or even into vital organs the programs that we value. In other words, without some fundamental reforms now, the foundations of our government will be severely weakened later.

To be sure, a balanced budget amendment will not solve the problem on its own, but a reasonable balanced budget amendment would help us ensure we never get into this position again. Passing my middle-ground, commonsense balanced budget amendment would send a strong signal to the financial markets, U.S. businesses, and the American people that we are serious about stabilizing our budget for the long term. That is the signal they want to see to give them the confidence to expand and create jobs.

Before I move to making the case for specifics in my balanced budget proposal, I want to make a few points about exactly how our skyrocketing national debt affects all of us. As a start, our debt threatens investments we need to make. It harms our ability to compete with countries around the world, it inhibits job growth here at home, and it dampens our innovative spirit. If we don't address our debt now, it would sap the economic power that has enabled our Nation to become the most powerful force on the globe.

Throughout most of our history--perhaps aside from the Great Depression--our economic strength has enabled the

United States to create an environment that is good for business. This strength has then helped our own people on our Main Streets thrive in communities all over Colorado and across our Nation, and it has meant that every generation has been able to build on their parents' success, seize opportunity, and live the American dream. We all know this is what has made the United States exceptional. But today across our great country, families are wondering whether the American dream is still within their reach. Whether you are a college graduate and living at home because you are unable to find a job or a middle-aged factory worker laid off for the second or the third time struggling to pay your bills, our economic future seems a bit tougher.

Our country has endured a terrible economic slump for over 3 years now. In order to move quickly to turn things around, we need businesses to hire again. Business and community leaders across Colorado and elsewhere have told me that in order to have the confidence to do that, they need to know our national debt is not poised to send our economy off a cliff. The cochairman of President Obama's bipartisan commission on debt reduction tapped into that sentiment and called our debt a cancer that is eating away at our economic health. Beyond pure economic factors, our growing debt burdens us more broadly.

The former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, for whom we all have enormous respect, ADM Mike Mullen, warned that our national debt is ``the single biggest threat to our national security.'' By now these are familiar arguments here on the floor of the Senate. We know the challenges that confront us. The problem is Congress is not doing what every economist and every one of us in this body acknowledges we must do, and that is get our out-of-control budget under control. We all have our theories for why this is the case. I personally believe that part of the problem is the nature of Congress itself. We are all temporary single Members of a greater body. We each have our own constituents, goals, and responsibilities. It is sure tempting to come to Washington, fight like hell for our corner of the Nation, and lose sight of or willfully ignore the bigger picture. As Members of Congress, it seems as if we are hardwired to fight for results that are important to our constituents and our political ideologies.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Democrats are reticent to support meaningful adjustments in entitlement spending, and many of my Republican friends turn a blind eye to the revenues needed to support retiring baby boomers and our national security needs.

My father, who had the great privilege of serving for 30 years in the House of Representatives as a Congressman from southern Arizona, witnessed this same phenomenon several decades ago, and he used to recall the advice that was given to freshmen House Members. That advice was: ``If you want to get ahead in Congress, do two things--vote for every appropriations bill and against every tax bill.''

In many ways the Federal budget deficits we face are so daunting today because too many Members of Congress have taken that advice literally over the past decades, but also because it is what Americans expected of us. It is only natural that people want the best of both worlds. We cannot continue down this budgetary path and hope that the results will be any different than they have been in the past.

In fact, the results get worse by the day. Based on what I hear from Coloradans, our constituents are now ready to make a little sacrifice. They are ready for us to make some tough decisions that may cause a little budget pain. Americans now get it, and that is why it is time for some serious action. A balanced budget amendment to our Constitution is serious action. It would require us to consider our larger, collective obligation to the national economy.

I will admit that my support of the balanced budget amendment has not made me particularly popular with some of my Democratic colleagues. Democrats traditionally have not been big fans of the balanced budget amendment idea. These days Democrats are suspicious that balanced budget proposals are a Trojan horse. They look good on the surface, but actually they are designed to further dismantle government programs that most Americans value. But a few decades ago Democrats were leading the charge for a reasonable balanced budget amendment.

Most notably, Senator Paul Simon of Illinois--a progressive and serious-minded legislator--was perhaps the greatest champion of a balanced budget, and I want to share with my colleagues some of his words. In debating the balanced budget amendment in 1993, Senator Simon said the following, which he addressed to his fellow progressives:

I am here to tell you that the course we are on, unless it

is changed soon, absolutely threatens all of the programs

that you and I have fought for and believe in so strongly.

The fiscal folly that we followed for more than a decade has

brought us to a crossroads. We face a basic decision, whether

through default or through our actions to choose wisely the

course that will lead us away from the brink.

If we do not act, interest payouts will spiral upward until

they consume not only Social Security but health care,

education, transportation investments--every need on our

national agenda. My warning to you today is that a rising

tide of red ink sinks all boats.

That is a powerful warning from a very wise and respected colleague. His warning is even more serious in December of 2011 than it was in 1993.

There are not any easy answers here, especially since our aging population and the post-9/11 national security needs have squeezed our Nation's budget in ways we have seldom seen in our country's history. But it is time for us to listen to hard-working Americans who are telling us loudly and clearly, make the tough decisions necessary to get our national debt under control. So I say to my colleagues here today, it is time to put aside our political differences, check ultimatums at the door, work across the aisle, and challenge ourselves to put our country first.

