Angie Craig: “we have just heard Senator Domenici from New Mexico, chairman of the Budget Committee here in the Senate, outline for us…”

“we have just heard Senator Domenici from New Mexico, chairman of the Budget Committee here in the Senate, outline for us what many of us feared we would hear from this President as he presented his budget to the Nation which will now be presented today--statistics and facts and figures that I do not think any of us wanted to hear or that the American people can even begin to fathom as it relates to what it all means. Certainly, this chart I have with me reflects exactly what the Senator from New Mexico, the chairman of the Budget Committee, said. From a debt structure for our country at the end of fiscal 1995 somewhere in the $4.9 trillion mark to, by this President's own admission with the submission of his budget today, a deficit out here in the outyears around the year 2002 of $6.6 trillion. What does all of that mean? I find it also very unique that as we debate the balanced budget amendment here on the floor--as we have been now for well over a week, and as we will, maybe, for the next several weeks--that the leader of the Democratic Party would come to us with an amendment that, in essence, says: Submit a budget in all of the detail of how you want to balance the budget, and if you do not, we cannot submit a balanced budget constitutional amendment as a matter of principle to the people for their consideration.”