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WASHINGTON — Ahead of the upcoming vote in the House of Representatives, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, called on Congress to adopt a strong balanced budget amendment to the Constitution in a speech at the Heritage Foundation today.The following is a transcript of his remarks:Ed, thank you for that very nice introduction, it’s good to be back at The Heritage Foundation. I would be remiss if I didn’t say thank you for what you and The Heritage Foundation does, not only to enlighten all of us, but to provide us the ammunition we need to fight the good fight on behalf of our conservative principals here in Washington and around the country. And, indeed, we’ve seen those principals embraced around the world. So many of your scholars do such great work, and help advance the policies that keep us strong, and prosperous, and free.Now, the last time I spoke at Heritage was last June.  I spoke about a related topic—well, it’s really the same topic, but I wasn’t talking so much about solutions then, I was talking about the threat of the debt, and that the debt is actually a national security problem.  I know a lot of times people think about the federal government’s spending—will we have enough money to provide the safety net?  Well, if we continue down the current path, we not only won’t have the money to provide the safety net for the most vulnerable in our society, we won’t have the money to provide for our national defense and keep us all safe.Last June I talked about the fact that China remains our largest creditor and, indeed, the lack of transparency of China’s actual holdings and how much money they are investing in growing their national security apparatus.  The problem is, as well, the Administration’s apparent ambivalence when it comes to dealing with China in so many areas and in so many ways—subtle and some not so subtle—affecting U.S. national security policy in East Asia.Well, since last June our debt has now grown to roughly $15 trillion. $4 trillion dollars larger than when President Obama became President, which is a remarkable expansion of not only the federal government but also the debt. That represents a 40% increase in just a little less than three years. So, instead of just talking about the problem I’d like to offer you what I think is the solution to that problem, which is a balanced budget amendment to the United States Constitution—and, as Ed suggested, talk to you about what version of that Constitutional amendment I think makes the most sense.Well, since we’re talking about the United States Constitution, it’s appropriate, I think, to start at the beginning. The views of our founders, who were very focused on what to do with all the debt accumulated during the Revolutionary War. And in fact one of the reasons why the Articles of Confederation were revised—actually, abandoned in favor of a new Constitution—was that the Articles of Confederation denied Congress the power to raise taxes needed to pay off the debt accumulated during the Revolutionary War. One of the greatest achievements of Alexander Hamilton, our first Treasury Secretary, was to refinance the debt of the new federal government as well of those of the constituent States and put our nation on a sound financial footing.Today’s ChallengesSo what’s the difference between the fiscal challenges our founders faced and those that we face today? The answer is simple: back then government was the solution to the problem. Today our federal government is the problem. The American people understand the difference. Today, the American Congress spends roughly 40 cents more than it brings in the door out of every dollar it spends. In other wards 40 cents on the dollar is borrowed money. We used to say this is a threat to not only our children and grandchildren, but as we’ve seen over in Europe with the threat and probability of sovereign default of some kind or fashion—it’s starting in Greece and elsewhere—is this is a threat to not only future generations, but to the present generation as well.Ed mentioned a figure of a couple hundred thousand dollars of unfunded liabilities. The actual individual share of the debt—and that doesn’t count unfunded liabilities like Medicare and Social Security—is about $46,000 for every man woman and child in America. So congratulations, the day you come into this world you inherit $46,000 in debt that you didn’t accumulate but has been accumulated before you came into the world. Our gross debt in America is a little larger than the entire size of our national economy, which means that were in the same trajectory as, yes, Greece, and Spain, Italy, in Europe. And of course we do not like, and should not like, where that path leads.Now the American people understand that this is a threat, not only to our ability to provide for the most vulnerable through the social safety welfare net in our country, but also our national security. And it’s a threat to our future prosperity and to what we inherited as Americans. The American people understand that the debt is a job-killing, economic wet blanket on the economy. It’s simply discourages economic growth that we depend upon to create the expansion that creates jobs and opportunity.Admiral Mike Mullen, though, also said it’s a national security threat. He’s of course the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and he said the debt’s the single ‘biggest threat to our national security.’ Now that’s quite telling, I think, coming from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. With all the different dangers we have in a very dangerous world that he considers the national debt the number one threat.Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said it this way – she said that the debt ‘undermines our capacity to act in our own interest ... and it also sends a message of weakness internationally.’Well another one of my colleagues back in 2006 put it this way - he said ‘increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally’ He said ‘it’s a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies.’Well you may have guessed who that was, he happens to be the resident of the White House – then-Senator and now-President Barack Obama.I bring the President into the discussion because our national debt not only represents a growing fiscal problem and a national security risk, but it also is risking a crisis of confidence in America’s ability to govern itself and to deal with the real problems that confront us.President Obama campaigned back in 2008 on the idea that he would change Washington – that was a welcome message. He would cut the deficit in half in four years – he’s about to run out of time to accomplish that goal. And he said he would go through the budget, line-by-line, to reduce wasteful spending. And he’d lead the way on meaningful entitlement reform.Instead, I think we’ve seen a very different President Obama than Candidate Obama. Now he’s essentially checked out of governing and is spending full-time on the campaign trail, engaging in the kind of class warfare that doesn’t solve the problem but divides America. He’s contributed tremendously to exploding our deficits – that’s our annual shortfall, as well as our national debt. And spent untold amounts of stimulus dollars, indeed, borrowed money, on questionable projects and dubious economic theory known as ‘Keynesian’ economics.And he’s created a whole new entitlement progr