I want to reiterate a point I made earlier, which is that a balanced budget amendment is not the sole answer to the problems we face. It is not a perfect solution, and I recognize that. For example, it will not help us deal with our current debt, much less reduce it. For that we need a comprehensive plan along the lines of the recommendations of President Obama's bipartisan commission. It has been headed by former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles and former Senator Al Simpson.

Two years ago I helped create the Bowles-Simpson Commission, and I continue to believe its recommendations, which would lower the debt by more than $4 trillion over the next decade, are the best place to start on a path toward fiscal soundness. Let's own up to the mistakes of our past and take charge of the opportunity staring us in the face by passing the Bowles-Simpson debt reduction plan. That plan would require all of us to put some skin in the game, and it represents our best path to balance our books.

I have also fought for bipartisan proposals to create a Presidential line-item veto to ban earmarks and to enforce pay-as-you-go budgeting. These should all be and could be and must be tools in our responsible budgeting toolbox. Even though we have to find the courage to get our current fiscal house in order, we also need to have stronger rules in place to ensure Congress is not tempted to fall off the wagon in the future. In my view, passing a balanced budget amendment to prevent us from ever again trading fiscal responsibility for political expediency is a critical step we must take.

That long windup brings me to the balanced budget amendment proposals under debate in the U.S. Congress today. Let me start by saying that I was pleasantly surprised to see last month the U.S. House of Representatives pursue a balanced budget amendment that was more realistic than what some of my Republican colleagues here in the U.S. Senate have proposed. The House proposal required a balanced budget unless three-fifths of the House and Senate agreed there was an economic downturn, a national disaster, or another emergency that required temporary expenditures and increases thereon.

It was a straightforward measure, and it was designed to garner a broad range of support. However, the House

proposal fell short by nearly two dozen votes, largely because it did not win enough support from Democrats. As we know, in order for a balanced budget amendment to succeed, it must be bipartisan. So I was surprised to see that after the House balanced budget amendment failed, instead of seeking to find consensus with those who could bring along additional Democratic votes like me, my colleagues in the Senate on the other side of the aisle, led by my dear friend Senator Hatch, have taken an altogether different route.

There are important differences between the two approaches the Senate will vote on this week, my amendment and Senator Hatch's amendment. So I want to spend some time differentiating between the two proposals because they represent two philosophically different ideas. We will have a vote on both of these proposals later this week.

Balancing our books is a simple equation based on the principle that our Nation is healthier without an unreasonably large debt load. Members of both parties can agree on that. Yet Senator Hatch's proposal goes a number of steps further and seemingly seeks to shrink government altogether. Not only does it require an unwieldy two-thirds majority to waive it in case of national emergencies, it also locks in special interest tax breaks and could weaken Social Security, Medicare, and other important programs that are supported by a vast majority of Americans.

Ironically, Senator Hatch's proposal--at least by some analyses-- could jeopardize our national defense as well. Why do I say that?

I see my dear friend on the Senate floor. I look forward to engaging with him over the course of this important debate.

The Republican proposal prevents government from spending more than 18 percent of gross domestic product, which is less than the historical average, less than what George W. Bush spent, less than what Ronald Reagan spent, and less than what is required to care for our Nation's seniors and protect our homeland against terrorist attacks. Quite simply, to my way of looking at this, Senator Hatch's alternative proposal goes too far and has the potential to harm our middle class and future economic growth.

So what am I proposing? Well, let me tell you what I think my proposal would do, and I would note that it is cosponsored by a number of my colleagues from across the country.

My amendment would allow us to avoid the mistakes of the last decade without locking ourselves into a requirement that could tie our hands in an emergency. In such a case, if we tie our hands, we could make our economy worse for the middle class and small businesses and therefore for all of us.

My balanced budget amendment proposes and incorporates a big dose of Colorado common sense. It is aimed at finding common ground that both parties and a big majority of Americans can support. It starts with a strict requirement for balancing our books. My proposal would then allow deficits only when three-fifths of the House and Senate vote to address serious economic downturns or a war or other emergencies. However, it would also prevent some of the worst mistakes Congress has made in the past 10 years. For example, it would prevent deficit- busting tax breaks for Americans who earn $1 million or more per year. I think the Presiding Officer and I have a fundamental question. We wonder why we should continue to give tax breaks to the wealthiest among us during times when we are running huge deficits and aggregating debt like never before.

My amendment would also create a Social Security lockbox to keep Congress from raiding the trust fund to hide the true size of our annual deficits. Right now, the Treasury Department owes close to $3 trillion to the Social Security Administration. What I want to do is to see that never again is Social Security used as a slush fund to remedy our budgeting problems.

In sum, my proposal upholds the principle that we should pay for our government in a responsible manner, with waiver authority to be used only in exceptional circumstances. I think most Americans could agree to that. Coloradans certainly do.

I encourage all of my colleagues to acknowledge that passing a balanced budget amendment will require some flexibility and cooperation, and my version is designed to do just that. It is meant to bridge the divide between us.

