Orrin Hatch: “I particularly enjoyed the comments of the distinguished minority leader of the Senate. He is a very fine man. I am sure…”

“I particularly enjoyed the comments of the distinguished minority leader of the Senate. He is a very fine man. I am sure he is very sincere in what he is talking about. And he is a good friend. I do not have any desire to make this a partisan thing. This is a bipartisan constitutional amendment. We are fighting to try to get this country's fiscal house in order. To have people come here now and say, 'Just show us a blueprint,' and to use that tax vote a year ago, when they increased taxes on the American people--and they did get the deficit down to a little below $200 billion, but this was nothing, and they all know that that very bill that they passed and they are taking such credit for, touting it as their fiscal responsibility, that bill had the deficit jamming upward in 1996 and thereafter to the point where we get to a $400 billion deficit after the turn of the century. That is hardly something I would brag about, increasing taxes against the American people, the largest in history, and then a jump in spending, starting in 1996. Now, the President has come in and he has tried to reduce that jump in spending, but even his budget admits, until the year 2007, we will have at least a $190 billion deficit a year. Now, we have had 38 years since the balanced budget amendment has been introduced. Since we passed it when I was Constitution chairman back in 1982 in the Senate, we have had 13 years.…”