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It may seem outside the realm of belief, but the national debt, now at $14 trillion, increased by $3 trillion in the last few years, with $1 trillion of that coming in under the last Congress alone.

Shocking facts like these drove an angry electorate in November, and an organization I am proud to be affiliated with, Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment, has begun to tell Congress that their tax-and-spend ways must change whether they like it or not.

After consulting with my friend Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, I recently drafted a resolution on behalf of the Utah delegation urging Congress to pass a balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution before the next fiscal year begins on Oct. 1, 2011.

The idea of a balanced budget is not new. Thomas Jefferson once considered the idea of an amendment to the Constitution to strip the power to borrow from the federal government. Many modern-day proponents of a balanced budget amendment believe that Jefferson's "single amendment" is ideologically akin to the idea of a constitutional mandate requiring Congress to balance the books each year.

Freshmen Republicans in Congress won their races by pledging to address spending cuts, deficit reduction, earmarks and the cost of government largesse. Now there will be another heated debate over passing an amendment to the Constitution mandating that the federal government balance the federal budget every year. Never has the need for such an amendment been so necessary to ensuring the future prosperity of the United States.

My resolution lays bare the argument for the amendment in the resolution, which will soon be sent to the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and to the members of Utah's congressional delegation. I hope this resolution will be replicated across the country as other state legislatures join the effort to correct the current fiscal crisis.

Explicit in the resolution is the recognition that good budgeting is necessary in the face of the increasing national debt, that an amendment is necessary to force the hand of a government that tends to see deficit spending as the norm, and that an effort to pass a balanced budget amendment would go a long way toward assuring states and the citizenry that their federal government is serious about getting its economic house in order.

Pass the Balanced Budget Amendment believes that it is useful to remember that at our country's inception, the idea of a large federal government was anathema to what the founders believed the new nation should strive to be. It has been widely noted that President George Washington had but one aide during his time as president, a relative he paid out of his own pocket. This kind of economy certainly speaks to a philosophy that would be shocked at a $1.3 trillion deficit and upwards of $14 trillion in national debt.

In the face of the prolonged economic sluggishness the country has been grappling with for the past several years — coupled with an administration that answers that sluggishness with increased and unnecessary stimulus spending — Pass the BBA hopes that the Congress will take the serious stand that many states have in adopting this amendment.

The federal government, after all, is supposed to answer to the will of the people. If the people speak and request demonstrable fiscal sanity from their government, then Congress – if it wants to do its job – must listen. As we saw in November, the people will make themselves heard if Congress doesn't listen.

Carl Wimmer is a Republican member of the Utah House of Representatives representing District 52 in southwest Salt Lake County, and a member of the board of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Pass the BBA, Inc.