Judd Gregg: “I want to raise a couple of points here as we move through the budget negotiations. There are ongoing negotiations with…”

“I want to raise a couple of points here as we move through the budget negotiations. There are ongoing negotiations with the White House relative to trying to reach a budget agreement. But those negotiations deal with a budget that will run through the year 2002. My concern is that, as we look at a budget in that short timeframe, action which we take to address a budget that would reach balance by 2002 would have impact beyond that period, obviously, because we will put in place decisions that are not going to end at the time that budget concludes in 2002, but it will affect spending beyond that time. In two major accounts, the President's budget, as proposed, is basically a budget that has a low initial cost but has a dramatic, explosive cost in the outyears when you get past the year 2002. Both in the Medicare account and the Medicaid account, the President's budget, as sent up here, has significant increases in spending, but those increases in spending that are for the 5-year timeframe running through 2002 are really minuscule compared to the spending that will occur in the period after 2002. I believe this needs to be highlighted because, if it is not, I am afraid we will adopt initiatives in the President's budget that come out of it as part of this process of building our own budget and reaching a bipartisan budget.”