Kudos to Mike Coffman for Leading on New Balanced Budget Amendment

Hats off to Colorado’s own Congressman Mike Coffman for stepping up to the plate and co-leading the effort to bring back the Balanced Budget Amendment. Coffman lays out the case in The Hill blog:

Adoption of a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget is an enormous task and will take an immense amount of political will but our future and our children’s future depends on lawmakers having the fortitude to do the right thing. To become law the measure must be passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress and then be ratified by two-thirds of the states. In 1995 and then again in 1997 a balanced budget amendment passed the House but failed to meet the two-thirds requirement in the Senate by a single vote. It won’t be easy, but it’s not impossible….

The only fiscally responsible method to balance our budget is to stop spending more than we have. It’s not overly complicated. It’s not the concept that is hard; it’s finding the will to do so. Millions of American families do it. Millions of American small businesses do it. Forty-nine states do it. It’s time for the federal government to do it too.

The new Balanced Budget Amendment — aka H.J. Res. 1 — was introduced at the very beginning of the 111th Congress (January 2009) by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA). Co-chairing the new Balanced Budget Amendment Caucus with Mike Coffman is Georgia Rep. Jim Marshall (no, not that Jim Marshall), one of the most conservative Blue Dog Democrats in Congress. The caucus officially launches at a meeting tomorrow morning in Washington, D.C.

A Balanced Budget Amendment — which politically seems like such a steep uphill battle now — would be a small but positive step toward setting our nation’s fiscal future aright. Then we can move on to an even more important and politically more difficult goal: The Spending Limit Amendment.

Pipe dreams now, perhaps. But a lot of past, present and future hard work by patriotic Americans has been bolstered in small part this week by the important actions of Colorado 6th District GOP Congressman Mike Coffman.