I have observed on many occasions that she has taken a path and chosen the unpopular approach and voted her convictions--after very careful study. I have noted that she reaches her decisions in matters of this kind after the most careful…

It would encourage inaccurate estimates, and all of the estimates going over the past 10 or 12 years, as I showed on the chart earlier, are off. Some revenue estimates are overly optimistic, others are not. Some outlay estimates are overly…

if I may take a couple minutes before my friend from New York leaves the floor, I congratulate him, I salute him, I greatly admire him. I think he has contributed enormously to the debate, and I look forward to the hour and the day when he…

I was a welder in the shipyards, in the McCloskey Shipyard in Tampa, FL. I was there the day the war ended, but we did not monetize the debt then. And at that time, as the Senator from New York has pointed out, the debt was 100 percent or…

He pointed to the deficit in the year 2004 as being anticipated as $365 billion; right?

at this time I wish to address just a few of the problems that I have with the constitutional amendment that is proposed by Mr. Simon and others, and a few of the points that have been raised during the discussion. Mr. President, Mr…

In this case, we are talking about microeconomic policy when we talk about balancing the budget, whether we have to raise taxes, whether we have to cut spending or have both. And we are talking also about a circumstance that may be very…

This will damage the courts. What will be the credibility of the courts? How much respect are the people going to have for black-robed justices who require the legislative branch to raise taxes; unelected justices? Their decisions would…

Indubitably; absolutely. May I say that as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee and as the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of the Interior, I have found in my experience that in order to stay under the…

Yes. It involved a civil rights matter in the educational field. The Supreme Court ruled that tax increases could be required of a school district. And the Court reserved to the Court itself the ground of levying that tax if necessary.

Absolutely not. And judicial nominees, when they come up before the Senate, do not want to answer a question on this or that. If you ask them how they feel about capital punishment, they do not want to answer the question because they may…

Yes, in this constitutional amendment we could include a provision that would preclude the Federal and State courts from any such involvement here or we could lay down certain limitations. But, Mr. President, as Chief Justice John Marshall…

It does. But in that instance we were finding a way around a statute. Here we are finding a way around the Constitution of the United States. In section 1 we say outlays shall not exceed receipts. In section 6 it says, oh, well, we do not…

Any flexibility. But ``This provision gives Congress an appropriate degree of flexibility * * *'' What is an appropriate degree? ``* * * in fashioning necessary implementing legislation. For example, Congress could use estimates of…

I do not think that the standing would necessarily be a major problem in a matter of this kind. Some citizens or groups or Members of Congress themselves might have standing. The point is that somebody somewhere will find a reason to go…

Only God can say, prior to the end of a fiscal year, what the outlays are finally going to be and what the receipts are going to be. What does section 6 mean, then? The Judiciary Committee reported this constitutional amendment which says…

If this balance is done on the basis of estimates, there is no estimate that will ever be accurate.

A year ago, CBO projected the deficit would top $650 billion in 2003; by last September, CBO had chopped its projection to $359 billion. The enormous improvement during that 6-month period was almost wholly attributable-- Listen to this…

Not delivering the promised result at all. Let me cite to the Senator what the committee report says, the Judiciary Committee report. When it reported this amendment to the Senate it also submitted its report on the amendment. So here is a…

Only God--only God--and He is not being called upon in this debate, He is not going to be asked by the courts----

When we write this amendment into the Constitution, who is going to decide what reality is? ... It is somewhat ironic for me to think that that little bit of paper is going to make any difference, when it is the same people who are…

So here we have the supermajority, another supermajority written into the Constitution. There are only 5 of those, only 5 supermajority votes written into the Constitution: One, the supermajority that is required to override Presidential…

this will undoubtedly be, in my estimation, the most important issue that will come before this Congress, and as far as I am personally concerned it will be one of the most, if not the most, important votes that I shall have cast in 41…

I close with a reference to my grandchildren. I have five beautiful, wonderful, intelligent grandchildren. Erma and I had six. The oldest one was killed. He was taken by the Father of us all to be in God's garden. Now we have five…

I thank the Chair. The chief proponent of the amendment says we have to have this constitutional amendment. We simply have to force ourselves to balance this budget. We need something that will force us. We need something that will give…