S-1708.1  _______________________________________________

                    SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 8012

          _______________________________________________

State of Washington      55th Legislature     1997 Regular Session

By Senators Hale, Benton, Oke, Sellar, Deccio, Finkbeiner, Morton, Rossi, Anderson, Johnson, Roach, McDonald, Newhouse, Wood, Strannigan, Long, Swecker, Horn and Goings

Read first time 02/19/97.  Referred to Committee on Ways & Means.

Requesting a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution.

    TO THE HONORABLE WILLIAM J. CLINTON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, AND TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE AND THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AND TO THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE UNITED STATES, IN CONGRESS ASSEMBLED:

    We, your Memorialists, the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Washington, in legislative session assembled, respectfully represent and petition as follows:

    WHEREAS, The annual federal budget has not been balanced since 1969, and the national debt is now more than five trillion dollars, or twenty thousand dollars for every man, woman, and child in America; and

    WHEREAS, Continued deficit spending demonstrates an unwillingness or inability of both the federal executive and legislative branches to spend no more than available revenues; and

    WHEREAS, Fiscal irresponsibility at the federal level is lowering our standard of living, inhibiting the creation of new jobs, and jeopardizing economic opportunity now and for the next generation; and

    WHEREAS, A balanced federal budget will result in stronger growth in the economy with low inflation, a higher rate of job creation, lower unemployment, lower interest rates, and reduced debt service costs to state and local governments; and

    WHEREAS, The federal government's unlimited ability to borrow raises questions about fundamental principles and responsibilities of government, with potentially profound consequences for the nation and its people, making it an appropriate subject for limitation by the Constitution of the United States; and

    WHEREAS, The Constitution of the United States vests the ultimate responsibility to approve or disapprove constitutional amendments with the People, as represented by their elected State Legislatures;

    NOW, THEREFORE, Your Memorialists respectfully pray that the Congress of the United States expeditiously pass, and propose to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification, an amendment to the Constitution of the United States requiring in the absence of a national emergency that the total of all federal appropriations made by the Congress for any fiscal year may not exceed the total of all estimated federal revenues for that fiscal year.

    BE IT RESOLVED, That copies of this Memorial be immediately transmitted to the Honorable William J. Clinton, President of the United States, the President of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, each member of Congress from the State of Washington, the Secretary of State of each of the other States in the Union, and the presiding officers of both Houses of the Legislatures of each of the other States in the Union.

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