The American people are demanding that we get our fiscal house in order. As usual, they are a few steps ahead of us. We have an opportunity to catch up to the American people. So I am here on the floor of the Senate today to ask my colleagues of both parties and both Chambers to support my proposal. As I have said, amending the Constitution may not be the solution desired by many in this Chamber. It is not something to be done without great thought. I, therefore, look forward to an honest and spirited dialog about the balanced budget amendment. I look forward to discussing the best ways to dig ourselves out from under our suffocating debt in a way that will encourage investment and job creation and help Americans and small businesses feel secure about their economic future. Our children's future depends on it.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, in a short while, we will vote on two balanced budget amendments to the Constitution, at least one of which will be a true balanced budget amendment. One of those amendments, S.J. Res. 10, the amendment supported by every Senate Republican, addresses the fundamental crisis of our time; that is, the crisis of exploding debt caused by excessive spending. The other amendment does not address that crisis and, therefore, cannot put this country back on a sound fiscal footing.

The votes we cast today will tell the American people whether we honestly acknowledge the fiscal crisis posed by our $15 trillion national debt and whether we are serious about prescribing an effective cure.

Exploding budget deficits and skyrocketing national debt are symptoms of an addiction to overspending. A real solution must address the real cause of this crisis, not just its symptoms. Congress will not kick its overspending addiction alone but only if required to do so by the Constitution itself.

One of the amendments before us today, S.J. Res. 24, simply cannot be a solution because it does not address the overspending that causes this crisis. This amendment, offered by my colleague from Colorado, Senator Udall, on behalf of the Democrats, purports to require balanced budgets but, for purely political reasons, explicitly exempts significant portions of the very government spending that will most aggressively drive our future debt.

The Democratic alternative sets no overall limit on government spending, allowing Congress to continue spending with impunity. The Democratic alternative does nothing to restrict the propensity of Congress and the President to raise taxes on families and businesses as a way of compensating for their failure to reduce spending and in order to fuel more spending in the future.

In fact, as my friend Senator Kyl pointed out yesterday, the Democratic alternative actually makes it harder to cut taxes. To top it off, the Democrats' amendment not only sets no limits on Congress raising taxes, but it appears to allow judges to raise taxes to balance the budget.

In other words, the Democratic alternative allows Congress to continue doing exactly what has caused this crisis in the first place. It allows Members of Congress committed to a tax-and-spend philosophy to continue sending taxpayer dollars to special interests at the expense of the general fiscal health of this country. The so-called solution that continues to enable out-of-control spending is no solution at all.

Maintenance of this tax-and-spend status quo is the priority of those who support the Democratic alternative. Just listen to their criticism of my amendment, S.J. Res. 10, the one supported by all Republican Senators--every one of us. The Democrats criticize my amendment's requirement that Congress balance its books as too stringent. They criticize it for not allowing more stimulus spending, my gosh, and they criticize it for not allowing easy tax increases.

The people of Utah, and most Americans for that matter, would respond that these are the very restrictions Congress needs. They would say these restrictions are long overdue and would be positive additions to our Constitution. It is no wonder the advocates of the wornout philosophy of tax and spend view the provisions of S.J. Res. 10, our constitutional amendment, as a threat.

They are a threat. Our amendment's provisions are a threat to those whose only plan is to sit on their hands while our debt continues to skyrocket. The strong balanced budget amendment offered by the Republicans directly addresses the real cause of our budget crisis and offers equally direct solutions. It requires supermajorities. That doesn't mean we can't do things. It just says we have to have supermajorities to raise taxes. It means it requires wide bipartisan agreement for deficit or excess spending, as well as for raising either taxes or the debt limit.

I would note a supermajority to raise the debt limit was in the balanced budget amendment that passed the Senate back in 1982. I know because I was the one pushing it. It passed the Senate.

Our amendment limits both spending and the tax increases that fuel more spending. This is more than a balanced budget amendment. It is a fiscal discipline amendment or a constitutional amendment for limited government.

Much of the Western world now faces a debt crisis. The eurozone is nearly reaching the point of no return. The United States is closing in on that same point of no return with our total debt already equal to 100 percent of our entire economy--of our GDP. The national debt now amounts to about $48,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Interest payments alone on this debt are now greater than spending on most other Federal programs and would be even higher if interest rates were not at historic lows. Annual budget deficits are larger than the entire national debt when I introduced my first balanced budget amendment.

Let me say that again. Annual budget deficits--just the deficit this year and last year, just standing alone; this year's budget deficit and the annual budget deficits of this President--are larger than the entire national debt when I introduced the first balanced budget amendment in 1979 and 10 times higher than when the Senate last voted on a balanced budget amendment in 1997.

More than two centuries ago, America's Founders warned of the dangers of debt. Thomas Jefferson, the forbearer of the Democratic Party, said public debt is the greatest of dangers to be feared. He would be aghast at what Democrats are trying to sell. Alexander Hamilton said there ought to be perpetual, anxious, and unceasing efforts to reduce debt as fast as possible. John Adams said the experience of other countries that accumulate debt should prevent us from doing so ourselves. He might as well have been speaking about Europe today. He would be appalled at what we are doing around here.

Watching the failure of Congress and the President to get spending and debt under control, these Founding Fathers must be turning over in their graves, and I believe we continue to reject their wisdom at our peril.

