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.