U.S. State Secretaries of State

It is not May. What I said about May was that under the 1974 act, Congress is supposed to pass a budget resolution which lays out the anticipated outlays, the anticipated receipts and the anticipated deficits, and then, only after then can…

This is my argument. I want the Senator to keep in view in his mental vision what the amendment says. ``Total outlays shall not exceed total receipts for any fiscal year.''

That is what they are saying with respect to the disaster or to those parts of the supplemental requests that do not deal with defense. I am not arguing whether they are reasonable or whether they are not.

As I read, they said they would be happy to comply with the request as it pertains to defense.

Wait, just wait, Senator. I was not born yesterday. I am directing your attention to this language. This is the language. This is what we will vote on. Not what somebody is talking about in West Virginia or Pennsylvania or anywhere else…

I go back to this plain and simple language, Senator. You can argue with me as long as you want to argue, until you are blue in the face, but your argument does not, in plain, simple English language--and that is your amendment; that is…

Can the Senator--he was talking about disasters and how normally there are the votes here in the House and Senate to respond to supplemental requests for disasters and thereby waive this deficit requirement as it would appear in the new…

Does the Senator feel that with the House majority leadership taking a clear and strong position against supplemental appropriations for this purpose, is the Senator about to tell me that three-fifths of the House would vote to waive it…

I am suggesting that that legislation may rely on estimates of outlays and receipts, and I am saying that the estimates are invariably wrong. Consequently, it is an uncorrectable flaw in the amendment. Consequently, the American people…

Well, it says that Congress shall enforce the act in section 6, Congress shall enforce it by appropriate legislation.

Some amendments, especially those that were passed during the Civil War and the Reconstruction era, specifically provide for implementing legislation.

But nobody can promise what implementing legislation will do or what it will not do. Nobody can say ``Well, this is not the intention.'' ``This is not the intention.'' ``That is not the intention.'' Those are the words of a Senator at a…

Once the Senator has been here to see and hear the prolonged and sometimes bitter debate on the budget resolution--I hope he would not be suggesting that we are going to have subsequent budget resolutions every month or so. There can be a…

It is going to be pretty difficult for the Congressional Budget Office to anticipate what interest rates may be a month from now, 2 months from now. We do not know what Mr. Greenspan is going to say. The Senator knows that.

Besides, the nearer we get to the end of that fiscal year, the greater is the pain if one tries to make a correction in the remaining 6 months, 5 months, 4 months, 3 months, 2 months, 1 month.

There is the midsession review. But, I say to the Senator, that midsession review still is going to be based on estimates. It cannot actually foresee what the revenues will be for the remaining months, or what the outlays will be.

Yes, it provides for an additional supermajority in the Constitution, which will raise to 10 the total number of supermajorities that are in the original Constitution and the amendments thereto. It will be raised to a new level when we get…

If an excess of outlays over receipts were to occur, Congress can require that any shortfall must be made up during the following fiscal year. That is an ``option,'' the Senator says. The American people out there who are reading do not…

There we have it. A member of the response team is saying, ``There are options, are there not?'' Let us read this first paragraph of the balanced budget amendment: Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that…

It does not say ``at the end.'' You might want to read what the constitutional amendment says. ``Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year.'' How are you going to know until the fiscal year is…

The Senator has not read it all. It says ``shall not exceed total outlays for any fiscal year--``shall not.'' It does not say ``may not.'' Let me respond. Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal…

No, no, I say to the Senator, you are flattering me now. We have lots of men and women in this Senate who have the courage to do it now. It is not just the Robert Byrds. We have enough men and women in the Senate to do it now. Let us be…

Modest enough. It did not get a single vote on the other side of the aisle in either House.

That is precisely what this amendment is being sold as. The American people are being told--and I have heard it said by many of the proponents on the floor this week already--that this is the way to balance the budget. ``We have to have…