Despite all the evidence, opponents continue to claim Congress will make the tough fiscal choices by itself; that Congress does not need any help. After so many years of failure, that amounts to fiddling while our fiscal house is burning to the ground. That is the argument they make. Closing their eyes, shutting their ears, and repeating the mantra that Congress does not need a constitutional amendment is exactly what got us to the edge of the cliff we are standing on today and which we are about to go over, if we don't put some restraints on around here.

If spending were a drug, Congress would be a very pathetic addict. An addict ignores evidence and denies he has a problem. An addict claims over and over that he can stop his addictive behavior any time. But similar to a real addict, Congress cannot kick the habit on its own. Congress needs some help. The Constitution is the way to get that help, and the Founding Fathers would have loved this amendment.

Think of S.J. Res. 10 as a constitutional intervention. It will require not only that the Federal budget be balanced but that it be balanced in the right way. When we vote on these amendments, Senators will demonstrate where they stand on the great crisis of our time. Voting against any balanced budget amendment simply endorses the status quo. It ignores the evidence and pretends everything is fine, even as we head for the cliff. This is the only amendment that deserves the title of a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

Voting for the Democrats' alternative--S.J. Res. 24--also endorses the status quo because it barely touches the symptom--budget deficits and debt--while ignoring the cause--government spending. Without covering all government spending and without setting real limits on spending and taxes, the Democrats' alternative does little more than put a bandaid on the problem. It isn't even a good bandaid that holds.

The only proposal before us that effectively responds to our budget crisis is S.J. Res. 10. It is the only proposal that addresses the real cause of the unbalanced budgets that are dragging us into fiscal quicksand.

This crisis threatens national security, economic prosperity, and maybe, most important of all, individual liberty. Congress will not solve this crisis by itself. S.J. Res. 10 is the only solution that addresses not only the symptoms of our fiscal crisis but the cause as well. These are the facts. These are simply the facts, and I encourage my colleagues to support S.J. Res. 10.

I heard the distinguished majority whip talking earlier, and just for a minute I think he was asking: Why do this. You know you can't win. We don't know we can't win. But even if we

can't, some fights are worth fighting, especially when our national security, economic prosperity, and individual liberty are at stake. That is what we are living with right now.

The American people need to know where we stand, whether we will ever do anything real or do something real about our addiction to overspending. That is the bankruptcy of our country right now--the addiction to overspending. Our amendment ends that addiction. It provides 5 years to get there, so it is a reasonable provision. But it does force us to get there.

The Democratic amendment doesn't even attack the real problem. It is there for political purposes. It is there so Democrats can say: We voted for a balanced budget amendment, even though it, basically, has little to do with balancing the budget.

I was enamored with the talk of the Democrat budget chairman yesterday, Senator Conrad from North Dakota. He went through all the problems we have and how deep they are and how problematic they are and what an addiction it is and all of that. Then he said we can do it by just doing what is right under the Constitution and forcing ourselves to do what is right and just balance the budget without a balanced budget amendment.

He couldn't have made a better case for the balanced budget amendment because I have been here for 35 years, and I can say there hasn't been a real effort except during the mid-1990s to do that. That was when the first Republican House of Representatives and Senate in over 40 years took place. It was when they did have a President, Bill Clinton, who recognized that the time had come to do something about spending.

I have to give him credit for that in contrast to our current President who just demands more taxes and more spending all the time. There isn't anything or any person he wouldn't tax if he could get away with it except those unable to pay any taxes at all, and nobody wants to tax them.

The fact is, I think the distinguished Budget Committee chairman made a tremendous case for our amendment. I can say we have been going on way too long.

Back in 1997, we came within one vote of passing this amendment. That was twice now. Remember, in 1992 we actually passed an amendment, but Tip O'Neill and the Democrats killed it in the House at that time. But in 1997 we came within one vote. I actually had the votes as I walked to the floor, and then one of our weak-kneed Republicans who was threatened by the unions, who had been high up on the endorsement list, who wanted to be seen every time we had a press conference on this issue, buckled and voted the other way and we lost. Had we won that amendment in 1997, we wouldn't be in this colossal mess we are in today. Frankly, I, for one, hope we can get out of that mess, and the only way we are going to is through a constitutional amendment that does what this amendment we are presenting actually calls for.

I just do not believe our friends on the other side are ever going to quit taxing and spending, and I have 35 years to prove it--except when the first Republican Congress in over 40 years came into being, and they had a President who worked with them, a Democratic President, by the way. I wish we had a Democratic President here who would work with us. He would go down in history as one of the most popular Presidents in history if he would do so. But, no, he wants to tax and he wants to spend. Frankly, I am fed up with it, and I think a lot of people are fed up with it. The people out in the hinterlands are all fed up with it, and they realize we need to put some restraints on Congress it has to live up to.

That doesn't mean we can't get a supermajority to raise taxes or we can't get a supermajority to raise the debt limit or we can't get a supermajority to an undeclared war--to give a good reason why our friends on the other side might want to support this. But it does mean there will be restraints that will work and will keep this country secure and free.

I reserve the remainder of our time. I ask that any time be divided equally, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to reserve the remainder of our time but to permit the distinguished Senator from Colorado to utilize his 5 minutes at this time.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

How much time do I have?

I ask unanimous consent that I be able to complete these remarks. It might take a few seconds beyond.

Madam President, critics suggest a vote for our balanced budget amendment is a waste of the Chamber's time. That is pure bunk.

