Olympia Snowe: “As I said, I served on the House Budget Committee for the last 2 years and the last two budgets that we presented had…”

“As I said, I served on the House Budget Committee for the last 2 years and the last two budgets that we presented had very specific cuts of $435 billion in reduction in spending over 5 years. And then for the 1995 budget, we proposed an additional $150 billion. The fact is, there was another budget that was offered on the floor, in addition to the Republican-offered budget, and that was a budget that would have provided additional spending cuts over the President's by $182 billion for a total of $682 billion worth of spending reductions in the Federal budget over 5 years. But the fact is, no one is prepared to accept those spending reductions and recommendations unless we are forced to because there is no discipline, and I think the American people are savvy enough to recognize that we are not going to take that self-enforced action unless we are required to. That has been the past and clearly will be the future without a balanced budget amendment.”