William Pryor: “Mr. President, what we are doing today is looking at a possibility of adopting perhaps the greatest sea change in the…”

“Mr. President, what we are doing today is looking at a possibility of adopting perhaps the greatest sea change in the relationship between the judiciary, the executive branches of Government, and the legislative branches of Government that we have ever concerned ourselves with. The definitional games are going to be played necessarily on what is or is not an outlay or what is or is not a receipt. But the definition games will not be limited to just these issues. And I can say, in my opinion, there are not going to be any winners in this definitional game under these false promises. Mr. President, there is a third loophole. There are many loopholes. But No. 3 is, I think, one of the more serious--determining what an estimate is. Who makes those estimates? If one estimator's 'estimate' comes out one way, the budget may be in balance. If we use another estimator's estimate, we will no doubt have different estimates and then be out of balance. More lawsuits will ensue. It sounds like estimators, not Congress, would control the measure of our outlays and receipts, and ultimately, the decisions effecting our lives. The point is that estimates can differ, and they can differ drastically. Estimates can be flat wrong. Human nature being what it is, estimates can also be manipulated. In any case, do we really want something as unreliable as economic estimates to become the underpinning of the United States Constitution?”