The same folks who say we should not be voting on the Republicans' balanced budget amendment have also offered up their own amendment to show their constituents that they too want to balance the budget.

I can tell you now that it is the Democratic alternative that misses the point, for a number of reasons. One, it doesn't address the true crisis. We have a crisis of spending. We are $15 trillion in debt, and the Democratic alternative does nothing to address it.

No. 2, it carves out massive portions of government spending from their definition of Federal outlays. No. 3, even its balance requirements, the most basic feature of any balanced budget amendment, are easily overridden. No. 4, there is no cap on Federal spending. And, No. 5, there is no supermajority requirement for tax increases.

Put it all together and this is what you get with the Democratic balanced budget amendment. You get a constitutional amendment that is going to force Congress to raise taxes on families and businesses to pay for out-of-control government spending. The Democratic alternative should be rejected. It might look good from a distance but up close it does not even begin to address our Nation's fiscal crisis.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, it occurs to me that all Senators swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. I carry a copy around with me. It is our duty. It is our responsibility. But the pending amendments to the Constitution that are on the floor of the Senate threaten the constitutional principles that have sustained our democracy for more than 200 years.

In addressing the Nation's debt and deficit, what is lacking are not phrases in our Constitution. What is lacking is the seriousness within today's Congress to act, and the willingness in Congress to cooperate in forgoing solutions that meet the real needs of our country and its people. These are human failures, not the failure of our constitutional framework. Nor are these failures insoluble or inherent. We balanced the budget and even created budget surpluses less than two decades ago.

Now we are being asked to put the problem once again under the pillow for another day--this radical partisan proposal would be out of place in our national charter.

Never in our history have we amended the Constitution--the work of our Founders--to impose budgetary restrictions that require supermajorities for passing legislation. Yet now it seems every Member on the other side of the aisle has joined to put forth a radical proposal to burden our Constitution with both of these kinds of strictures.

The Hatch-McConnell proposal is different in kind than any other amendment to our Constitution. It is not consistent with the design of our founding document or the stance taken by our Founding Fathers.

It is a bad idea to write fiscal policy into our Nation's most fundamental charter. It is simply unnecessary. We do not need a balanced budget amendment to balance a budget. A vote for this amendment does absolutely nothing to get our fiscal house in order. Congress can work to continue our economic recovery. We can pass the appropriate legislation that leads to a Federal balanced budget, just as we did in the early 1990s.

I remember that very well because I was here. I remember, in this body, not a single Republican voted to balance the budget. It took the Democrats in the Senate and the Vice President of the United States to pass that balanced budget. Not a single Republican voted for a balanced budget in the House. They gave a lot of speeches on the floor that if we passed that balanced budget amendment, everything would come to a screeching halt. Actually, what happened was we passed it, and President Clinton was able to leave his successor a huge surplus.

With a growing economy, with what we did by votes in the House and the Senate--not by a constitutional amendment--we were able to create significant budget surpluses and pay down the debt until those surpluses were squandered. We have done it before. We can do it again. We need only work together to make the tough decisions, not to pass something that is a feel-good, bumper-sticker kind of item which kicks the can down the road and binds future Congresses to a fiscal proposal that is fundamentally unsound and the consequences of which are not understood.

The Republican proposal in the Senate is significantly more radical than the version the House of Representatives rejected in a bipartisan vote last month. In fact, the Hatch-McConnell constitutional amendment is the most extreme of all the pending proposals. The proposal, by its terms, will neither balance the budget nor pay down the Nation's debt, something everybody says they want. Instead, at a time of partisan brinksmanship that has led to the first-ever downgrading of our country's credit rating this summer and when ideological gridlock is the Republicans' operating principle, it would require supermajorities to pass legislation for the first time in our Nation's history. It would require a supermajority to raise the debt ceiling in times of economic crisis. Did we learn nothing from the disaster we went through last summer, which should have been a routine lifting of the debt ceiling and became a political free-for-all for weeks and months, cost the American taxpayers billions of dollars and caused people to lose their retirement money in the stock market? Do we want to do that again? I hope the Senate rejects this proposal.

Two weeks ago, the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on the Constitution held a hearing to examine the Hatch-McConnell proposal. All those witnesses, including those who were invited by the measure's cosponsors, presented thoughtful critiques of this extreme proposal and voiced serious concerns about its wording. Even Republican cosponsors discussed possible changes to the language in order to better achieve their goals. This is not the proposal that Senator Hatch previously favored. This is one of more than two dozen pending versions. In fact, we were not told which of the many versions of the proposal would be pending until yesterday. This proposal has not been considered by the Constitution Subcommittee or the Judiciary Committee. The House of Representatives has already voted down a less-extreme version of this proposal by a bipartisan majority. Yet here is the Senate of the United States, being forced to vote on some proposal for a constitutional amendment without doing any of the hard work or the votes that are expected to accompany an amendment to America's Constitution. This is no way for the Senate to proceed on a proposed constitutional amendment. This is not some feel-good resolution. We are talking about amending America's charter.

The Hatch-McConnell proposal contains many problematic provisions and it leaves many significant questions unanswered. Section 10 of this proposal relies on estimates for outlays and receipts. We know that economists' estimates and recommendations do not always agree. So what do these proposed constitutional provisions really mean? We know that estimates are not static but ever changing. What if during the course of a fiscal year, there was a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or a shift in the economy? What then? What if estimates were recalculated or revised, as employment statistics are every month? Would that make every penny expended by the Government over a revised estimate unconstitutional? Would that mean we could not help disaster victims or could not respond to a terrorist attack?

