Judd Gregg: “we are now proceeding to try to appoint conferees for the purposes of passing, hopefully, at some point, the deficit…”

“we are now proceeding to try to appoint conferees for the purposes of passing, hopefully, at some point, the deficit reduction bill which would reduce the deficit of the United States by $45 to $48, maybe $49 billion and, thus, reduce the debt of the United States and be the first piece of legislation passed in the last 8 years which attempts to address one of the most serious issues we have as a matter of Federal spending policy, which is the issue of how we bring under control our entitlement accounts. It is important, as we move down this road, that we once again set the table as to what the issues are. It is a complex issue, and it is one which a lot of people who are not focusing on it probably do not really appreciate the subtleties because it is something that takes a certain amount of expertise or at least a fair amount of time relative to understanding it. The way the Federal spending process works is that there are essentially two different sets of accounts. One is discretionary. Those are accounts that we spend every year. They are for things such as national defense, education, environmental cleanup, health care, items which every year need to be appropriated. That is called the appropriations bills. They represent about a third of the Federal spending. Another set of accounts is entitlement accounts. Entitlement accounts are programs from which you, as American citizens or an organization, have a right to receive a payment.…”