Orrin Hatch: “a previous President of the United States once wrote that if he could add one amendment to the Constitution, it would…”

“a previous President of the United States once wrote that if he could add one amendment to the Constitution, it would prohibit the Federal Government from incurring more debt. That President's name was neither Bush nor Reagan but Jefferson. The 217 years since then have proven three things: The national debt crisis is growing, it is dangerous, and only the Constitution can compel Congress to act. We must act before it is too late. The national debt was 19 percent of gross domestic product when Thomas Jefferson called for a balanced budget amendment. President George Washington told the House of Representatives that the regular redemption of the public debt was the most urgent fiscal priority. In his first report on the public credit in 1790, Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton warned that continuously accruing national debt interest would be a signal ``either of inability, or of ill faith, and will not cease to have an evil influence on public credit.'' The commitment to fiscal balance over the next 150 years was so strong that many referred to it as our unwritten fiscal constitution. Unfortunately, that commitment did not last. The national debt topped 40 percent of GDP for the first time in 1934, and 2 years later the first balanced budget amendment was introduced in Congress. Eighty years ago, Members of Congress began to realize that an unwritten constitution was no longer strong enough to limit the national debt.…”