Bob Goodlatte

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close. Mr. Speaker, this is landmark legislation that has been decades in coming. We have not had a significant review of our music licensing and copyright laws in many, many, many years. There are many people to be thanked, including the staff of the Judiciary Committee on both sides of the aisle. I particularly want to recognize Joe Keeley, who is the chief counsel of the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Subcommittee. I also want to thank the leadership of the committee who have worked for many, many years on intellectual property issues: Shelley Husband, the chief of staff and general counsel; and Branden Ritchie, the chief counsel of the committee. Time doesn't allow me to recognize everyone, but I especially want to recognize the Courts, Intellectual Property, and the Internet Subcommittee vice chairman, Doug Collins. He and his staff have put literally hundreds and hundreds of hours into aspects of this legislation, and I want to personally thank him for that work as well. This legislation has very strong, bipartisan support. It is supported by groups that look at intellectual property issues across the ideological spectrum, and it is nearly universally supported by the music industry, the technology companies, and others that provide the platforms on which that music is performed. It is going to more fairly treat so many sectors of the music industry that it would be a shame not to see this legislation pass the House with a very strong, bipartisan vote, go to the Senate, pass there, and then on to the President's desk, where I have every confidence it will be signed into law. During the course of many years of review of our copyright laws, we learned that our music licensing laws were no longer working as intended for songwriters, artists, and creators, people behind the scenes for the companies that deliver the music in innovative ways to our consumers. The Music Modernization Act, a product of the Judiciary Committee's comprehensive copyright review, is a bipartisan bill. I urge my colleagues to join together and pass it and send it to the Senate. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. GOODLATTE

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Mitchell).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Smith).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 2) proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.J. Res. 2, currently under consideration.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. March 2, 1995, was a pivotal day in the history of our country. On that day, the United States Senate failed by one vote to send a balanced budget constitutional amendment to the States for ratification. The amendment had passed the House by the required two- thirds majority, and the Senate vote was the last legislative hurdle before ratification by the States. If Congress had listened to the American people and sent that amendment to the States for ratification, we would not be facing the fiscal crisis we are today. Rather, balancing the Federal budget would have been the norm, instead of the exception, over the past 20 years, and we would have nothing like the annual deficits and skyrocketing debt we currently face. In 1995, when the balanced budget amendment came within one vote of passing, the gross Federal debt stood at $4.9 trillion. Today, it stands at over $20 trillion. The Federal debt held by the public is rising as well and is increasing rapidly as a percentage of the country's economic output. Unlike the past, when the debt spiked to pay for wars of finite duration and then was reduced gradually after hostilities ended, more recently, the debt has risen as a result of having to pay for entitlement programs that are of indefinite duration and difficult to reduce over time. As John Cogan of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University wrote: ``All of the increase in Federal spending relative to GDP over the past seven decades is attributable to entitlement spending. Since the late 1940s, entitlement claims on the Nation's output of goods and services have risen from less than 4 percent to 14 percent. Surprising as it may seem, the share of GDP that is spent on national defense and nondefense discretionary programs combined is no higher today than it was seven decades ago.'' As the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has observed, such high and rising debt will have serious negative consequences. Interest rates will increase considerably, productivity and wages will be lower, and high debt increases the risk of a financial crisis. What is particularly troubling is that the debts we are incurring under entitlement programs will burden multiple future generations. Indeed, a few years ago, a cross-national study found that the United States ranked worst among 29 advanced countries in the degree to which it imposes unfair debt burdens on future generations. University of Virginia philosophy professor Loren Lomasky has written that theorists have devoted considerable attention to injustices committed across lines of race and gender. Far less attended are concerns of intergenerational fairness. That omission is serious. Measures that have done very well by the baby boomers are much less generous to their children and worse still for their grandchildren. The single greatest unsolved problem of justice in the developed world today is transgenerational plunder. It is time for Congress to stop saddling future generations with the burden of crushing debts to pay for current spending. We should not pass on to our children and grandchildren the bleak fiscal future that our unsustainable spending is creating. The only way to ensure that Congress acts with fiscal restraint over the longterm is to pass a balanced budget amendment. Experience has proved time and again that Congress cannot for any significant length of time rein in excessive spending. Annual deficits and the resulting debt continue to grow due to political pressures that the Constitution's structure no longer serves to restrain. In order for Congress to be able to consistently make the tough decisions necessary to sustain fiscal responsibility, Congress must have the external pressure of a balanced budget requirement to force it to do so. Constitutional principle will prevail where political promises have not. The Framers of the Constitution were familiar with the need for constitutional restrictions on deficit spending. When the Constitution was ratified, it was the States that had exhibited out-of-control fiscal mismanagement by issuing bills of credit to effectively print money to pay for projects and service debt. As a result of that lack of fiscal discipline, Article I, section 10 of the Constitution specifically deprives States of the power to issue bills of credit. Over 200 years later, it is the Federal Government that has proved its inability to adopt sound fiscal policies, and it is now time to adopt a constitutional restraint on Federal fiscal mismanagement. Several versions of the balanced budget amendment have been introduced this Congress, including two I introduced this Congress, as I have every Congress for the last decade. H.J. Res. 2, the version we are debating today, is nearly identical to the text that passed the House in 1995 and failed in the Senate by one vote. It requires that total annual outlays not exceed total annual receipts. It also requires a true majority of each Chamber to pass tax increases and a three- fifths majority to raise the debt limit. Today is the day we can turn proposals into legislative action. Our extraordinary fiscal crisis demands an extraordinary solution. We must rise above partisanship and join together to send a balanced budget amendment to the States for ratification. I urge all my colleagues to join me in supporting this amendment and in freeing our children and grandchildren from the burden of a crippling debt they had no hand in creating so they can be free to chart their own futures for themselves and for their own posterity. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations Subcommittee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith), a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Science, Space, and Technology Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Babin).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Chabot), a member of the Judiciary Committee and chairman of the Small Business Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King), a member of the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton). (Mr. BARTON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Roe), the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Loudermilk).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds just to set the record straight. We did indeed hold a hearing on the balanced budget amendment. I do agree with the gentleman from Michigan that the obvious was stated in that hearing, but a hearing was indeed held. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Smucker).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Comer).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Montana (Mr. Gianforte).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling), chairman of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Johnson), and I ask unanimous consent that he may control that time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Arrington).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Allen).

Mr. GOODLATTE. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill).