Victor Fazio: “I wanted to congratulate the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] and the Gang of 6 that have joined together in this…”

“I wanted to congratulate the gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] and the Gang of 6 that have joined together in this effort to offer a constitutional amendment that I think really faces up to the problem that we have in this country of sustained long-term annual deficits, but does it in a way that I think is very realistic and fair in the traditional analogy that is always made to the budgets of our States and localities. Amending the Constitution does not provide a major stumbling block for me personally. I think there is nothing inappropriate about having in the Federal Constitution language similar to what exists in many of our States on the question of annual deficits. Discipline might be actually advanced if we had such a provision. But what I am concerned about is the constant analogy that we face that pretends that the budget that we have at the Federal level is similar to the kinds of budgets we have at the State and local level. In my view, that is just not the case.”