Olympia Snowe: “Would you not agree that those who are opposed to a constitutional amendment have a greater burden to prove how they…”

“Would you not agree that those who are opposed to a constitutional amendment have a greater burden to prove how they could enact a balanced budget statutorily, because all previous attempts have failed time and again? There has been obfuscation, diversion, delays, distraction, and, in the final analysis, we have only seen our debt grow. We have heard some discussions how the deficit has come down in recent years, but what we do not hear is the fact the deficit is going to go back up for the remainder of this decade. In fact, since the last time the Senate passed a balanced budget amendment in 1982, the debt has grown 309 percent. Even the President's own budget, interestingly enough--we hear so much talk about the President's tax package in 1993, and I well recall that because I served on the House Budget Committee. We were challenged to bring up our own specific line-item cuts. As Republicans on the committee, we did. We did $435 billion worth of specific line-item reductions in the budget. Guess what? They were all rejected. So we got a tax increase, which happens to be the largest tax increase in the history of the country. It was supposed to reduce the deficit. To some extent it did, but, again, what happened is the deficit continues to rise.”