Orrin Hatch: “Last year, at the height of one of the most important debates last year, the battle over health care, we could not get…”

“Last year, at the height of one of the most important debates last year, the battle over health care, we could not get the economic analysis of just health care in sufficient time for our analysis, and that involved just the President's and one or two other health care programs. There were all kinds of other programs to be considered, but there was no time to get the full economic analysis. The fact of the matter is that what the Senator from Minnesota is asking for would cost an arm and a leg and would not get us closer to a balanced budget anyway--indeed it would place us further away because of the increased costs in performing the analysis. I will look at Senator Grassley's amendment, because I think we have to look at what these costs are. But, really, this type of an amendment does not have an efficacious effect. It is going to cost us. We do not have the facilities or the resources to do it. We have to determine here what we can do to reach a balanced budget by the year 2002.”