Earlier this morning I participated in a conference call with Rep. Jeb Hansarling (R-TX) and Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN). They are two of the three initial sponsors of a possible Constitutional amendment called the Spending Limit Amendment (H.J. Res. 79), a proposal to limit federal spending to 20% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This number was arrived at because that’s a rough average of federal spending vs. GDP over an extended period.
Their argument falls in a number of categories ranging from dire economic straits to lost productivity to a national security threat. In the call, Hensarling noted “we believe we have to act now” and that he’s “not naive about the fact 5,000 amendments to the Constitution have been offered but only 27 ratified.” Instead, “what we hope to do is start a national debate on the size of government.”
Added Pence, “we have come to the conclusion that we need to introduce a new force,” that force being one of changing our “charter.” He also made the oft-noted point that “as government expands, freedom contracts.”
A number of different bloggers asked questions; I happened to be one of them. My question related to the fact that this seemed to me a weaker version of the balanced budget amendments proposed in the early 1990’s. Congressman Pence argued that this was “not a weaker version” but “a focused effort” on reining in the “runaway spending on steroids” going on today. In their estimate, running a small deficit but only spending 20% of GDP was preferable to having a balanced budget consuming 40% of GDP.
On an earlier question, the pair agreed that the BBA debate “had an impact” on spending immediately after it was considered.
There’s a lot more to the roughly 40-minute call, but since I’ve been promised the recording later today I can let you be the judge. Suffice to say that this should be a great issue to use in the 2010 campaign and they hope the TEA Party movement embraces the proposal, but they agreed this will be “a multiyear effort” and warned that, left unchecked, in 20 years our spending will place us in the similar position Greece faces now.
It reinforced my belief that Pence and Hensarling are “keepers” when it comes to a “throw the bums out” mentality. You’ll enjoy hearing what they have to say.