Political Quotes

“during the past few days, I have been dismayed at the attempts of the proponents of this constitutional amendment to find a fix to pick up a vote or two in order to obtain passage. It may make for high drama, but it also makes for bad law. This is the United States Constitution that they are seeking to amend and its provisions should be carefully crafted, studied and considered. Back rooms and political dealmaking have no place in amending the Constitution. At the center of these desperate negotiations has apparently been a belated effort to jerryrig some type of budget resolution or implementing legislation to protect the Social Security trust fund from being used to balance the budget under this so-called balanced budget amendment. This is absurd. The language of House Joint Resolution 1 is very clear. Section 1 states: ``Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year.* * *'' And section 7 states: ``Total receipts shall include all receipts of the U.S. Government except those derived from borrowing. Total outlays shall include all outlays of the U.S. Government except for those for repayment of debt principal.'' The undisputed reading of this language is that the Social Security trust fund will be covered by this constitutional amendment.”