Orrin Hatch: “Let me just say, I believe my friend makes a very good case for the balanced budget amendment. Because even though he…”

“Let me just say, I believe my friend makes a very good case for the balanced budget amendment. Because even though he criticizes some things that others have done, and compliments some things that he has done, the fact is that the system is running the same as usual. One thing that I would just like to point out and I ask the question, is it not true that the six Democrats who always voted for the balanced budget amendment before--and, perhaps, all Democrats on that side--who now refuse to support the balanced budget amendment under the guise that they are preserving or protecting Social Security by refusing to support a balanced budget amendment that does not exclude Social Security from the balanced budget calculation, that all six of those Democrats, and I believe every Democrat who will use the Social Security argument as an excuse for voting against the balanced budget amendment, I would ask my friend, did not every one of them vote for President Clinton's fiscal year 1997 budget which did not exclude Social Security receipts from deficit calculations? And, even though my colleague claims the deficit is going down, the debt since we first debated and voted down the balanced budget amendment has gone up $320 billion in 15 months. While we fiddle around here the Nation is burning. We fiddle around on trivialities when, in fact, passing the balanced budget amendment is the only way we are going to get things under control.”