David Cay Johnston: “Is the Senator aware of the huge amount of experience in the States where they have either constitutional provisions…”

“Is the Senator aware of the huge amount of experience in the States where they have either constitutional provisions requiring a balanced budget or prohibiting the incurment of debt, or other constitutional provisions with respect to the raising of money under which legislatures, by clever schemes, get around these provisions? I cite, as one of those, legislation that I was involved in, I mean, both legislation and litigation--I hate to make this question too long--involving the dome stadium in Louisiana where the law said, ``No bond issued under this amendment may bear the faith or credit of the State,'' and where the legislature and the Governor came in with a clever artifice and got around that, and you ended up with bonds which bore the faith and credit of the State. Or, more recently, where the Louisiana Constitution said it takes a two-thirds vote to raise taxes, and they created a special taxing district by majority vote which raised the money and raised the taxes and got around the constitutional provision. I cite those two examples as being typical of what has happened all across this Nation in avoiding the effect of those. Is the Senator aware of those?”