Cord Byrd: “No. No. I did not say it would be permitted. I did not say it would be permitted. I said under the Constitution no…”

“No. No. I did not say it would be permitted. I did not say it would be permitted. I said under the Constitution no missed estimates would be permitted. It says what it says. The total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year. I did not say we would permit $5 billion, permit $10 billion or $75 billion. The Senator was not listening to me. I was talking about Abraham, and how he approached God, and said, well, if there are 50 men, righteous men, in Sodom, would you spare them? God said yes. What about 45? Yes. What about 50? Yes. What about 35, 30, 20, 10? So where do we stop here? That is what I am saying. If you are going to say in this section 6, the Congress shall enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation, which may rely on estimates of outlays and receipts, and if you are going to say in the committee report, the Congress could state that very small or negligible deviations from a balanced budget would not represent a violation, what is ``small?'' What is ``very small?'' I was saying is 75 very small? Is that negligible? Is 50 small? So you tell me. What is small in that context?”