#Winner or #Loser? A Time for Congress to Choose
Congress has a huge opportunity to define itself as a #Winner this session - and it only requires a fraction of the political capital needed for health care reform or tax reform.
All the House needs to do is embed the text of H. Con. Res. 73, the concurrent resolution needed to effectuate the Balanced Budget Compact, into H. Con. Res. 71, the House Budget Resolution - right at section 501, where the Balanced Budget Compact is already endorsed.
If that happened, it would become possible to advance a federal Balanced Budget Amendment with just simple majorities of each House. That means Congress has an opportunity to advance a federal Balanced Budget Amendment without having to secure the support of two-thirds of each House of Congress and with immunity from the threat of filibuster in the Senate.
In other words, Congress could actually deliver on one of its most repeated promises to the American people.
That's why more than a dozen colleagues have joined Representative Luke Messer in advancing H. Con. Res. 73. It is also why more than twenty national and state-based public policy organizations and experts have joined a coalition to add the text of H. Con. Res. 73 to the House Budget Resolution.
And now top national legal experts, including interstate compact law expert Rick Masters, as well as constitutional scholars John Eastman, Kevin Gutzman, Ilya Shapiro and Nick Dranias, explain why the core element of this strategy is entirely constitutional in Compact for America's latest policy report: A Logical Extension of Congressional Tradition: Using a Concurrent Resolution to Partner with the States on an Article V Compact. Based on constitutional text, precedent and past custom and practice, they conclude that Congress clearly has the authority to partner with the states on the Balanced Budget Compact through the vehicle of a concurrent resolution.
It has never been easier and more righteous for Congress to be a Huge #Winner rather than a Big #Loser. With the support of just simple majorities in Congress, the fight to finally limit the federal government's credit card could soon become entirely an effort to enlist the remaining 33 states into the Balanced Budget Compact.
