Judd Gregg: “Mr. President, I wish to address an issue which may be perceived as a bit arcane and is outside the policy within the…”

“Mr. President, I wish to address an issue which may be perceived as a bit arcane and is outside the policy within the debate that is occurring here, which is actually quite critical to the fiscal discipline of our Government and especially the Congress. This bill comes forward as a reconciliation bill. This is an arcane term which arises out of the Budget Act. The Budget Act creates the ability for the Budget Committee, when it is creating a budget, to give instructions to various committees within the Congress to meet goals set forth by the Budget Committee. These instructions are called reconciliation instructions. The purpose of reconciliation is to control entitlement spending primarily and to control the rate of growth of the Government, in fact, as a purpose. It was structured because although part of the budget can discipline discretionary spending through what is known as caps, it is virtually impossible to discipline the rate of growth of Government on the entitlement account side through spending caps because entitlements are programs which people have a right to and a spending cap has no impact on it.”