Senate Appropriations Chairman Kurt Schaefer wants Missouri lawmakers to discuss joining a national movement to get a federal balanced budget amendment.
Schaefer, R-Columbia, last week introduced a concurrent resolution asking the Missouri Senate and House to "apply to Congress, under the provisions of Article V of the United States Constitution, for the calling of a convention of the states limited to proposing amendments to the United States Constitution that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and members of Congress."
Schaefer's resolution was introduced a week after national supporters of a federal amendment explained their goals to the Missouri Senate's Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.
Nick Dranias, an attorney and president and executive director of the Compact For America Educational Foundation, told the Missouri committee the proposal "has been vetted and supported, in an educational way, by 15 major think tanks, including the Federalist Society, the Heartland Institute, Goldwater Institute ... and many others."
He said the nation should be concerned the national debt currently has "an exponential growth pattern (that) doesn't show any sign of self-limiting."
Schaefer told the News Tribune he filed the resolution because "It is so frustrating year after year, where we make very tough decisions to deliver a balanced budget in the state of Missouri, as we do every year - and then see the federal government ... not balancing their own budget - and then passing out-of-balance budgets which have as part of those budgets that the state commit more of its money to fund things that the feds want us to fund."
Most of the United States - including Missouri - have constitutional and/or statutory requirements to balance the government's budget each year.
A 2008 study by the National Conference of State Legislatures (the most recent available on its website), said 44 states, including Missouri, require the governor to propose a balanced budget and 38 states, also including Missouri, prohibit the government from carrying a deficit from one year to the next.
That study also showed 41 states - not including Missouri - require the legislature to pass a balanced budget.
Dranias told the Missouri senators 49 states "have had debt limits and balanced budget amendments in their state constitutions, in their laws or in their court decisions."
But the federal government has no such budgeting requirement.
The U.S. Constitution requires the House to start the work on "All bills for raising Revenue ... but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."
The Constitution also gives Congress the power to "lay and collect Taxes ... pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States ... borrow money on the credit of the United States (and) coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures."
Schaefer noted last week what the Compact For America representatives told the Senate committee the week before: "Right now, we are at $18 trillion of debt in the United States (while) GDP (gross domestic product) for the United States is $16 trillion."
That means the national debt is bigger than the total financial output and, Schaefer said, "We have only ever been above 100 percent debt-to-GDP one other time (in U.S. history), and that was at the end of World War II.
"And the difference was, we were the last industrialized country standing. So literally, for 20 years coming out of that, we could pay that debt off, and we did, because we were selling items to the world."
But that analogy won't work, today, Schaefer said, explaining, even in years where the federal government "reduces" the annual deficit, "They're still contributing massively to the debt, annually. It's unsustainable - and it's so unfair to subsequent generations what we are saddling them with - that someone has to get engaged in this process and put a stop to it."
Article V of the federal Constitution allows "the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States (to) call a Convention for proposing Amendments" to the U.S. Constitution.
The Compact For America group has given themselves seven years to get the 34 states needed to join the compact.
Then Congress could call a "convention of the states" to write a proposed amendment that three-fourths of the states - 38 - would have to ratify.
Chip DeMoss, the compact's chief executive officer and a CPA, told the News Tribune the compact focused on the balanced budget idea after polling showed it "was, by far and away, the most popular amendment idea, and it crossed political lines."
"I keep saying, This is a national emergency, right now," DeMoss explained. "We cannot wait for next year and the year after that - we need to do it now."
But not everyone agrees, noting the Article V process has not yet been invoked in the Constitution's 225-year history.
Still, DeMoss said: "When you look at the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) forecast going out for the next 10 years, the deficit is, actually, getting ready to explode.
"There's people with good intentions in Congress, but they have no ability to try to rein that type of growth-of-spending in.
"So, we need structural reform and structural change - and that's what the Balanced Budget Amendment does."
As a resolution, Schaefer's proposals wouldn't go to the governor. But, like any other bill, it must be heard in a committee, debated on the floor and passed, then clear the House in the same manner.
No hearing has been scheduled on the proposal, yet.