Broun's Balanced Budget Amendment
For most of our nation’s history, deficits were only temporary in nature, brought on by wars or other emergencies, and the accumulated national debt was reduced once the crises passed.
Our nation’s debt recently passed $14 trillion, having more than doubled in less than a decade. The 2008 $700 billion bailout and the $787 billion "stimulus" bill have added record amounts to our obligations with no end in sight. The unfortunate reality is that our unsustainable debt imposes significant costs on you every day and will only continue to get worse if Congress doesn't rein in out-of-control spending.
We must act to constitutionally protect future generations of Americans from excessive federal debt. Today, forty-nine states have balanced budget requirements, most of which are written into their constitutions. It is time that Congress abides by the same restrictions that states have placed on themselves.
Improvements in my Balanced Budget Amendment:
- Other bills require a majority, or in some cases 3/5 to raise taxes or the debt ceiling. My bill requires a 2/3 majority vote to raise revenue and allow an excess of outlays over receipts.
- Other bills do not have spending constraints. This bill limits spending growth of the entire budget to no more than population growth plus inflation.
- Other bills allow waivers during declaration of war OR military conflict. This bill allows only for waivers during actual Declarations of War. Such waivers, since they would only be during actual war, need only a regular majority.
- Other bills do not account for what happens when estimates are wrong. In other words, they can cook the books by saying they’ll have more tax revenues than they will. This bill forces the NEXT fiscal year to account for any imbalance in the previous year’s estimates by placing that amount in the spending column for that year.
- This bill requires all excess revenue at the end of a fiscal year to be returned to the American taxpayer.
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