Political Quotes

“It is interesting that even the lead witness in opposition to the balanced budget amendment last year, Prof. Laurence Tribe of Harvard--I do not want to mislead anyone. He is still opposed to the balanced budget amendment, but he said this: Despite the misgivings I expressed on this score a decade ago, I no longer think that a balanced budget amendment is at a conceptual level an unsuited kind of provision to include in the Constitution. The Jeffersonian notion that today's populace should not be able to burden future generations with excessive debt does seem to be the kind of fundamental value that is worthy of enshrinement in the Constitution. In a sense, it represents a structural protection for the rights of our children and grandchildren. Madam President, the last time we voted on this in the Senate after significant debate was 1986. It failed to carry the Senate by one vote. The argument used then was we can balance the budget without a constitutional amendment. It is very interesting that we are hearing the same arguments today. At that point we had, with the approval of a Republican President of the United States, taken some steps to reduce the deficit a little, and now we have taken steps to the great credit of President Clinton to reduce the deficit. But in 1986, the deficit was $2 trillion. Now the deficit is $4.5 trillion. And we are hearing the same arguments.…”