•HCON 27 RH 
vention for the consideration of adopting a Balanced 
Budget Amendment to the United States Constitu-
tion. 
(4) Forty-nine States have fiscal limitations in 
their State Constitutions, including the requirement 
to annually balance the budget. 
(5) H.J. Res. 2, sponsored by Rep. Robert W. 
Goodlatte (R-VA), was considered by the House of 
Representatives on November 18, 2011, though it 
received 262 aye votes, it did not receive the two- 
thirds required for passage. 
(6) Numerous balanced budget amendment pro-
posals have been introduced on a bipartisan basis in 
the House. Twelve were introduced in the 113th 
Congress alone, including H.J. Res. 4 by Democratic 
Representative John J. Barrow of Georgia, and H.J. 
Res. 38 by Republican Representative Jackie 
Walorski of Indiana. 
(7) The joint resolution providing for a bal-
anced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution 
referred to in paragraph (5) prohibited outlays for 
a fiscal year (except those for repayment of debt 
principal) from exceeding total receipts for that fis-
cal year (except those derived from borrowing) un-
less Congress, by a three-fifths roll call vote of each 
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chamber, authorizes a specific excess of outlays over 
receipts. 
(8) In 1995, a balanced budget amendment to 
the U.S. Constitution passed the House with bipar-
tisan support, but failed of passage by one vote in 
the United States Senate. 
(b) POLICY STATEMENT.—It is the policy of this res-
olution that Congress should pass a joint resolution incor-
porating the provisions set forth in subsection (b), and 
send such joint resolution to the States for their approval, 
to amend the Constitution of the United States to require 
an annual balanced budget. 
SEC. 802. POLICY STATEMENT ON BUDGET PROCESS AND 
BASELINE REFORM. 
(a) FINDINGS.— 
(1) In 1974, after more than 50 years of execu-
tive dominance over fiscal policy, Congress acted to 
reassert its ‘‘power of the purse’’, and passed the 
Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control 
Act. 
(2) The measure explicitly sought to establish 
congressional control over the budget process, to 
provide for annual congressional determination of 
the appropriate level of taxes and spending, to set 
important national budget priorities, and to find 
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ways in which Members of Congress could have ac-
cess to the most accurate, objective, and highest 
quality information to assist them in discharging 
their duties. 
(3) Far from achieving its intended purpose, 
however, the process has instituted a bias toward 
higher spending and larger government. The behe-
moth of the Federal Government has largely been fi-
nanced through either borrowing or taking ever 
greater amounts of the national income through high 
taxation. 
(4) The process does not treat programs and 
policies consistently and shows a bias toward higher 
spending and higher taxes. 
(5) It assumes extension of spending programs 
(of more than $50 million per year) scheduled to ex-
pire. 
(6) Yet it does not assume the extension of tax 
policies in the same way. consequently, extending ex-
isting tax policies that may be scheduled to expire is 
characterized as a new tax reduction, requiring off-
sets to ‘‘pay for’’ merely keeping tax policy the same 
even though estimating conventions would not re-
quire similar treatment of spending programs. 
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(7) The original goals set for the congressional 
process are admirable in their intent, but because 
the essential mechanisms of the process have re-
mained the same, and ‘‘reforms’’ enacted over the 
past 40 years have largely taken the form of 
layering greater levels of legal complexity without re-
forming or reassessing the very fundamental nature 
of the process. 
(b) POLICY STATEMENT.—It is the policy of this con-
current resolution on the budget that as the primary 
branch of Government, Congress must: 
(1) Restructure the fundamental procedures of 
budget decision making; 
(2) Reassert Congress’s ‘‘power of the purse’’, 
and reinforce the balance of powers between Con-
gress and the President, as the 1974 Act intended. 
(3) Create greater incentives for lawmakers to 
do budgeting as intended by the Congressional 
Budget Act of 1974, especially adopting a budget 
resolution every year. 
(4) Encourage more effective control over 
spending, especially currently uncontrolled direct 
spending. 
(5) Consider innovative fiscal tools such as: zero 
based budgeting, which would require a department 
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or agency to justify its budget as if it were a new 
expenditure; and direct spending caps to enhance 
oversight of automatic pilot spending that increases 
each year without congressional approval. 
(6) Promote efficient and timely budget actions, 
so that lawmakers complete their budget actions by 
the time the new fiscal year begins. 
(7) Provide access to the best analysis of eco-
nomic conditions available and increase awareness of 
how fiscal policy directly impacts overall economic 
growth and job creation, 
(9) Remove layers of complexity that have com-
plicated the procedures designed in 1974, and made 
budgeting more arcane and opaque. 
(10) Remove existing biases that favor higher 
spending. 
(11) Include procedures by which current tax 
laws may be extended and treated on a basis that 
is not different from the extension of entitlement 
programs. 
(c) BUDGET
PROCESS
REFORM.—Comprehensive 
budget process reform should also remove the bias in the 
baseline against the extension of current tax laws in the 
following ways: 
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