Robert Berry: “I think it is quite obvious, Mr. Speaker, that the Blue Dogs are in favor of cutting taxes but we are not in favor of…”

“I think it is quite obvious, Mr. Speaker, that the Blue Dogs are in favor of cutting taxes but we are not in favor of buying lottery tickets with our children's future. We think we should have a budget first. If you took the financial condition of this country, as the gentleman from Mississippi just so adequately pointed out, and a financial plan that we have today, that this country has to a banker, any banker in the United States or anyplace else where there is a responsible banker, they would just throw you out of their office. They would either declare you crazy or tell you to get out because they have got better things to do. Throughout the campaign, in the State of the Union, for the last year, this House has been putting the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds in a lockbox. Ever since I have been here, we have been talking about that. We have been talking about paying off the debt. We have promised the American people that we are going to protect our children, we are going to protect Social Security, we are going to protect Medicare, we are going to provide a prescription drug benefit for our seniors, we are going to provide a good education for our children, we are going to provide for a good national defense, we are going to have a solid agriculture that has a good safety net.”