Richard Shelby: “I rise today to introduce a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. This is the same amendment which I have…”

“I rise today to introduce a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. This is the same amendment which I have introduced in every Congress since the 97th Congress. Throughout my entire tenure in Congress, during the good economic times and the bad, I have devoted much time and attention to this idea because I believe that the most significant thing that the Federal Government can do to enhance the lives of all Americans and future generation is to ensure that we have a balanced Federal budget. Our Founding Fathers, wise men indeed, had great concerns regarding the capability of those in government to operate within budgetary constraints. Alexander Hamilton once wrote that ``* * * there is a general propensity in those who govern, founded in the constitution of man, to shift the burden from the present to a future day.'' Thomas Jefferson commented on the moral significance of this ``shifting of the burden from the present to the future.'' He said: ``the question whether one generation has the right to bind another by the deficit it imposes is a question of such consequence as to place it among the fundamental principles of government. We should consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts and morally bound to pay them ourselves.'' I completely agree with these sentiments.”