Now, I do not agree with the American Enterprise Institute very often. I do not always agree with Robert Samuelson. But I can tell you there is infinite wisdom in that statement for everybody who considers himself or herself a conservative. `Do not muck with the Constitution.'

When the House of Representatives came back into session, and Speaker Gingrich told Members of Congress that they ought to read some of these early documents. Two that he mentioned were the Federalist Papers and Alexis de Tocqueville 's `Democracy in America.'

I read those in political science 103A. I read them again in law school, and have read them a couple of times since then. The Federalist Papers, written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, were published in New York newspapers explaining to the people what the Constitution would do, and why they ought to vote to ratify it. New York and Virginia were key States and were absolutely essential for the ratification of the Constitution.

Incidentally, do you know how old James Madison was when he wrote that magnificent series of papers? Hamilton wrote most of them. Hamilton was 31, and Madison was 37. I think John Jay was the old man in the crowd, and he was 44. But the point is that the most important point that Madison made in the Federalist Papers was that we have three separate branches of government, and we have created all these checks and balances so that one branch does not run amuck or usurp the powers of another. He said we should let the President nominate Supreme Court Justices, but Congress is the one that is going to have to sign off on them. Time after time Madison returned to the theme of checks and balances. Lets not muck with it now.

I will come back to this in a moment. There is absolutely no question that this amendment is utterly foolish, totally unenforceable, unless the courts, the judiciary branch of Government, enforce it. Who wants that? You go back home to the coffee shop, Senators. Go home this weekend and walk into small town America in the coffee shop, and say, `We are passing that balanced budget amendment up there. We are going to get our house in order.'

Maybe some old farmer or small business owner says, `Well, now, Senator, how you going to enforce that amendment?'

You say, `Well, we are going to let the courts do that.'

And he is going to say, `Wait just a minute. Are you telling me that you people are so spineless that you cannot deal with this deficit, and so you are going to put a few words in the Constitution and buck it over to the courts?'

I promise you that you just lost his vote.

If there is anything America does not need or want it is for the Court to say, `Congress, you must raise taxes. Congress you must cut spending.' Where? When? How much? In what programs? It is the height of folly.

You know sometimes we all ought to go listen to the folks at the coffee shop more often. I never will forget in 1979 speaking to the Nevada County Cattleman's Association. Jimmy Carter had just imposed a grain embargo on the Soviet Union. I voted for it. I thought, `We will show those Soviets.' And the embargo had an effect precisely opposite what we expected. It did not bother the Soviets at all. They just bought wheat in other places, and the American wheat farmers saw the price of their product go down dramatically.

So this old cowboy said, `Senator, you voted for that grain embargo against the Soviet Union?'

I said, `Yes. I did.' By that time, I knew I had done the wrong thing, and, I said, `I am sorry about that. I will never do it again.'

Then he said, `I hope you won't Senator, because I think a fat, happy Russian is a lot less dangerous to us than a starving Russian.'

I said, `You are wiser than most of the people I serve with in the U.S. Senate.'

I remember in 1981 when President Reagan came to town, he said, `We are going to grow our way out of this deficit. We are going to have an economy so hot people will be paying more taxes, and we are going to balance this budget in nothing flat.' That was in 1984. Those were his words. They were not mine.

Ronald Reagan is the one who said we will balance the budget by 1984, and that we might even do it in 1983. I remember it so distinctly.