George Miller: “we have heard since the election of November last, and all of last year, that the goal of the Republicans in Congress…”

“we have heard since the election of November last, and all of last year, that the goal of the Republicans in Congress was a 7-year, CBO-scored, balanced budget. And the challenge over the last several months apparently was to get the President of the United States to agree to put on the table a 7-year, CBO-scored, balanced budget. The President of the United States has done that. He has met that test. CBO has scored that budget. There is some $700 billion in savings in that proposal sufficient to balance the budget in these 7 years; and yet we now find that rather than take those savings and balance the budget, the Republican majority would rather end the negotiations. So those negotiations have been ended when there is $700 billion in cash sitting on the table that all they have to do is walk in and pick it up and walk out, and the American taxpayers get all the benefits that we have all talked about from balancing the budget. Rather than do that, apparently now there is an idea afoot that what we will have is a downpayment, a downpayment on the deficit.”