Gathering a coalition

The Republican governor pressed for a balanced-budget amendment during an event at the American Enterprise Institute, describing it as the “best vehicle that has a chance of actually coming to fruition that would actually make a generational difference in the trajectory of this country’s finances.” DeSantis emphasized the debt crisis as a nonpartisan issue because the balanced-budget amendment will require significant Democratic support to push it across the finish line and be ratified.

“Until the last maybe 10 years, you know, both parties at least claim they were trying to do this,” he said of efforts to target the national debt. “It’s kind of fallen out of favor, really, on both sides in many respects, but we’re so divided politically as a country that you know we got to stress this is really not about Left, Right, Republican, Democrat.”

“If we end up having a big debt crisis, Katie, bar the door,” the governor said, meaning chaos is imminent. “If you don’t have some constraint, then we’re basically just acknowledging that we’re going to end up having a major crisis on our hands.”

The balanced-budget amendment must undergo several phases to be ratified into the Constitution. In the scenario pitched by advocates on Wednesday, 33 states would first pass a measure calling for a convention to propose a balanced-budget amendment. Getting 33 states could serve as leverage to scare Congress, DeSantis said. If one more state joined the effort, it would trigger a constitutional convention, which some politicians are not in favor of.

Congress would then come together to craft the amendment and pass it with a two-thirds majority, before sending it back to the states. Three-quarters of the states would then have to ratify the amendment.

The process is in its first stage, with 28 states having passed measures thus far, leaders of the Campaign for a Balanced Budget Amendment said during the AEI event on Wednesday. Bill Fruth, one of the campaign board members, said that in multiple states, the measures have failed by a mere handful of votes, emphasizing that advocates need to sway only a handful of lawmakers to advance the effort. For instance, Montana failed to pass such a resolution in March by a 27-23 margin.

“Frankly, we lose these states like one vote, two votes, three votes,” Fruth said. “We could be at 33 right now, if we just had, I could tell you, the six people in six different states who caused us to lose those up to six states, and it’s unfortunate how close it was, but we’ve never had the resources to finish the job.”

The Trump amendment

Several panelists at the event warned that raising public awareness of the issue remains the biggest challenge to advancing the effort. Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich proposed crafting a “Trump amendment” that pushes for a balanced budget to rectify the information gap, arguing that the president’s messaging on the matter could push the matter into the public eye and put pressure on Democrats to back fixing the national debt.

“Why would I say the Trump amendment should be pretty obvious?” he said. “I didn’t call it some other name in front of the amendment. I called it the Trump amendment because it would be a legacy matter for him, and it would require him to do nothing, and would give him something to do over time, and it would get you closer to your 34 states.”

“The fact of the matter is, is that Democrats have to say, ‘Yeah, this is really a problem,’ and that is, I don’t think any of that’s going to happen until the public understands this is a problem,” he said. “We’ve been running around, me included, saying that the sky is falling as long as I’ve been around public life. And then people go, ‘Well, my 401(k) is good, the stock market’s good, all this is good.’ So the first thing you have to do is explain the problem, define the problem, and get the public to say it’s a problem, and if they say it’s a problem, and we have some courageous people who are willing to actually be public servants in office, we can fix it.”

Swaying state legislatures

DeSantis expressed optimism that a relatively small level of political spending could sway lawmakers, compared to the tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars poured into recent Senate campaigns.

“Literally, you influence a dozen people who’ve been locally elected across six states, so the money that you need is a small, small fraction, because once you tell your state rep in Idaho, and you tell the folks, ‘Hey, to rein Congress in on spending and debt, and you know, Rep. John Smith ain’t doing it,’ they’ll start calling, and these guys at the state level, when they start getting hit, like, they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh,'” he said. “We’re close. We’ve got a lot of states that want to do this. They need a little bit of prodding sometimes, and the voters need to tell the state representatives that you need to do it.”

Fruth sought to emphasize the importance of targeting the national debt, warning of its damning impact on federal entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare. A new analysis released this week by the fiscal policy think tank Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found that Social Security recipients could see their monthly income checks cut by $500 by 2032.

He told DeSantis and other panelists about an incident in 2005 in which a woman in South Texas warned her city’s economy would be at risk if “Congress doesn’t stop borrowing money, and my grandchildren have to pay for it.”

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“Her grandchildren are in the workforce today, and 20 to 25 cents of every dollar they pay in taxes goes to interest on the national debt, and they’re going to be saddled with this for the rest of their life,” he said.

“It’s unconscionable, and so when the legislatures understand this, when people understand this fear, it’s anger, it’s translated to, and those people communicated to the legislators this fear, that’s why we got votes,” Fruth added. “Whether Congress passes it or not. I think it’d be ratified within three years, one election cycle. Those legislators that don’t vote for it will be voted out of office, and people voted in quick ratification. The fear of the future is very powerful among these people right now.”