William Orton: “I rise today to discuss the balanced budget amendment, which will be coming up later this week and possibly continuing…”

“I rise today to discuss the balanced budget amendment, which will be coming up later this week and possibly continuing into next week. It is a very critical issue which we will be facing in the Congress, and I feel it important that we discuss it in greater detail than we will have time during the formal debate on the floor of this House to discuss and compare the various amendments which are going to come before us. I will talk about some of the similarities and the differences. I recognize that right now going on on network television are the opening statements of the O.J. Simpson trial. It will take someone who is very dedicated and very interested in the balanced budget issue to actually be watching at this point in time, but I hope that my colleagues are watching and that in fact they and others interested in this debate will get a copy of what I am going to talk about, to analyze the amendments in depth and in detail prior to our debate coming up later this week. There has been a great deal of debate over whether or not we should balance the budget. I am not going to enter into that debate today.”