Pete Domenici: “I say to everybody listening, the plain and simple fact is we propose we not reduce the President's $1.6 trillion tax…”

“I say to everybody listening, the plain and simple fact is we propose we not reduce the President's $1.6 trillion tax cut as a means of paying for prescription drug reform because we believe that is exactly what the contingency fund of $500 billion was intended for. We provide a mechanism to make sure that if the President poses a permanent fix to Medicare, or the Finance Committee writes one, in each event they will be funded not to exceed $300 billion. The Senator says there is a lot of ``ifs'' and ``maybes.'' I want to close by saying: Whatever happens to their amendment, there is no prescription drug bill until the committee writes one, right? So you are saying you are putting the money in and it is all full of ifs and ands and buts and maybes; to wit, you have to write a bill. Nobody knows when the bill will be written. Why do we put the money in? We are not sure what it is going to be. We have estimates from $346 billion to $500 billion, if necessary. We think we are doing the judicious thing leaving the tax cut intact and providing for prescription drug reform that is significant that can be up to but not exceeding $300 billion.”