Orrin Hatch: “70 years ago this May, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent to the full Senate a constitutional amendment to require…”

“70 years ago this May, the Senate Appropriations Committee sent to the full Senate a constitutional amendment to require a balanced Federal budget. It had been proposed by Senator Millard Tydings, a Democrat from Maryland. In its report, the committee said this: ``In no other way except by an amendment to the Constitution can Congress be compelled to balance its budget in peacetime.'' Seven decades of experience proved that the Appropriations Committee was right, and we have never been in a more serious, perilous situation than we are today. Two essential facts compel me once again to introduce a constitutional amendment to require fiscal responsibility: the gravity of the national debt crisis and the fact that neither willpower nor legislation will solve it. The greatest challenge in describing the gravity of the national debt crisis is deciding how much of the bad news to present at one time. During the 2008 Presidential campaign, one of the candidates criticized the outgoing President for adding $4 trillion to the national debt. That increase, Barack Obama said, was not only irresponsible but ``unpatriotic.'' The national debt on inauguration day 2009 was $10.6 trillion, and on inauguration day 2017 it was $19.9 trillion. If a $4 trillion increase was irresponsible and unpatriotic, what words describe a $9.3 trillion increase?…”