"The Texas Public Policy Foundation welcomes the Texas Senate's overwhelming vote in favor of a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Today's vote demonstrates that Texas legislators are heeding the American people's call for a revival of constitutional limitations on federal power.
"The Senate resolution calls on the U.S. Congress to propose a constitutional balanced-budget amendment by the end of 2011, or convene an Article V constitutional convention limited to proposing such an amendment. In either case, three-fourths of the state legislatures will then have to ratify the amendment before it becomes part of our Constitution.
"The Texas House must now decide whether to leave Congress the discretion to increase both spending and taxes under a balanced budget rule, as the Senate resolution currently does, or to amend the Senate resolution by adding a strict spending limitation. The balanced budget proposal filed in the current U.S. Congress – and endorsed by our U.S. Senator John Cornyn and others – would limit spending to 20 percent of our nation's Gross Domestic Product and require a super-majority for new taxes. Out-of-control spending by Congress is at the core of our national debt crisis, and we do not believe Congress should have the option to tax their way out of it."
Mario Loyola is Director of the Center for Tenth Amendment Studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
The Texas Public Policy Foundation is a non-profit free-market research institute based in Austin.
Primary website: www.TexasPolicy.com Facebook page: www.Facebook.com/TexasPublicPolicyFoundation Twitter feed: www.Twitter.com/TPPF
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