On the recordMarch 18, 2010
I commend both Senator Sessions and Senator McCaskill for the work on their amendment. As I said, I voted for previous editions of it. I think it has one major flaw, and that is it only deals with discretionary spending. I know it does affect the deficit, and that is very important. But it focuses just on the spending. When we did multiyear discretionary spending caps--they were a key part of the 1990, 1993, 1997 deficit reduction patches--they worked. However, those deficit reduction patches looked at all spending--mandatory and discretionary--as well as revenues. That is what our amendment does. It takes the whole picture. If we are going to walk the walk on having our fiscal house in order, we need to look at the entire picture, and I think we need to do it in a bipartisan way, as they did in previous Congresses when they made serious efforts to get the deficit under control. It needs to be bipartisan.
Source
govinfo.gov
