Don Nickles: “The point is, even under the President's budget, the deficit goes up. We have made some progress--and I think we can…”

“The point is, even under the President's budget, the deficit goes up. We have made some progress--and I think we can argue on who should take credit for that--but we are not making progress when the deficit is going up and it is higher in the year 2000 than it is in the year 1996. That is not balancing the budget. That is like somebody saying they are going to go on a diet, but first they want to gain 10 pounds for each of the next 3 years and, oh, yes, in the last year we are going to lose 40 pounds. That is what we have before us under the President's document. I think we need a constitutional amendment to make the President and to make Congress be responsible, to make the tough decisions. I am pleased that we are going to have 55 Republicans vote for this. I am disappointed that we do not have 12 Democrats to vote for it to make it happen. I wish we did. I think we are going to come up with 11. One of my jobs is to count votes. A couple of people basically are going to vote different than what they said they were going to do. That disappoints me. But regardless, we still have to roll up our sleeves, and I think we still have to balance the budget.”