Bob Wise: “if I may reclaim my time, I am not writing this for any Federal agency or I am not writing for the General Accounting…”

“if I may reclaim my time, I am not writing this for any Federal agency or I am not writing for the General Accounting Office. I am writing this to reflect sound constitutional practice. The Office of Management and Budget, for instance, has long resisted this. Why? Because it makes things a lot rougher for OMB. It is not as secure a gain for them anymore. There are a lot of people in the Federal bureaucracy who resent this amendment and have fought to keep it off capital budgeting. As to limitations on capital budget, yes, it is true that we do not have a referendum procedure, as we have in many States, although many States can still go out and borrow for capital expenditures without any kind of referendum. And, no, there are no real bond ratings. And I will tell you what is a bond rating in effect: It is the interest you have to pay and whether or not you are permitted to do it. And let us remember that the debt service from capital investments have to come on stream. They have to come in under the operating income. That is a very real limitation. Finally, the gentleman said this does not matter because we have such a low share of our Federal budget going to infrastructure. So what does it matter That is the point. We have handicapped ourselves so much by our own Federal budget procedure--25 years ago we were spending twice as much in relation to our total Federal spending as we are today. That is the point.”