Orrin Hatch: “Mr. President, today we begin the second week of one of the most important debates that has ever taken place in the U.S.…”

“Mr. President, today we begin the second week of one of the most important debates that has ever taken place in the U.S. Senate. The subject matter goes to the heart of the Founding Fathers' hope for our constitutional system--a system that would protect individual freedoms with the maxim of limited government. In the latter half of this century, however, the intentions of the Framers of the Constitution have been betrayed by multiple Congress' inability to control their spending habits. The size of the Federal leviathan has grown to such an extent that the very liberties of the American people are threatened. Like some of the provisions of the Constitution, the proposed constitutional amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 1, is an appropriate addition to constitutional limits on the powers of the Federal Government designed to increase the freedom of the people by limiting the freedom of the Federal Government to act in ways that are harmful to the people.”