Political Quotes

“one of the things I want to visit about this morning is something I read in the morning newspapers; that is, there is now another effort being made to pass a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. I hope that people will get a new page in their song book. We have danced that tune. We have had long hours and days of debate in the Senate on a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. From the information I have received, they still want to do it using the Social Security surpluses. It seems to me that we have done very well without a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. When this debate started, as you will recall, based upon the beginnings of the Reagan administration, there was an effort to cut taxes and increase spending. That was a recipe for disaster. We now have a debt of about $5 trillion as a result of that. We have now, it seems, the same basic scenario. There is being an effort made to cut taxes, and we already know, based upon having passed the supplemental appropriations bill, Mr. President, that our surplus is basically gone. In an effort to further grind down domestic spending, it appears there is an effort being made to go back where we were a few years ago saying what we really need to make things great in this country is a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. When that debate started during the first Bush administration, there was an annual deficit of about $300 billion.”