Another provision would limit total outlays for each fiscal year to 18 percent not 16, not 20, not 17.9 of the previous year's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). But who is to decide what the ``GDP'' was for a particular time period? What is to be included and what is not? How often do those estimates and artificial constructs get revised? Since when do economic surveys and shifting estimates belong in the Constitution? And what policy decision justifies the constitutional permanence of the number 18? I note that not even the budget proposed this year by Representative Ryan and the House Republicans, with all its draconian cuts and the end of Medicare as we know it, would satisfy this arbitrary 18 percent of GDP limit. None of the budgets proposed by or passed under President Reagan, not one, would have satisfied this proposal. At the end of the Bush

administration we survived the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and are now in economic recovery. This is not the time to enact such a measure which would take us in the wrong direction. We cannot ``cut'' our way to a balanced budget without imposing great suffering. It would tank the economy rather than aid our continuing recovery.

Besides its arbitrary nature, limiting outlays to 18 percent of the previous year's GDP would leave Congress unable to respond swiftly and effectively to economic downturns and natural disasters. The Hatch- McConnell proposal would require a two-thirds supermajority to spend in excess of 18 percent of the previous year's GDP for a specific purpose. Filibusters and requirements for supermajorities have become routine to the detriment of the American people. They have stymied congressional action on behalf of the American people. This proposal would give a minority in Congress even more power to hold the country and our economy hostage. Have we not seen what that can mean? Have the lessons of the last year been lost on the Senate?

The Hatch-McConnell proposal would make permanent bad policy choices. Section 4 is a transparent attempt to enshrine tax breaks for millionaires and wealthy corporations by requiring a two-thirds supermajority to impose any new tax or even to close existing tax loopholes. We need a balanced approach to fix the deficit problem. And the wealthiest among us are those who least need a heavy hand on the scales in favor of their interests.

Let's look at what has happened. We have fought two unfunded wars. It is the first time in our history that we not only did not pass a tax to pay for a war we are in but actually passed a tax cut and borrowed money to pay for these wars. We squandered the surpluses the last administration inherited, ran up deficits and the national debt.

I would remind everybody, we can achieve a balanced budget. We have done it before. Working with President Clinton, Democrats in Congress voted for a balanced budget. But I don't want to hear lectures from the other side, when every single Republican voted no the last time we had a successful balanced budget. Our strong economy in the Clinton years led to budget surpluses. If we are serious about reducing the deficit and paying down our debt, we need to get to work improving our economy, getting Americans back to work, and continuing to recover from the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression.

One of the most glaring problems with this proposal is it provides no clear enforcement mechanism or standards for enforcement. Section 8 of the Hatch-McConnell proposal expressly prohibits courts from increasing revenues to enforce the amendment, but remains silent on judicial enforcement of the amendment by cutting spending. This proposal assumes our Federal courts are equipped to enforce this amendment. Do we want to say we will simply relinquish Congress's constitutional power of the purse to an unelected judiciary with no budget experience--something no Congress, Republican or Democratically controlled--has ever done before? Do we want judges deciding fiscal policy? Do we want judges to decide whether we cut Social Security or Medicare?

I recently asked Justice Scalia at a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee whether the Federal judiciary was equipped to handle such a task--the same task my friends on the other side of the aisle want the Federal judiciary to do. Do you know how he answered? He laughed. He indicated that budget issues and determining the allocation of resources is not the judiciary's proper role. Of course he is right, and I expect this is one area where all nine members of the Supreme Court would have answered the same. The proponents of this effort to transform courts into budget-cutting bodies are wrong. The Republican proposal does not even make clear who, if anyone, has standing to bring such challenges in court. None of these questions has been adequately debated or considered. Such a drastic change to the time-honored role of the judicial branch of our government should not be written into our Constitution presumptuously.

In addition to all these concerns, the American people need to understand what the real-world effect of such an amendment would be on their daily lives. In the Senate Judiciary Committee, we received alarming testimony from the president-elect of AARP, warning of the damaging effects such a constitutional amendment would have on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. He testified that if such a constitutional amendment were in place today, the average Social Security benefit would be cut by 27 percent. Maybe that is what Members of this body want to do, cut Social Security by 27 percent. I do not. Do they want to balance the budget on the backs of hard-working, lower income, and elderly Americans by drastically cutting the safety net? I would say that is not the answer to our economic challenges, especially as we continue to give tax breaks to millionaires and continue to fight unfunded wars.

The notion of amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget is not new. The Senate rejected balanced budget amendments in 1995, 1996, and 1997. We proved after the Reagan and Bush administrations had tripled the national debt that we could through hard work and legislation, balance the budget. That is what Congress did in the late 1990s. We helped create hundreds of millions of dollars in surpluses that were paying down the national debt. Those surpluses were squandered by tax cuts for the wealthy and two unfunded wars. That is the cause of our budget imbalance.

We should not, for the first time in American history, amend the Constitution to set fiscal policy. It is a bad idea. It is even more irresponsible to consider doing so when we do not yet understand the full weight of the consequences of who is going to bear the burden.

