For many months, President Obama and members of his administration have warned that failure to raise the debt limit will result in economic Armageddon. As we approach the president’s Aug. 2 deadline, their warnings have grown increasingly dire and their tones increasingly shrill.

In May, President Obama warned the nation, “If investors around the world thought that the full faith and credit of the United States was not being backed up, if they thought that we might renege on our IOUs, it could unravel the entire financial system . . . We could have a worse recession than we already had, a worse financial crisis than we already had.”

Last week, the president went so far as to threaten to withhold Social Security payments despite the fact that, under any circumstance, he will have the resources to make those payments. The president said: “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on Aug, 3 if we haven’t resolved this issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

If you accept the president’s premise (which I don’t), you have to wonder why he remains so stubbornly opposed to the Cut, Cap and Balance Act that passed the House of Representatives Tuesday night. In a moment of rare bipartisanship, five Democrats joined with 229 Republicans in passing legislation that will increase the debt limit by $2.4 trillion – the full amount that the president has asked for from day one.

Now the House vote came with one condition – that President Obama join Congress in putting our federal government on a path to a balanced budget. This is the single condition. To most, this is a perfectly reasonable condition. To the families I speak to in Pennsylvania who balance their checkbooks every month, this is more than reasonable. To the small business owners who struggle to make payroll and keep expenses down, the idea of balancing your budget is axiomatic.

So the question we need to ask President Obama is simple:

Mr. President, are you so passionately opposed to balancing the federal budget that you will reject the debt limit increase that you have said we desperately need? Mr. President, are you so opposed to solving our increasingly out-of-control debt problem that you are willing to plunge our country into “a worse financial crisis than we already had,” as you have put it?

Mr. President, we are waiting for your answer.

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That’s why I am very pleased that today, the Senate Republican Conference will roll out a balanced budget amendment, cosponsored by all 47 Republican senators.

The new, consensus balanced budget amendment is exactly what our country needs. It is the result of hard work on the part of many senators and proof that we can change the way Washington works when we put our minds to it.

The path toward a balanced budget amendment started with two excellent pieces of legislation, one by Senators Mike Lee and Jon Kyl and another by Senators Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn. Over several weeks and many conversations with my colleagues, we discussed ways to merge these two bills into a compromise measure that the entire conference could embrace. We drafted a balanced budget amendment that sets firm restrictions on government spending and insures that future Congresses will not be able to waive these restrictions at their whim. And thanks to the leadership and support of Senator Mitch McConnell, a united Republican conference has thrown its unanimous support behind this measure.

Under our new balanced budget amendment:

• The budget will have to be balanced every year
• Federal spending will be limited to 18 percent of GDP
• Congress can only increase taxes with a two-thirds vote of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate
• Congress can only waive the 18 percent spending restriction with a two-thirds vote in the House and Senate, unless we are engaged in a military conflict which requires a three-fifths vote by both chambers
• Only a declaration of war against a nation state allows Congress to waive the requirement with a simple majority
• Congress requires a three-fifths vote to increase the debt limit

The time for action is now. As our debt approaches the $14.3 trillion statutory limit, the most irresponsible thing we can do is to increase the debt limit with no spending cuts and not spending reforms.

The balanced budget amendment is the first major step this Congress can take to impose a straitjacket on government spending, restore fiscal responsibility and enable our economy to thrive.

In recent weeks, Specter has made numerous statements about how important it is to deny Democrats the 60th seat in the US Senate, and how he categorically intended to remain a Republican to prevent one-party dominance in Washington. What Pennsylvanians have to ask themselves now is whether Specter is in fact devoted to any principle other than his own reelection.

For our campaign, not much changes. Instead of having Arlen Specter as an opponent in the Republican primary, we will face him in the general election, that is, assuming Pennsylvania Democrats decide they can trust him enough to give him their nomination. Whichever the case, our message remains the same. America is at a crossroads. In one direction lies massive Washington spending increases and more debt for our children, one after another taxpayer bailout of failed corporations, and the higher taxes that are inevitably required to pay for this unprecedented lurch to the left. In the other direction lies the traditional American principles of free enterprise, limited government, and personal responsibility. Those are the principles that our campaign will fight for, and those are the principles I will take with me, and keep with me, in the U.S. Senate. Please join our team at www.ToomeyforSenate.com.