Angie Craig: “thank you. We can play semantics with the report language if you wish and we can ask a variety of questions of the…”

“thank you. We can play semantics with the report language if you wish and we can ask a variety of questions of the report language. I do not dispute the legitimacy of asking the questions. The report language is not the amendment. What is in the amendment and which is key, and I think the Senator in searching for the Government programs that would meet the definition, needs to look at section 1 of the amendment. It says ``Total outlays for any fiscal year.'' That is the operative word, Senator. Now, the Senator used the example if my power authority, Bonneville, got in trouble, would we bail them out. I do not know. We would have to decide that at the time. That would become an outlay at that moment in time. We would have to fit that into the context of a balanced budget because we would decide collectively that maybe it was necessary to do it--it was going to damage the region. Your State of California buys a lot of power out of the Bonneville power grid. If the Bonneville power grid was going down, we might become allies. We would want to save it so that my State would not go dark and your State would not go dark. But the point is, does it become an outlay? That is all you and I for the purpose of a balanced budget amendment have a responsibility for. It is at this time not an outlay. TVA does not come to the Federal budget. It is not an outlay of the Federal budget.”