Martin Hoke: “we are getting to the point in the balanced budget debate where the volume is being turned up, the heat is being turned…”

“we are getting to the point in the balanced budget debate where the volume is being turned up, the heat is being turned up, we are starting to hear a lot of gnashing of teeth and beating of chests and wailing and wringing of hands, and I thought that it might be a good idea at this point to remind ourselves of the words of George Santayana who said that those who refuse to study history are condemned to repeat it, especially as we hear, and I talked last week a little bit, about the new species on the floor this year in Congress called the Metoobut. The Metoobuts are known by their talking about a particularly positive and popular Republican principle, for example, in this case the balanced budget amendment, which the people of this country have said overwhelmingly that they want this Congress to enact, and they will say, ``We absolutely have to have a balanced budget amendment, I support it completely, it's the best thing in the world, it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, but,'' and then launch into 55 reasons why we ought to have it maybe in the next millennium but not in this one.”