Orrin Hatch: “Not at all, because if we required you to balance the budget every year, that would fly in the face of the right to do…”

“Not at all, because if we required you to balance the budget every year, that would fly in the face of the right to do something when we have exigent and difficult times. The fact of the matter is, what this amendment always represented itself to be, and what it always will be, is an amendment that says, hey, Members of Congress, the game is over. You are going to have to vote if you want to increase the deficit. You are going to have to vote if you want to increase taxes. Both votes are more significant than a majority vote. And you are going to have to have a three-fifths vote. If you want to increase the deficit, you are going to have to have a constitutional majority to increase taxes. My personal belief is that it will be much easier to get that three-fifths vote to increase the deficit than to get a constitutional majority to increase taxes. I have no doubt in my mind about that. But both of them point us in the right direction by saying, look, we have to work on making priority choices. We just cannot fund everything anymore, and anybody with any modicum of sense knows that. We cannot fund everything anymore. We have to make priority choices and keep the best programs we can, and we might have to wait for a few years to get some of these less important programs.”