start by saying a quick thank you to senator hatch and cornyn on the one hand and senator lee and koschel. these two groups have produced very thoughtful alternative ideas on how we might reach a balanced budget amendment and through a lot of hard work, we all came to an agreement on a consensus product that i think is a great product, and importantly has the universal support of the republican conference and to that and i want to thank leader mcconnell for having the wisdom to seize the opportunity to unite the conference behind this important idea. it's important for many reasons i want to touch on just one and that is an absolutely convinced as i think many economists are that we cannot have the economic recovery we need and we cannot have the job growth we badly need as long as we have this disaster this fiscal deficit looming over our economy. and getting our fiscal house in order, getting the balanced budget is an absolutely necessary precondition for the strong economic growth and job creation frankly we were sent here to accomplish. so i share the hope some of my colleagues have a