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House Bill 1253




    Florida House of Representatives - 1997                HM 1253

        By Representatives Sanderson, K. Pruitt, Feeney, Merchant,
    Byrd, Putnam, Safley, Albright, Stabins, Littlefield, Jones,
    Maygarden, Bullard and Wise




  1                          House Memorial

  2         A memorial to the Congress of the United

  3         States, requesting that a balanced budget

  4         amendment to the United States Constitution be

  5         submitted to the states for ratification.

  6

  7         WHEREAS, the annual federal budget has not been

  8  balanced since 1969, and the federal public debt is now more

  9  than $5 trillion, or $20,000 for every man, woman, and child

10  in America, and

11         WHEREAS, continued deficit spending demonstrates an

12  unwillingness or inability of both the federal executive and

13  legislative branches to spend no more than available revenues,

14  and

15         WHEREAS, fiscal irresponsibility at the federal level

16  is lowering the standard of living, destroying jobs, and

17  endangering economic opportunity in the present and for the

18  next generation, and

19         WHEREAS, the Federal Government's unlimited ability to

20  borrow raises questions with regard to fundamental principles

21  and responsibilities of government, with potentially profound

22  consequences for the Nation and its people, making it an

23  appropriate subject for limitation by the Constitution of the

24  United States, and

25         WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States vests

26  the ultimate responsibility to approve or disapprove

27  constitutional amendments in the people, as represented by

28  their elected state legislatures, and

29         WHEREAS, opposition by a small minority has repeatedly

30  thwarted the will of the people that a balanced budget

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    Florida House of Representatives - 1997                HM 1253

    228-184-97






  1  amendment to the United States Constitution be submitted to

  2  the states for ratification, NOW, THEREFORE,

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  4  Be It Resolved by the Legislature of the State of Florida:

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  6         That the Congress of the United States is hereby urged

  7  to expeditiously pass, and propose to the legislatures of the

  8  several states for ratification, an amendment to the

  9  Constitution of the United States requiring, in the absence of

10  a national emergency, that the total of all federal

11  appropriations made by the Congress for any fiscal year may

12  not exceed the total of all estimated federal revenues for

13  that fiscal year.

14         BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be

15  dispatched to the President of the United States, to the

16  President of the United States Senate, to the Speaker of the

17  United States House of Representatives, to each member of the

18  Florida delegation to the United States Congress, to the

19  Secretary of State, and to the presiding officers of both

20  houses of the legislatures of each state in the Union.

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