Congress
House rejects effort to force a balanced budget in the US
Lawmakers rejected legislation Wednesday to compel the United States to maintain a balanced budget, a perennial pursuit of fiscal conservatives that stood little chance of becoming the law of the land.
The House voted 211-207 against the resolution that would have launched an effort to amend the U.S. Constitution to bar the federal government from running a deficit. It needed to clear each chamber of Congress by a two-thirds vote, then be ratified by three-fourths of all the states.
But the measure’s consideration had major symbolic meaning for budget hawks like its sponsor, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.).
“Many of us have been agitating for years to do a balanced budget amendment and out of the blue, they said, ‘we’re ready to do it,’” Biggs said in an interview Tuesday, referring to House GOP leaders.
“They didn’t ask me to do anything, didn’t offer anything,” he said of whether leaders scheduled the vote in an effort to court Biggs, who has in the past threatened to tank spending bills for where he hasn’t liked the price tag. “Just out of the blue, I got a call.”
A spokesperson for Speaker Mike Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the timing of the measure’s consideration.
Various balanced budget amendment proposals have been offered more than a hundred times since 1999, but peaked in the 1970s and 1980s. The Pew Research Center found that balancing the budget is the single most popular subject of constitutional amendment proposals since 1999, according to analysis of legislative data from the Library of Congress.
Biggs’ latest resolution stated that “total expenditures for a year shall not exceed the average annual receipts collected in the three prior years,” adjusted for inflation and changes in the population.
It would have made an exception for war, where “specific expenditures in excess of the limit” can be approved by Congress “for any year in which a declaration of war is in effect.” Modern wars after World War II have largely been funded by debt; none of them, including the decades-long Global War on Terror, were never backed up by an official declaration of war.
The Biggs measure also would have instituted a two-thirds majority vote threshold in both chambers as necessary to approve any new tax or increase the tax rate. The GOP megabill passed last summer, which included significant tax cuts, passed the Senate in a simple majority vote through the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process.
The House will begin consideration of a bipartisan housing bill Tuesday, with a final vote potentially taking place the same day, accelerating a previous plan to secure congressional passage of the legislation, according to four people familiar with the planning granted anonymity to discuss planning not yet public.
The Senate will hold a final vote on the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Monday.
House leadership had planned to fast-track approval of the housing affordability bill by suspending the rules, a maneuver that limits debate but requires a two-thirds majority vote, as soon as Wednesday, but are looking to move that process a day earlier, the people said.
President Donald Trump is expected to hold a signing ceremony for the bill as soon as Wednesday, said two people familiar, involved with the planning conversations.
The housing bill aims to tackle housing affordability and boost homeownership and supply as the looming midterm election is dominated by cost-of-living concerns and Congress has a narrowing window to get legislation through before the August recess.
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
Alan Dershowitz is scheduled to speak with the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on July 20 as part of its ongoing Jeffery Epstein investigation.
“I asked to be allowed to set the record straight and correct various misconceptions,” Dershowitz said in a text message. “I look forward to doing so.”
The prominent criminal defense attorney who once represented O.J. Simpson and President Donald Trump also worked on Epstein’s 2008 plea deal, which many have argued allowed Epstein — who died by suicide behind bars in 2019 — to continue to prey on young women and girls for another several years before his later incarceration.
The Oversight Committee is separately set Friday to interview investor Leon Black, whose business dealings with Epstein have been under congressional scrutiny for years.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is scheduled to give a classified briefing Wednesday to a group of House Republicans about the administration’s goals for military funding and another party-line reconciliation bill, according to three people granted anonymity to describe a private meeting.
The gathering will take place during the Republican Study Committee’s weekly lunch and be held in the House SCIF, underscoring the potentially sensitive nature of Hegseth’s planned presentation.
Lawmakers are expected to also press Hegseth on the agreement the Trump administration has reached with Iran to end the war.
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