During an event with Gov. Brad Little (R-ID) in the Idaho State Capitol in Boise, Idaho on Monday, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) spoke in favor of the Balanced Budget Amendment to tackle the nation's debt.
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NewsTranscript
00:00It's me here today, as I've been supporter of a long time,
00:05to make some changes to how Congress operates,
00:09particularly how they're spending our money.
00:12And if you look at when the turn of the 21st century happened,
00:16the US debt from 1789 when the Constitution was ratified
00:20and the new government took hold until the year 2000,
00:25the US accumulated $5.6 trillion in debt.
00:29And even at that time, people were
00:30saying that that was a problem.
00:32Well, fast forward 25 years.
00:35The national debt's now at $36-plus trillion.
00:40And as a proud conservative and as a proud Republican,
00:44I have no problem pointing out the truth,
00:47that this is both parties in Washington
00:50that have created this mess.
00:52As much as I'd like to come up here and blame the Democrats,
00:55the fact of the matter is it's happened under both parties.
00:59The budget that was just passed in the US House
01:01of Representatives by the Republicans
01:04forecasts the debt to be, in the year 2035, $56 trillion.
01:12At what point is this just going to break our country?
01:16I think we all know there's a problem.
01:18I am convinced that you are not going
01:21to have Congress all of a sudden change
01:24its behavior for the long term.
01:27I think the reason we've gotten in this with respect to fiscal
01:31is because there are certain incentives for the people that
01:34are in Washington to behave the way they do.
01:37And we need to change those incentives.
01:39And that involves we, the people in our states,
01:42doing what the founding fathers put in the Constitution
01:46to propose an amendment to provide
01:47some of those constraints on their behavior,
01:49in this case requiring a balanced budget for the US
01:53government.
01:54Now, I have to balance the budget in Florida.
01:56Idaho has to balance the budget.
01:58Don't tell me it can't be done.
02:01When I became governor in 2019, if you
02:04take all the debt in the history of Florida from the 1840s
02:08when we became a state that we've accumulated
02:10until I became governor, just in my tenure,
02:13we've paid off 41% of the state's total debt.
02:17Now, that's not just an annual surplus.
02:20We run that.
02:21But we're actually digging and taking our surplus,
02:24doing tax cuts and other things.
02:26But then paying down this debt, by the time my term expires,
02:31we will likely have paid down over half of the state's debt
02:34that was accumulated over 180 years ago.
02:36We had to make tough choices.
02:37But part of the reason we were able to do
02:39that is because there's never a question that we have
02:42to at least balance the budget.
02:43So it's either balanced or surplus.
02:46We don't have the option to do others.
02:48So people understand that.
02:50And they're more willing to make really important decisions.
02:53So Idaho has an opportunity to certify this proposed amendment
02:58under Article V of the Constitution.
03:00There have been 27 states, including Florida,
03:02that have done it.
03:03As Governor Little mentioned, I'm
03:05going to be going to Montana.
03:06And we're going to be meeting with those folks.
03:08If Idaho and Montana join the fight, that gets us to 29.
03:12There's a couple other states that
03:14are on the precipice as well.
03:16You need 34 states to trigger Article V, where you would
03:19actually write an amendment and then eventually send
03:23to the states for ratification.
03:25I don't think it would even get that far.
03:26I think if you got to 33 states, I
03:29think Congress would see the writing on the wall.
03:31And I think they would rush to write an amendment
03:34that they would then pass and then send
03:36to the states for ratification.
03:37Keep in mind, it requires 3 quarters of the states
03:41to ratify any changes to the Constitution.
03:44I'm a small-c conservative.
03:46I'm a big believer that the founding fathers did better
03:49than anyone has ever done in devising a plan of government.
03:52It's not something that I would do lightly,
03:54asking for an amendment to the Constitution.
03:56But we can't keep doing the same things up there,
03:59and all of a sudden just hoping that we're
04:01going to get different results.
04:02I think we know that this is hardwired
04:04to go in a certain direction.
04:05And at some point, we, the people,
04:07have it within our power to choose a different course.
04:11And that's what we're here to do, to be able to do.
04:13So we had a great meeting with a lot of the legislators.
04:16Really great questions.
04:17I think people are thinking very deeply
04:19about the country's future.
04:20But we can sit here and say, oh, Idaho's economy's growing.
04:24They're doing this great legislation.
04:26Florida's doing all this stuff.
04:27And that's great.
04:28And when the Biden administration was in,
04:31we had to fight them on almost everything
04:33to be able to do that.
04:34But at some point, the states are not
04:37going to even be able to be successful
04:39if the federal government just completely goes
04:41off the rail with the fiscal.
04:43$56 trillion in 10 years?
04:45What's the interest on the debt going
04:47to look like at that point?
04:49I think it'll be really, really problematic
04:51as you're seeing it.
04:52So we have an opportunity to do something.
04:54I think the founding fathers understood
04:56that wherever the seat of government was going to end up,
04:59and they didn't know it was going to be in Washington, DC
05:03when they did the Constitution.
05:05They knew that there would be a danger where
05:08it would just go off the rails.
05:09And they knew they needed to empower the states to be
05:12able to take corrective action.
05:14So that's really what a balanced budget amendment would do.
05:17It would force them to make better decisions.
05:19And it would ultimately avert our country from really
05:23having a fiscal collapse.
05:24And the final point I'll make is this.
05:26The only time in modern history, last 50 years,
05:30where there has been a balanced federal budget
05:32was in the late 1990s.
05:34And you actually had Bill Clinton
05:36was a Democrat president.
05:38He came in.
05:38He wanted to spend a lot.
05:40The voters rejected that.
05:41They sent Republicans in in 94.
05:44And they ended up arriving at a balanced budget at that time.
05:48They also were pursuing a balanced budget amendment
05:51that failed by one vote in the US Senate.
05:54Can you imagine if the balanced budget requirement
05:57was enacted in the year 2000?
05:59How much different our country would
06:02be in terms of our fiscal solvency today versus then?
06:06How did we go from $5.6 trillion to $36 trillion?
06:10So we have an opportunity to act.
06:12I commend everyone here in Idaho for the great work
06:14they've done across the board.
06:16You guys are an example of a state
06:18that shows that conservative policies work.
06:21Common sense works.
06:22And I think we're both in the same boat.
06:25Like, when you do well and your neighboring states do poorly,
06:29not really neighboring from us, because Georgia,
06:31some of those do well.
06:32But you've attracted people.
06:34And there's some benefits to that.
06:36It can help with the economy.
06:37There's also challenges.
06:38Schools, roads, all these things.
06:40I mean, I see talking about Canadians
06:42are going to boycott coming to the United States.
06:45Not if you travel on the roads in Florida.
06:47That's not true.
06:48I see these license plates everywhere.
06:50And we have a bunch of Canadians.
06:51We have other people moving.
06:53So it does create challenges.
06:55And I'm not anyone that's begged people to move to Florida.
06:57And I don't know how Idaho approaches it,
06:59because a lot of our constituents,
07:00there are so many people here.
07:02But the reality is, is people in the United States
07:04have the right to vote with their feet.
07:06And they have voted with their feet
07:08over particularly these last five or six years.
07:10They have fled California, Oregon, and Washington.
07:13And they've chosen places like Idaho
07:15because they're seeking a better life.
07:16Just as many people have chosen Florida,
07:19from even California and Washington,
07:21but also New York and Illinois, because we do it right.
07:23So the common sense policies work.
07:26We just need a little dose of common sense up in Washington,
07:29DC.