ATLANTA— On Monday, February 17, State Representative Edward Lindsey (R-Atlanta) made a Do Pass motion in the House Judiciary Committee meeting to send Senate Resolution 371 to the House floor for a vote. SR 371 was then passed out of the Rules Committee on Wednesday, February 19 and is now scheduled for debate on the floor of the House Thursday, February 20. Senate Resolution 371 calls for a constitutional convention to pass a federal balanced budget amendment.
Regarding his decision, Rep. Lindsey stated:
“The American people have waited 30 years for congress to do something. The first recorded vote in Congress on a balanced budget amendment occurred in 1982 when the federal deficit was approximately $1 trillion. It failed in the U.S. House. In 1995, the U.S. House passed a proposed amendment when the federal deficit was approximately $5 trillion. It failed in the Senate. Today, with a deficit of over $17 trillion and a Debt/GDP ratio of 99%, the issue of a Balanced Budget Amendment is still mired in partisan bickering in Congress. The American people cannot afford to wait on Congress to act. To do nothing is tantamount to surrendering our nation’s long term economic health and social well-being and will subject our children and grandchildren to a debtor’s prison caused by the folly of my generation. This is why I support opening up a new front in this battle to bring our federal government’s spending under control by calling for an Article V Constitutional Convention on the issue. I am a co-sponsor of HB 794, the Compact for a Balanced Budget, and this week I made the Do Pass motion in the House Judiciary Committee to send SR 371 to the Georgia House Floor calling for a Constitutional Convention to pass a federal balanced budget amendment. Passage of either of these proposals will demonstrate Georgians’ resolve to take on this issue.”
SR 371 provides for a calling of a constitutional convention as provided by Article V of the US Constitution to propose a balanced budget amendment. Accompanying legislation defining how Georgia will appoint its delegates may be found in SB 206.
For more information about SR 371, click here.
Representative Edward Lindsey represents the citizens of District 54, which includes portions of Fulton County. He was elected into the House of Representatives in 2004, and currently serves on the Appropriations, Education, Ethics, Industry and Labor, Judiciary, and Rules committees.
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