Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the Wise-Price-Pomerory amendment and in opposition to the other balanced budget amendment proposals. I rise in support of the Wise amendment because it incorporates sensible budgetary reforms, such as a separate capital account. The Wise amendment also exempts the self-financing Social Security Trust Fund from the cuts necessary to achieve a balanced budget and ensures that only Congress and the executive branch can implement the spending cuts and tax increases necessary to balance the budget. Indeed, these reforms should be adopted without regard to the underlying proposition of a balanced budget amendment. I do not, however, embrace the concept of a balanced budget amendment as a panacea for chronic deficits. Deficit reduction comes from the hard and unpopular work of cutting expenses and raising revenues; work which we undertook in the 1993 budget reconciliation bill and the appropriations process. Ironically, many of the same people who could not find the courage or the wisdom to support the first significant deficit reduction in more than a decade in 1993, many of the same people who voted for the budgets of the 1980's which produced these deficits, now advocate for a constitutional amendment as the only way to compel practical action.”