Lindsey Graham: “it is hard to determine why we have fallen into this legislative abyss. It appears there is a strong desire to avoid the…”

“it is hard to determine why we have fallen into this legislative abyss. It appears there is a strong desire to avoid the traditional legislative process in order to protect against having to take any votes at all, particularly any votes on controversial issues. In order to achieve that desire to avoid public commitment as to how we stand on various issues, we have abandoned all semblance of fiscal responsibility. Let me provide some large numbers. In 1997, we passed the Balanced Budget Act which was a key step toward achieving first the elimination of the annual deficits that had become so much a part of our Nation's fiscal life and ushered in this era of surpluses. In that 1997 Balanced Budget Act, we set a spending target for each of the future years. For the fiscal year 2001, our spending target for domestic discretionary accounts--these are the subject of the 13 appropriations bills, not taking into account expenditure for items such as Social Security, Medicare, interest on the national debt. But focusing on those things for which we in Congress have a responsibility to annually appropriate, we decided in 1997 that the spending limit for this year should be $564 billion. When the Senate passed its budget resolution in the spring of this year, we set a target, a constraint on ourselves, not of $564 billion, not even of $564 billion adjusted for some inflation, but rather $627 billion was the number to which we committed ourselves in the budget resolution.”