Orrin Hatch: “we are happy at this point to have Senate Joint Resolution 1, the Hatch-Simon balanced budget constitutional amendment…”

“we are happy at this point to have Senate Joint Resolution 1, the Hatch-Simon balanced budget constitutional amendment brought up. It is in the form of the House-passed amendment which is absolutely identical to the amendment that the distinguished Senator from Illinois and I and Members of the House, including Charles Stenholm, from Texas, and, at that time, Larry Craig back in the early days over in the House, who is now one of the leaders on the Senate floor, have been working on for years, ever since the 1982 balanced budget fight. When I was chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee, we brought it to the floor and then to the leadership of Senator Thurmond, Senator Dole, and Senator Baker at that time. We were able to pass it through the Senate. This is slightly changed from then, but the basic principles are the same. Basically, there are three things that the general public needs to know are very worthy reasons for passing this balanced budget amendment that is now in the form of the House resolution that was passed by 300 votes to 132 last Thursday evening. No. 1 is that if this amendment is passed by the requisite two-thirds vote of the Senate and is ratified by the requisite three-quarters of the States, then from that point on, it will take three-fifths of both bodies in order to increase the deficit.”