Jane Harman: “I take a back seat to no one on the need to balance the budget and to do so in a balanced way. I made the tough votes…”

“I take a back seat to no one on the need to balance the budget and to do so in a balanced way. I made the tough votes for the Clinton budget in 1993, for the Penny-Kasich spending reduction package, for a deficit reduction lock box, and for other responsible procedural and substantive budget reforms that resulted in today's first-in-a-generation budget surplus. Moreover, with the support of the Blue Dogs, I led the effort to embrace the Boskin Commission recommendations to adjust the Consumer Price Index to more accurately reflect inflation--a move that would have assumed the removal of the Social Security Trust Fund from the budget calculations in 10 years and, as importantly, ensured the solvency of the Trust Fund for another two decades. But, balancing the budget and protecting Social Security are not just accounting exercises. Both are priorities, neither exclusive of the other. They require balanced choices about what to cut and what to invest. Tax reductions are also investments, depending on their cost and targeting. I am voting for today's tax cut bill because I believe its cost is reasonable and its impact appropriately targeted to benefit my constituents.”