Balanced Budget Amendment

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. I thank Senator Kirk. I am grateful for the Senator inviting me to join him in a real debate on the floor on an issue about which we disagree and about which we cast opposing votes earlier today. It is an issue of real import to our country. It is something that has been debated in the past and will be in the future but essentially whether we should have a balanced budget amendment.

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Mr. COONS. I could not agree more that we need to be responsible; that the United States and this Senate need to face our serious and crippling national deficits and debt.

It was a good idea when Thomas Jefferson recognized that a balanced budget amendment was a bad idea. Thomas Jefferson actually, several years later, after supporting a balanced budget amendment, acted as President in ways that demonstrated he understood that real opportunities required extraordinary capabilities by the Federal Government.

I was a county executive. Others in this Chamber who were mayors or Governors lived with balanced budget requirements and it imposed great restrictions on us. It forced us to make tough decisions on annual timelines, so I understand why it is tempting to consider passing one of the balanced budget amendments that were before this Chamber today.

But there is a difference between the Federal Government and the State and local governments. Thomas Jefferson acted decisively to make the Louisiana Purchase possible and to finance the War of 1812. During the current economic downturn, if the Federal Government had not been able to borrow and invest in restoring growth to this country, we would not have had a great recession, we would have had a second depression. I am convinced of it, and it is one of the reasons I think, had the balanced budget amendment been in place, we would have been in even greater trouble than we have been over the last few years.

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Mr. COONS. This Senate can, should, and has shown the ability to reach balanced budgets--no, in fact, surpluses--within living memory. In fact, when President Clinton was the President, this Senate and the House acted together. They adopted budgetary self-restraint.

Why amend the Constitution of the United States, our most foundational document, when we have within our own power, recently demonstrated in the late 1990s, the capacity to control ourselves?

The Senator and I agree we are leaving to our children an enormous, crushing legacy of a national debt that has exceeded safe boundaries. But why amend the Constitution in order to force the Senate to do our job? Instead, I think we should embrace some of the tough, big, bold, bipartisan proposals that have been put on the table--whether the Bowles-Simpson Commission or others. The framework of a broad deal that requires sacrifice from all, changes to the spiraling Federal spending, and changes in the direction of the country is on the table before us. Why take a detour into amending America's foundational document rather than simply stepping up and doing the job that is before us?

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, as the good Senator from Illinois suggests, we are, indeed, encumbering future generations with a debt that has risen above $40,000 per American. This is a central challenge of our time, one in which our national security leadership has cited as critical to ensuring our security and our liberty going forward. But, in my view, the balanced budget amendment that was advanced through S.J. Res. 10 earlier today would compel exactly the sort of intergenerational burdens that my good friend from Illinois suggests he seeks to avoid.

Let me be clear. The requirements of that balanced budget amendment include a spending cap, a supermajority requirement to raise the national debt, and a two-thirds requirement for any increase in Federal revenue. Those in combination would compel drastic, immediate, and substantial reductions in a wide range of programs--such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans benefits--that if imposed would have not just a short-term, very negative impact on our current economy but a significant restructuring of the longstanding relationships between individual citizens and generations.

Yes, leaving a legacy of debt to the next generation is a terrible thing for us to do, but leaning on the crutch of the Constitution and the fig leaf of a constitutional amendment to avoid doing our responsibility--a job which the Senate is fully capable of doing--avoids that responsibility to the next generation.

I close with this question: As we say in the law, if there is a right, what is the remedy? If we were to pass this constitutional amendment, how would it be enforced if the Senate in the future were to fail to balance the budget? Would lifetime Federal judges around the country be imposing choices in terms of budget cuts, spending cuts, revenue changes? I think that would be no better--in fact, far worse--than the Senate simply doing its job.

Today I voted against this balanced budget amendment because I think we have it within our power to show self-control and to secure the future for the next generation of Americans.

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