Political Quotes

“a summary of this amendment is this: It maintains the $26 billion in discretionary outlay cuts contained in the Exon-Grassley amendment that was added to the budget resolution in the Senate Budget Committee last week. But it specifies that all of these discretionary spending cuts would come from nondefense accounts. In addition, it adds $20 billion in mandatory spending cuts for deficit reduction. The amendment assumes that a number of the mandatory spending cuts contained in the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, OBRA, which are currently scheduled to expire in the next 5 years, will be extended. Let me emphasize, it accepts the Exon-Grassley amendment but with the language specifying that it would come out of nondefense accounts, and then it takes the language that has been developed by the Senator from New Mexico, Senator Domenici, that would call for an additional $20 billion in entitlement cuts. The assumption is it would be the extension of the 1993 OBRA agreed-to spending cuts. Here is my purpose. First of all, I have no doubt that the Senator from Nebraska, Senator Exon, and the Senator from Iowa, Senator Grassley, were certainly well-intentioned and were trying to be helpful in trying to find a way to reduce the deficit further in this year's bill.”