After the House barely failed Thursday to pass a proposed constitutional amendment to force balanced budgets, a sad Utah delegation predicted the issue will resurrect soon.
"Next year, you could have 130 to 150 new members in the House. They will likely push for this again. We will have another shot," predicted Rep. Bill Orton, D-Utah."It is a sad day for America," said Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah. "This battle will be fought again. . . . New candidates running today are making the economy and the deficit the No. 1 issue. They are running on a platform of a balanced-budget amendment and a line-item veto.
"When they arrive in the House, they will be loaded for bear."
Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah, added he too is convinced Congress needs the amendment. "Congress lacks the courage to balance the budget without it," he said.
He noted that during his first House term in 1973-75, he felt Congress didn't need such an amendment. But six months after he returned to Congress in 1987, he decided pressure to spend more than government earns had become so intense as to "require this drastic action."
The proposed amendment fell nine votes shy of the two-thirds majority it needed in the House on Thursday on a 280-153 vote - despite heavy lobbying for it by President Bush.
The amendment's main sponsor, Rep. Charles Stenholm, a conservative Democrat from Texas, has said all week that he had a "solid 290 votes" for the measure. But several members changed their votes after in tense lobbying by Democratic leaders and groups ranging from senior citizens to business and labor unions.
Stenholm predicted the public - 77 percent of which polls say favored the amendment - would be outraged. "Once again, we are all talk and no action. We spent two days debating this and accomplished nothing."
He pointed out that Congress has not passed a balanced budget since 1969, and has spent more than it has in revenues in 31 of the past 32 years - which has resulted in a $4 trillion debt.
House Speaker Thomas Foley, D-Wash., led the charge against the amendment, and even gave a rare speech in the House - where he emotionally pleaded for members to oppose it "because it will make the likelihood of reducing the deficit worse."
He said the amendment would put too many restrictions on Congress as it tries to handle spending manners, and that members need only courage to keep spending in check.
House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., added, "This vote should be interpreted as a victory for controlling the deficit, not as a defeat for a particular amendment" and promised budget action to attack the deficit soon.
"Beginning next week, the Appropriations Committee will begin sending to the floor the most restricted agency budgets funded in the last decade. The leadership will follow up on their discipline by completing work on a budget deficit reduction enforcement bill that will be soon sent to the floor."
The Bush administration saw the vote Thursday as a major defeat. Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady, speaking for President Bush, who was in Brazil, said it "was another sad example of Congress' inability to deal with a national problem."