AP: OK House Passes US Balanced Budget Amendment Measure
Oklahoma House passes US balanced budget amendment measure
By TIM TALLEY
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – The Oklahoma House passed legislation Monday that asks Congress to call a national convention to consider adding a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. constitution.
House members, who defeated similar legislation last year, voted 57-33 for the bill and sent it to the Senate to consider amendments.
Balanced budgets are required in every state except Vermont, but Congress does not have a balanced budget requirement.
Article V of the federal constitution allows an amendment to be added with a two-thirds vote of Congress and then ratification by three-fourths of the states, or 38. But conservative supporters of the idea, including the measure’s author, Rep. Gary Banz, R-Midwest City, expressed concern about what they decried as out-of-control federal spending and said Congress has been unresponsiveness to demands it curtail spending and reduce the nation’s estimated $19.2 trillion debt.
“The Congress is not going to willingly give up their power of the purse,” Banz said. “We have to take advantage of the constitutional option that we have.”