3046                                  JOINT RESOLUTIONS

spending to conform to available revenues; and

WHEREAS, The unified budget of 304.4 billion dollars
for the next fiscal year does not reflect actual spending
because of the exclusion of special outlays which are not
included in the budget nor subject to the legal public
debt limit; and

WHEREAS, As reported by US Hews and World Report on
February 25, 1974, of these nonbudgetary outlays, 12.9
billion of this 15.6 billion dollars represents funding
of essentially private agencies which provide special
service to the federal government; and

WHEREAS, Knowledgeable planning requires that the
budget reflect all federal spending and that the budget
be in balance; and

WHEREAS, Believing that fiscal irresponsibility at
the federal level, with the inflation which results from
this policy, is the greatest threat which faces our
nation, we firmly believe that a constitutional restraint
is necessary to bring the fiscal disciplines needed to
reverse this trend; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF MARYLAND, That
this body proposes to the Congress of the United States
that procedures be instituted in the Congress to add a
new Article XXVII to the Constitution of the United
States, requiring in the absence of a national emergency
that the total of all Federal appropriations made by the
Congress for any fiscal year may not exceed the total of
the estimated Federal revenues for that fiscal year; and
reading substantially as follows:

PROPOSED ARTICLE XXVII

"The total of all Federal appropriations made by the
Congress for any fiscal year may not exceed the total of
the estimated Federal revenues for that fiscal year; and
this prohibition extends to all Federal appropriations
and all estimated Federal revenues without exception.
The President in submitting budgetary requests and the
Congress in enacting appropriation bills shall comply
with this Article. If the President proclaims a national
emergency, suspending the requirement that the total of
all Federal appropriations not exceed the total estimated
Federal revenues for a fiscal year, and two—thirds of all
Members elected to each House of the Congress so
determine by Joint Resolution, the total of all Federal
appropriations may exceed the total estimated Federal
revenues for that fiscal year."

and, be it further