The Hill News

I remember receiving a call from then-U.S. Senator Carl Curtis of Nebraska. The year was 1971. He was in Washington advocating a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution, but he knew that in order to make it happen there had to be a movement among state legislatures. Senator Curtis was asking for my help. So, as a state senator, I led the effort in Oklahoma to pre-ratify a Constitutional Amendment to require the federal government to balance its books.  

Conservatives in Congress have been advocating a Balanced Budget Amendment to the United States Constitution for over 40 years now. In 1997, we came close in the Senate but failed by only one vote. At that time, the annual budget of the entire federal government was roughly $1.4 trillion. Recently, we learned that our budget deficitâ€"the difference between what we take in and what we spend â€" for this year alone would be $100 billion more than that, or $1.5 trillion. 

Read more...