Gilchrest Cosponsors Balanced Budget Amendment

July 15, 2005

Gilchrest Cosponsors Balanced Budget Amendment

U.S. Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest has joined with a bipartisan group of colleagues this week in introducing legislation that would restrict federal spending, except in times of war, to force Congress to tighten their belt and balanced the federal budget.

Gilchrest is an original cosponsor of H.Res 58, an amendment to the Constitution that would require Congress adopt a balanced federal budget. It would not apply when the country is at war, and could be overridden by a three-fifths vote of Congress.

"I fear we've moved away from the fiscal discipline that brought us the balanced budget in 1997 - the first in 30 years," Gilchrest said. "Our country has been through an extraordinary experience with the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, and the slowdown of our economy, but without some structural mechanisms in place to force us to make these touch choices, we may never get back to a balanced budget again."

The bill has the same language that the House passed in 1995, as part of the "Contract With America". That legislation failed twice in the Senate by a single vote.

"This is a bipartisan effort to send the message to our leadership that we are serious about fiscal restraint, and if this is how we have to achieve it, then let's vote on it," Gilchrest said.

A Constitutional amendment requires a 2/3rds majority of both houses of Congress and ratification by 3/4ths of the states.

http://gilchrest.house.gov/news.asp?FormMode=Detail&ID=264