Political Quotes

“Far from to try to argue legalities with my friend from Alabama who is the legal mind of the Senate I would say this, however, that if the Senator has any questions, any problem with the language of my amendment, then he should tremble at the Simon amendment. The reason I say that is they have indicated they are going to correct all these problems, problems related to capital expenditures, problems related to Social Security, all these problems they are going to correct by legislation. So, my response is, as I have indicated here on this floor a number of times before, Senator Hatch on Thursday or Friday last said that he felt that we would carry out our constitutional mandates. My response is that, yes, the Reid amendment will have all the teeth that the Simon amendment has. Both amendments rely on future Congresses to abide by its oath to uphold the Constitution. The Simon amendment relies on future Congresses to define new terms, the limit on the debt of the United States held by the public. That term is nowhere defined in law now. The debt limit defined in title 31, section 3101 of the United States Code, is an entirely different concept. What would prevent the use of creative accounting to define the new limit, and would prevent the Congress defining certain types of borrowing out of the new limit. The answer is that it is the sworn duty of Congressmen to uphold the Constitution to prevent that. The answer is the same for my amendment.”