Byron Dorgan: “I just finished testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the issue of a constitutional amendment to balance…”

“I just finished testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the issue of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. When I appeared before the committee, there was a debt clock the chairman put up in the back of him. He hung it up in the room. It showed the debt increasing every second as we were there testifying. It was a fairly effective prop, I thought, because we ought to be concerned about the debt. And we are on the right subject when we are talking about eliminating the deficit and trying to reduce the Federal debt. But I pointed out to the chairman of the committee that if we pass his proposed constitutional amendment to balance the budget, if we pass it right now, and then pass the proposed budget that will balance the budget in the year 2002, it doesn't stop the debt clock. The debt clock doesn't become a stopwatch on debt, because they are defining a balanced budget as a budget that takes all the money in the Social Security system that is coming in and uses it as other revenue to balance the Federal budget. The result is, in the year 2002, when they claim the budget will be in balance and they will comply with the constitutional requirement to balance the budget, the debt in America will increase by $130 billion.”