Bill Text: FL S1280 | 2010 | Regular Session | Introduced

Florida Senate Memorial 1280 (Prior Session Legislation)

Introduced

Bill Title: Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution [WPSC]

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Republican 1)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2010-03-18 - Withdrawn from Policy & Steering Committee on Ways and Means; Rules -SJ 00268; Withdrawn from further consideration, companion bill(s) passed, see SCR 10 (Adopted) -SJ 00268 [S1280 Detail]

Download: Florida-2010-S1280-Introduced.html

 
       Florida Senate - 2010                                    SM 1280 
        
       By Senator Bennett 
       21-01204-10                                           20101280__ 
    1                           Senate Memorial                          
    2         A memorial to the Congress of the United States, 
    3         requesting Congress to submit to the states for 
    4         ratification a balanced budget amendment to the United 
    5         States Constitution. 
    6   
    7         WHEREAS, the annual budget of the United States has not 
    8  been balanced since 1969 and the federal public debt is now more 
    9  than $5 trillion, or $20,000 for every man, woman, and child in 
   10  the United States, and 
   11         WHEREAS, continued deficit spending demonstrates an 
   12  unwillingness or inability of the federal executive and 
   13  legislative branches to spend no more than available revenues, 
   14  and 
   15         WHEREAS, fiscal irresponsibility by the Federal Government 
   16  is lowering the citizens’ standard of living, destroying jobs, 
   17  and endangering economic opportunity in the present and for the 
   18  next generation, and 
   19         WHEREAS, the Federal Government’s unlimited ability to 
   20  borrow money raises questions with regard to fundamental 
   21  principles and responsibilities of government, with potentially 
   22  profound consequences for the country and its people, making it 
   23  an appropriate subject for limitation by the United States 
   24  Constitution, and 
   25         WHEREAS, the United States Constitution vests the ultimate 
   26  responsibility to approve or disapprove constitutional 
   27  amendments in the people, as represented by their elected state 
   28  legislatures, and 
   29         WHEREAS, opposition by a small minority of citizens has 
   30  repeatedly thwarted the will of the people to submit a balanced 
   31  budget amendment to the United States Constitution to the states 
   32  for ratification, NOW, THEREFORE, 
   33   
   34  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida: 
   35   
   36         That the Congress of the United States is urged to 
   37  expeditiously pass and propose to the legislatures of the 
   38  several states for ratification an amendment to the United 
   39  States Constitution prohibiting, in the absence of a national 
   40  emergency, the total of all federal appropriations made by the 
   41  Congress for any fiscal year from exceeding the total of all 
   42  estimated federal revenues for that fiscal year. 
   43         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be 
   44  dispatched to the President of the United States, to the 
   45  President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the 
   46  United States House of Representatives, to each member of the 
   47  Florida delegation to the United States Congress, and to the 
   48  presiding officers of each house of the legislatures of each 
   49  state in the Union.