Ohio Gov. John Kasich visited with Utah’s top state leaders January 22 to push for legislative passage of a resolution calling on Congress to convene a convention of states for the purpose making a balanced U.S. budget the law of the land.
Article V of the U.S. Constitution gives states the power to propose amendments to the United States Constitution when Congress fails to respond. Two-thirds (34) of state legislatures need to adopt balanced-budget resolutions forcing Congress to call a constitutional convention. So far, 24 states already have. Utah is one of 10 states backers need to reach their goal.
“The fact of the matter is the longer we wait, the higher the debt grows,” Kasich said in a report on the event by the Salt Lake City Tribune, which went on to note that “Every amendment to the Constitution has started in the Congress and then been ratified by the states. But Kasich said he doesn’t believe Congress has the will to act on this issue. ‘Maybe that is a lack of trust in the ability of states to make good judgments,’ Kasich said.”
The nation’s preeminent spokesman for a balanced federal budget, Kasich was one of the architects of the last balanced federal budget (1997) when he served as chairman of the Budget Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Candace Daly, Utah state director for NFIB, said small-business support for a balanced budget amendment is something fundamental. “Small-business owners have to balance two budgets every day, their business’s and their family’s, and they don’t get the luxury of printing more money when costs exceed income or to saddle future generations with deficits.”
The press access was held at the State Capitol and attended by, from left to right in the photo above, Senate President Wayne Niederhauser (Kasich) Rep. Kraig Powell, House Speaker Greg Hughes, and Ohio Senate President Keith Faber.
For more information, click the video from KUTV Channel 2 below and visit www.BalancedBudgetForever.com. You can also click here to view a news conference Governor Kasich recently in Phoenix on the need for states to join the cause.
