Mr. Speaker, in the last 8 years, our Nation's debt has doubled. That means that the Obama administration has borrowed as much in just 8 years as our government borrowed in the 220 years between the…
Mr. Speaker, in the last 8 years, our Nation's debt has doubled. That means that the Obama administration has borrowed as much in just 8 years as our government borrowed in the 220 years between the first day of the George Washington administration and the last day of the George W. Bush administration.
Our interest costs are now eating us alive. Last year the Congressional Budget Office warned that within 6 years on our current trajectory, interest payments on the debt will exceed what we now spend for our entire defense budget.
Before we can provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare, we have to be able to pay for it, and our massive debt directly threatens our ability to do so. History warns us that nations that bankrupt themselves aren't around very long.
I am confident that the new administration clearly understands the peril this poses to our country. The nomination of Mick Mulvaney to head the Office of Management and Budget is a powerful signal that this danger will soon be addressed aggressively and effectively.
This debt is our generation's doing. It is our generation's responsibility to set right. When we do so, we will need to leave behind the mechanisms to assure that reckless borrowing never threatens our government again. For this reason, last week I introduced a proposal for a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, H.J. Res. 12.
The beauty of the American Constitution is in its simplicity and its humility. The American Founders recognized Cicero's wisdom that the best laws are the simplest ones, and they humbly realized they couldn't possibly foresee the circumstances and conditions that might confront future generations. They resisted the temptation to micromanage every decision that might be made in the centuries to come. Instead, they set forth general principles of governance and erected a structure in which human nature itself would naturally guide future decisions to comport with these principles.
In crafting a balanced budget amendment, we need to maintain these qualities. We should not attempt to tell future generations specifically how they should manage their revenues and expenditures in times that we cannot foresee or comprehend. The experience of many States that operate under their own balanced budget amendments tells us that the more complicated and convoluted such strictures become, the more they are circumvented and manipulated.
In 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote this observation to John Taylor: ``I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its Constitution; I mean an additional article taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.''
What is a balanced budget? It is simply a budget that doesn't require us to borrow. So why don't we just say so, as Jefferson did?
Instead of trying to define fiscal years, outlays, expenditures, revenues, emergencies, contingencies, triggers, sequestrations, and on and on, I would hope we would consider 27 simple words: ``The United States Government may not increase its debt except for a specific purpose by law adopted by three-fourths of the membership of both Houses of Congress.'' That is it.
Such an amendment, taking effect 10 years from ratification, would give the government time to put its affairs in order and thereafter, naturally, require future Congresses to maintain both a balanced budget and a prudent reserve to accommodate fluctuations of revenues and routine contingencies.
It trusts that three-fourths of Congress will be able to recognize a genuine emergency when it sees one and that one-fourth of Congress will be strong enough to resist borrowing for trivial reasons. The States' experience warns us that a two-thirds vote is insufficient to protect against profligacy.
Some advocate going much farther and establishing limitations on spending and taxation as well, but prohibiting borrowing sets a natural limit to the limits of the people to tolerate taxation and, therefore, spending. The real danger is when runaway spending is accommodated by borrowing--a hidden future tax. The best and most effective way to invoke that natural limit is a simple prohibition.
In drafting an amendment to guide not only this generation but all those to follow, I would hope that we would do as the Constitutional Convention would have done if it had the benefit of Jefferson's wise counsel: set down the general principle only and allow future generations, with their own insight into their own challenges, to put it to practical effect.
