Jay Rockefeller: “Mr. President, as I struggle to get over my disbelief that we are back at this, I rise once again to express my views of…”

“Mr. President, as I struggle to get over my disbelief that we are back at this, I rise once again to express my views of a constitutional balanced budget amendment. The basic reasons I oppose this amendment are the same ones that led me to vote against it on the two previous occasions--since I joined the Senate--that it has been before this body. Congress does not need the U.S. Constitution to perform its responsibility for the Federal budget. We were elected to make the decisions about where to spend the hard-earned tax dollars of Americans, and where not to spend those dollars. We were elected to make the decisions required to adapt to the country's needs and to keep us militarily and economically strong. We do not need to add another page to the Constitution to do our job. And some of us have worked very hard in the recent years to, in fact, do the job of digging out from the exploding deficits of the 1980's, reducing the deficit, and changing the priorities of the Federal budget in order to cut waste and increase investment in America's future.”