Orrin Hatch: “I particularly want to pay tribute to Senator Simon and his very extensive and good remarks that he made this morning. A…”

“I particularly want to pay tribute to Senator Simon and his very extensive and good remarks that he made this morning. A lot of people feel he is a very unlikely person to be leading the fight on the balanced budget amendment, but I feel he is exactly the type of person who should do it because he understands the importance of our national spending decisions and he understands the importance of our taxing decisions and he understands the importance of fairness. One thing I really want to make clear. That is, regardless of whatever arguments are brought against this amendment, this is the amendment. This is the best we can do. This has been worked out among Republicans and Democrats of good faith. It is the only hope I see for putting a mechanism into the Constitution or into the daily functioning of Congress--a mechanism that we cannot avoid--that might get us to make priority choices among competing programs.”