William Tauzin: “Mr. Chairman, the other day as we debated the issue of the line-item veto itself, I noticed to the Members of the House…”

“Mr. Chairman, the other day as we debated the issue of the line-item veto itself, I noticed to the Members of the House the likelihood of my offering this amendment in the Committee of the Whole. This amendment is called the glide path amendment and is offered in an attempt to make the line-item veto a more practicable, workable solution to a problem that plagues this Congress and has plagued Congresses in years past. The graph on my right, as I indicated earlier, is a confusion of metaphors, but nevertheless accomplishes the purposes intended. The graph at the right indicates the CBO estimates of where this Congress needs to be every time we have an appropriation for the next budget year if we are in fact to accomplish the purposes of the balanced budget amendment recently sent to the Senate, and if we are in fact to balance the budget by the year 2002. For example, in the next fiscal year, 1996, we are expected to have no more than about $174 billion in deficit if we are to be on the path that takes us to this balanced budget, as we have dedicated ourselves to when we adopted the balanced budget amendment. Each year thereafter, the deficit must be reduced pursuant to this graph if we are to reach that point by the year 2002.”