Cord Byrd

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.

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…

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 has to be, which you will learn after a while. I welcome this exchange. I think that is what has been missing in so much of this. We all get on the floor and make our speeches, but we do not debate. So I welcome this exchange and I…

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…

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…

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.''

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…

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…

Mr. President, when former President John F. Kennedy wrote ``Profiles in Courage,'' I believe he wrote about Edmund G. Ross, of Kansas, during the debate in 1868 on the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. At the conclusion of the trial when the…

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…

It depends on what the Senator means. When he said would a Senator ``deliberately violate his oath of office,'' I am looking at what the amendment says. I did not write it, Senator. I did not sign onto that Contract With America. I have…

This amendment? What are we talking about here? I thought we were debating a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. It does not say anything about an adjustment.

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…

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

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.

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.

Senator, you say ``we have built into this.'' Where does it say that in the amendment? Where does it say it?

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

we have the suggestion that the Congress could just stand up and declare that certain amounts of the deficit, as long as we determined them to be ``negligible,'' they are not in violation of the amendment. A $25 billion deviation--Congress…

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…

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…

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…

earlier we witnessed here in the Senate one of those vital moments of historic drama for which the U.S. Senate was created, that moment during which our friend and colleague, Senator Mark Hatfield from Oregon rose and announced his…