WASHINGTON — A conservative US senator is pushing a measure that would add a Constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget, legislation that would complicate hawks' efforts to raise military spending caps.
The measure also would slap "strict limits" on the federal government's ability to do several things, including spending an amount beyond the revenues it collects, raise the debt ceiling, increase taxes.
"Moms and dads, business owners, and state and local governments all over the country have to live within their means," Mike Lee, R-Utah, said in a statement. "There is no good argument why Washington shouldn't be expected to do the same each year.
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As the new congressional session begins, Lee made clear he and other conservative lawmakers intend to push for even more government spending cuts. That could put the Pentagon's base and war budgets, which approach $550 billion annually, in their crosshairs.
"Our national debt threatens our future prosperity and will force the country to make incredibly difficult decisions down the road if we don't start making changes today," said Lee, a member of the Armed Services and Joint Economic committees. "My Balanced Budget Amendment puts effective limitations on Washington's unsustainable appetite to overspend Americans' hard-earned dollars without consequence."
If Lee's amendment were adopted, it would take a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate to raise the debt ceiling or increase taxes.
Pro-Pentagon members in both chambers want to pass legislation this year to either get rid of the remaining years of sequestration or again raise defense spending caps to lessen the blow on the military and industry.
But Lee's amendment shows, should House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., push a plan to address sequestration, they likely would face a challenge in lining up enough GOP votes to pass it.
To that end, one Republican source with ties to senior party leaders told CongressWatch on Tuesday that he believes Boehner and McConnell "are in same place."
"They see that the budget caps that were implemented as having reined in government spending," said the GOP source, who now works at a prominent Washington lobbying firm. "The question is how do you" address defense sequestration "with the existing budget caps?"
Email: jbennett@defensenews.com
Twitter: @bennettjohnt
