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Constitutional Balanced Budget Amendment

Floor Speech

Date: Dec. 16, 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Federal, State and Local Relations

Mr. BUCHANAN. Madam Speaker, the congressional leaders this week want to raise the Federal debt ceiling $1.8 trillion. The current debt in the country is over $12 trillion.

When I first came here 3 years ago, I introduced a constitutional balanced budget amendment. I hear up here the last 3 years that the Democrats are the problem, the Republicans are the problem on the spending. They're both the problem. In the last 50 years, they've only balanced the budget five or six times, yet 49 out of 50 Governors have to balance the budget.

Our State of Florida has had a tough cycle in terms of revenues. They've cut expenses. Families are cutting expenses. Small businesses in our communities are cutting 20, 30 percent in expenses, yet we're raising expenses 12 percent.

The time is now. We almost had a constitutional balanced budget amendment in 1994. That's the only thing that's going to solve the problem. We need to act today as Democrats and Republicans and do what's right for America and Americans.


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