Judd Gregg: “I appreciate the chairman outlining for the body the initiative which he and I have pursued in the area of entitlement…”

“I appreciate the chairman outlining for the body the initiative which he and I have pursued in the area of entitlement reform. I appreciate his leadership on that and I look forward to continuing to work with him on it. I certainly hope we can pass it. It is one way to get at the fundamental fiscal imbalance our country is facing and the threat it represents to our children having an affordable government. But that should not mute or sideline legitimate efforts to try to begin the process of controlling entitlement costs in a way that is fair and does not unfairly impact beneficiaries. The President did make suggestions in this area. The President's budget is not on the floor. I would note that the reason we don't offer a budget is for the same reasons the Senator from North Dakota didn't offer a budget when I was the chairman and the Republicans controlled the Senate. In fact, I will quote him. He said: The chairman-- At that time he was referring to myself-- well knows the majority has the opportunity to offer a budget, and our responsibility is to critique the budget. That is the way the Senator from North Dakota viewed the budget process and it is the way I view this budget process. But independent of that, the President's budget, as he sent it up, at least had guidelines which I thought were very constructive in the area of trying to control our costs in Medicare specifically. He had three different proposals.…”