Thomas Daschle: “as a longtime supporter of a balanced budget amendment, I am pleased to join my very distinguished colleague from…”

“as a longtime supporter of a balanced budget amendment, I am pleased to join my very distinguished colleague from Nebraska in offering this amendment. This amendment says we should translate words into action that we have to take immediate steps to balance the Federal budget. Passing a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget 7 years from now, while highly appropriate, does nothing today. From all appearances, a balanced budget amendment will pass Congress this year. There appears to be widespread support on both sides of the aisle on that point. But we simply cannot afford to wait until 2001 to start complying with the balanced budget amendment. By doing so, we will be adding a far greater burden to our national debt, which already is above $4 trillion. If we pledge our commitment to continued deficit reduction today, we will still need more than $1 trillion of cuts over the next 7 years to balance the budget by the year 2002. If we delay even 1 year, the national debt will increase by over $150 billion as a result of that delay, and the interest on the debt will be approximately $50 billion greater. Each year that we delay adds another enormous sum to our already-astronomical national debt, and increase the percentage of our budget that must be dedicated to servicing that debt. In the last Congress, we passed a deficit reduction package that will reduce the budget deficit by nearly $500 billion.”