I have never seen the solemn duty of protecting the Constitution treated in such a cavalier manner as it is today. I have heard many say they revere the Constitution. Let us show it the respect it deserves rather than treating it like a blog entry or a bumper-sticker slogan. Let us not be so vain in this body to think we know better than our Founders and better than the constitutional Framers who preserved our liberties for more than 200 years.

Our constitutional principles have served the test of time. They deserve protection. I will stand with the Constitution. I will stand with the Constitution of this country, and I will oppose this ill- conceived proposal to amend it.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record my full statement, and I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I have the good fortune of serving with Senator Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is the chairman; I am the ranking Republican. In that capacity, we have jurisdiction over constitutional amendments. So I rise to support S.J. Res. 10, which is cosponsored by all 47 Republicans.

I am very pleased we are taking up a balanced budget amendment. The Senate has passed a balanced budget amendment in the past. More recently, it has come close to passing a balanced budget amendment.

I regret that this amendment has not become law. I believe that had the Constitution been amended to require a balanced budget, we would not be faced with the dire budgetary situation that is before us--a $1.5 trillion deficit for each of the last 2 or 3 years, and maybe as far as we can see into the future if we don't get things under control.

The balanced budget amendment before us is very straightforward. It provides that total outlays shall not exceed total receipts unless each House of Congress, by a two-thirds vote, agrees to do otherwise. It provides spending discipline. Total outlays cannot exceed 18 percent of gross domestic product unless two-thirds of both Houses of Congress vote to waive the cap. The President will be required to submit a balanced budget to the Congress.

To avoid balancing the budget by imposing tax burdens, new taxes or increases in total revenue can be imposed only by a two-thirds vote of both Houses, and the debt limit will be able to be raised only with concurrence of three-fifths of both Houses.

To provide a level of flexibility in wartime--and that would call for considerable flexibility because wars are

never predictable--the provisions on outlays and receipts, total outlays, and the debt limit can be overcome by less than the normal two-thirds vote by a three-fifths vote.

To minimize disruption, the amendment will not take place for 5 years.

Finally, the courts cannot enforce the balanced budget amendment by ordering a tax increase.

Reverence for the Constitution is a sentiment we all share. But the Constitution provides for an amendment process. When it is necessary, each generation has amended the Constitution when a guarantee of free speech or the abolition of slavery or giving women the right to vote required a constitutional amendment. No one has said reverence for the Constitution was the end of the matter.

We have reached that point of necessity with the balanced budget amendment. The Congressional Research Service reports--and I wish to quote a fairly long quote:

The budget deficit each year from 2009 to 2011 has been the

highest ever in dollar terms, and significantly higher as a

share of GDP than at any time since World War II. Under

current policies, the Federal debt is projected to grow more

quickly than the GDP, leading observers to term it

unsustainable.

That is the end of the quote from the CRS.

The very purpose of the Constitution, according to its preamble--and I know the preamble is not governing on anything we do or what the Supreme Court does, but it shows intention--the preamble was meant to extend the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity--and I want to emphasize that word ``posterity.'' It is because the growth in the national debt is unsustainable, as I read from the Congressional Research Service, that our posterity may not receive the blessings that several generations of Americans so far have received. It is hard to imagine an amendment more in keeping with the goals of the Constitution than this one. Otherwise, runaway debt will expand exponentially. A permanent spiral can be created in which the debt feeds on itself. We are kind of in that spiral right now. Is it permanent? I sure hope not.

Take a look at Europe today, where we ought to learn lessons about the lack of fiscal soundness. Nations there risk default when they overspend, and they are in that position of almost default now. If we are not careful, our country, the United States, at some point will face the same crisis. It is frightening to contemplate, and particularly frightening as a threat to the blessings we ought to give to generations after us.

We hear from opponents that Congress can balance the budget now without a balanced budget amendment, but the fact is it cannot. For more than 40 years, Congress has been unable to summon the ability to balance the budget. Statutes that sought to provide a path to a balanced budget failed.

Let me speak here about a personal involvement I had when I was a Member of the other body, working with Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia. The Byrd-Grassley amendment was adopted in either 1979 or 1980. It was a statute that was just a few words. It said Congress can't spend any more money than it takes in.

Do you know what happened? For several years after that until it was finally repealed in the early 1990s, Congress delayed it for a year at a time as part of the appropriations process. So statutes are not a good way of making this happen. Gramm-Rudman was probably a little more successful, at least once or twice, but it soon was repealed. By putting something in the Constitution requiring a balanced budget, it is going to discipline Congress in a way that statutes cannot provide discipline; in other words, a constitutional amendment will succeed where statutes have been proven to have failed based upon the examples I gave and other examples that can be given.

The only exception was when we had 3 years going into this century when a financial bubble provided windfall revenues. We all know about that. I believe it is $568 billion we paid down on the national debt for 4 fiscal years after a Republican Congress was elected in 1994.

Anyway, except for that, we have not been able to have very sound fiscal policy. Then because Congress has been unable to control spending, the budgets have been in deficit and the national debt has increased. The only way Congress will exercise the discipline to balance the budget is if the Constitution forces it to do so.

