Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from New Jersey, and I like the sound of that 28th Amendment to the Constitution. Let me just say that, as I mentioned at the outset, because of the vote by the Congress--the House and the Senate--signed into law by the President, we will have a vote in both the House and Senate on a balanced budget amendment before the end of this year, before December 31. And if either body passes a specific balanced budget amendment, the other body has to vote on the same one so that we have the greatest possibility that if we can reach that kind of consensus, we can actually send a balanced budget amendment for the first time to the States for ratification. It would require 38 States to ratify it. But as the gentleman from New Jersey just noted, 49 out of 50 States have a requirement in their constitution that they must balance their budgets. I believe that with the public supporting this by numbers northward of 80 percent--and it's very bipartisan support. I saw a recent poll that showed that 74 percent of Democrats support this, as do a great many Democrats here in the House. In fact, to pass a constitutional amendment with 290 votes, it has to be bipartisan. So we are working across the aisle to make sure that we build the kind of support that we need to pass the strongest possible amendment to our Constitution requiring that the government lives within its means.…”