Proposing a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution

Floor Speech

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Mr. LATTA. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for yielding.

I had the privilege for 6 years of serving as a county commissioner in Ohio and serving in the general assembly. During that time, we saw good times and we saw bad times in the economy. But in the bad times, our constitution told us in the State of Ohio that we had to balance our books to make sure that we didn't overspend. And that's what this House has to do and this country has to do.

You know, when we look back, we don't have a very good track record--over 50 years and only balanced a budget six times during that period of time. That's horrendous.

It's kind of interesting. I was at a town hall. I was talking one day, and one of my farmers came up and asked this question. He said, I don't understand what the problem is in Washington. He said, What's the President want to spend?'' And I told him it's about 3.8 trillion. He said, How much have you got? I told him what we thought the revenue was going to be for the year. He said, It's simple. All you've got to do is subtract your revenues from what you want to spend, and that's all you get to spend is just that revenue. You don't spend over the top of it.

People back home understand it. Because people back home sit around their kitchen tables, their dining room tables, and they get their pencils and papers out and they figure out how much they can spend. It's not complicated.

But we've got to start thinking about this because we're in debt now $15 trillion. And it went over this week. When I have to look at my kids' faces and kids down the street, and when I go into schools and talk to these young children, they're going to ask me in 10 to 15 years, What did you do to us, not for us?

It's time that this Congress acts and passes this balanced budget amendment. We've been talking about it for years, and we have that opportunity today. I thank the gentleman for bringing it forth. I wish I could vote for it more than once today. But we must pass this today.

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