We can say this from some experience, particularly if you believe the States are the laboratories of our political process and of government policy, because 46 State constitutions require their budgets to be in balance. They meet that requirement. As Members of Congress, we do take an oath to adhere to and defend the Constitution. We take that oath seriously. If the balanced budget amendment became part of the Constitution, we would adhere to it or face the consequences from the voters.

This amendment wisely contains effective tax limitations as an integral part. I have favored a balanced budget with tax limitations for more than 20 years. For decades, Federal spending has far outpaced even the steady and sizable growth in taxes and revenues. Raising taxes does not produce surpluses. The historical fact is they spur more spending. For every additional dollar in taxes Congress has raised since World War II, it seems as though it has given us a license to spend about $1.13 for every $1 that has come in for additional taxes.

Don't take my word for that. A person who studied that for a long period of time, Professor Vedder, of Ohio University, has written about that. You will find his figures just about the same. I think he said on average since World War II, $1 coming into the Treasury was a license to spend $1.17 instead of the $1.13 I give here.

Raising taxes, then, would make balancing the budget harder, not easier. Bring a dollar in here, spend $1.13. You hardly get ahead. It seems we cannot ever reach an agreement of how high taxes have to be in this body to satisfy the appetite of Congress to spend money. That is not just a Democratic problem, that is a problem on both sides of the aisle here in Congress.

That brings us to this issue about a supermajority requirement for tax increases. A balanced budget amendment may well encourage tax increases, fueling greater spending and the continuation of additional debt and costs in servicing that debt. The failure to balance the budget is a fiscal issue of greatest importance.

But getting back to our obligations to posterity under our Constitution, it is also a moral issue. Maybe the moral aspects of it are more important than the economic aspects of it. Without a balanced budget amendment, our children and grandchildren will pay for this generation's chronic inability to live within its means. We live high on the hog and worry about our children and grandchildren paying for it.

In the absence of an amendment, the standard of living of future generations will likely decline. The fears of many Americans that the next generation will not live as well as this one are in many respects traceable to decades of fiscal irresponsibility on the part of Congress. This balanced budget amendment would mean a stronger economy. It would surely mean good government, as fiscal responsibility ought to be a part of good government. Obviously people are concerned now about the problem of jobs. Employers are particularly concerned that Congress does not have a sound fiscal policy. That leads them not to hire anybody. A balanced budget is going to mean more jobs.

I believe the American people are willing to do their part to prevent future generations from being saddled with an unconscionable level of debt. They are willing to do so even if it means that some Federal spending they support would be affected. This is especially true if our budgeting is done fairly.

I believe if one listens closely to the arguments of the opponents of this measure, one will hear more arguments against a balanced budget than against a balanced budget amendment. There will need to be difficult actions taken. It is those difficulties that have prevented Congress from balancing the budget. Those difficulties are, therefore, reasons for a constitutional amendment, not reasons against a constitutional amendment. But balancing the budget is necessary and it will take an amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America to make sure it is done consistently.

We also hear arguments about the need to run deficits when the economy is in a recession. That kind of brings us to where we are right now. We have been in a recession for 3 years. The amendment before us permits Congress to vote to run a deficit in that situation, but be skeptical of that argument. If deficits and debt gave us a strong economy, right now we would be in the midst of the greatest economic boom in our history. Obviously we are not in that economic boom. Deficits of $1 trillion-plus and a national debt of $15 trillion are not stabilizing the economy in the way that people who argue that maybe in a time of recession you ought to have a lot of deficit spending have claimed.

In fact, I believe the size of the deficit and debt is one reason the economy is not performing well. The size of looming deficits and debt is another. The markets are not viewing the debt as stabilizing a weak economy. Rather, they view it correctly as a drag on the economy. That is why jobs are not being created. That is why corporations have $1 trillion in their treasuries in the United States, $1 trillion in their treasuries overseas, $2 trillion that is not being spent, that is not making corporations any money. It is lying there. They want to invest it in jobs and machinery and get the economy going and make more money.

On the issue of enforcement, the opponents attack straw men. They say either that the amendment cannot be enforced, so it is toothless, or they say the courts will enforce it, leading to chaos. Both of these arguments cannot be true. This amendment will be enforced by the President submitting a balanced budget and Congress complying with the amendment, as do State legislators all over the country. Members take an oath and voters will punish those who do not obey the constitutional command.

With respect to the courts, the text of the amendment prohibits courts from raising taxes. Of course, judicial standing requirements, ripeness, and the doctrine of political questions will mean that the courts will continue to lack the power of the purse, as has been the case throughout 225 years of history of our country.

In the past dozen years, Congress has been unable to balance the budget even when times are good. Had we passed a balanced budget amendment when it was before us in the past, we would not have racked up the huge deficits that now confront us.

We have heard in the past that a balanced budget amendment was not necessary because Congress could balance the budget on its own. We know how successful Congress has been doing that. Those arguments were wrong. Today we face one of the worst debt pictures in our history. If nothing is done, the future will be even worse. We owe a responsibility to the American people and to future generations to maintain the fiscal discipline that has allowed us to be the world's biggest economy.

Our pleas for a balanced budget amendment have been denied by its opponents in the past. We warned at that time what road lay ahead if we failed to pass a balanced budget amendment. Time has unfortunately proved us right. It is not too late if we act now, but time is growing shorter each year.

I urge my colleagues to do the right thing and enact a constitutional requirement that the budget be balanced.

I yield the floor.