Tom Harkin: “I voted against the Simon amendment, and I feel that I must at this time explain my vote and say why I voted the way I…”

“I voted against the Simon amendment, and I feel that I must at this time explain my vote and say why I voted the way I did. I listened with bemusement to the statement made by the Senator from South Carolina when he said the only way we are going to do this is to mandate the Congress with a constitutional amendment. But just as the majority leader pointed out, they added a clause which took the Supreme Court out and said the Supreme Court could not review it, so who is going to mandate it? The whole thing I think evolved into almost ridiculousness toward the end. I must at the outset, Mr. President, say that I do philosophically support a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I support such a change first because of my own personal belief in frugality. That is the way I was raised. Except for two houses that my wife and I have purchased and a car I bought once when I was a younger man, I have never gone into debt because I do not believe in it. My wife and I have always saved and then bought things or invested. I think that is probably due to the influence of my father. My father worked in the coal mines most of his life. When he saved up enough money, he bought a small farm. His timing was bad. It was about 1928. The Depression came, and he lost it. He impressed upon me during my early years a great fear of debt and what debt meant to him, how it destroyed his dreams.”