Rod Grams: “I want to talk a little bit this morning about the balanced budget amendment and really how important it is to our…”

“I want to talk a little bit this morning about the balanced budget amendment and really how important it is to our children, our grandchildren, and really to the future of this country. As a nation, we find ourselves at a very critical juncture. The choices we face today are stark: It is either stagnation or growth, poverty or prosperity, hope or hopelessness for our Nation's children. Throughout the history of this world, great nations have risen and great nations have fallen. Many have perished simply as a result of one fatal fiscal miscalculation at a critical time--a time at which we find ourselves today. We must move forward because we have a moral obligation to pave a trail and to light the way. Yet, a single misstep as we enter into the 21st century could cast our children off the path and into darkness. Now, despite the improvement of our short-term fiscal outlook in the past decade, we face great danger from the fiscal imbalances ahead that swing over us like a sword dangling from a thread. Without a balanced budget amendment to address these risks, I am afraid that the national debt will destroy this Nation. The debt today stands at over $5.3 trillion, and the cumulative damage of the national debt to the economy over the past 40 years has been enormous. Our Nation has fallen from its perch as the world's greatest creditor to become the world's greatest debtor Nation in history.”