Jolene Unsoeld: “I rise today in opposition to the amendment. I would like to preface my remarks with my recognition of the dedication of…”

“I rise today in opposition to the amendment. I would like to preface my remarks with my recognition of the dedication of the author of this amendment, because I know that he does so out of total conviction. I would like to comment, however, that there are many who support this balanced budget constitutional amendment who talk about how tough it is, how we really have to step up and do this tough thing. But many of those who just last week voted for the Kasich amendment which supposedly was to balance the budget but which, in fact, had mandates for a nonrefundable tax credit on into the future that would have made such a huge price tag for future generations to pay. And many of those people turn around now and say, we are going to do the tough thing and step up and put a constitutional amendment in place so somebody else in the future can take the tough votes. The difficulties--and I do not underestimate the difficulties one wee bit--to try to bring back in line a runaway philosophy that was to spend and borrow, spend and borrow.”