Dianne Feinstein: “I want to read my amendment's specific language. The language does not talk about any specific capital budget plan. All…”

“I want to read my amendment's specific language. The language does not talk about any specific capital budget plan. All the language says is ``Nothing in this article shall preclude the authority to enact and implement a separate capital budget for those major capital improvements which require multi-year funding and which would be excluded from the requirements of section 7.'' That is the requirement that outlays and expenditures balance. I will tell the Senator what I would develop a capital budget. I would set a basic amount of capital. Whether that amount would be anything above $5 million, $10 million, $15 million, or $20 million would be up to the Congress. But you set the basic amount for major capital purchases, for bridges, office buildings, or a battleship, whatever you want that to be. Also, because you float debt to be able to fund these items, you would also set a debt limit. That would most likely be a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product. For example, 2 percent of GDP would provide about $160 billion, 3 percent would be more, and so on. As I mentioned, we have dramatically dropped our infrastructure spending. It was 6 percent of the budget in the 1960's. It is now down to 3 percent of the budget.”