Judd Gregg: “I believe there is no perfect solution. There is no perfect answer to the problem we face. Perhaps some may argue that…”

“I believe there is no perfect solution. There is no perfect answer to the problem we face. Perhaps some may argue that the caps for the first year are too high. Perhaps if I had written this amendment I might have made them lower. The fact is, without this amendment, there is no fiscal discipline. There is no fiscal discipline that can be imposed on a process which has lurched out of control. To state the obvious, we have gone from estimates of $50 or $60 billion surpluses at the beginning of this year, to somewhere around $100 billion, $150 billion deficits, and we have not even passed the first appropriations bill. And if this emergency supplemental, which is $4 billion higher than the President's, is any indicator, we are going to be in a sea of red ink. I think it is a bipartisan effort. It extends discretionary spending caps and the pay-go requirement for entitlement expansions and tax cuts. These mechanisms have helped to impose fiscal discipline since they were first enacted in 1990, but they obviously expire this year. It would be ironic and irresponsible to let the caps and the pay-go expire just when the budget is punching back into deficit.”