Mike Levin: “Yesterday I voted to table Senator Coburn's sense-of-the-Senate amendment that would have called for a requirement that…”

“Yesterday I voted to table Senator Coburn's sense-of-the-Senate amendment that would have called for a requirement that all newly authorized programs be offset by deauthorizing something else. I support eliminating programs which are wasteful or unneeded whether or not we are authorizing a new program. The Coburn amendment was offered to an authorization bill which spends no money. It targets the authorizing process, not the appropriations process by which Congress allocates funds and determines priorities among authorized programs. The Coburn amendment also fails to address tax cuts which dig us into a deeper and deeper deficit ditch. I support fiscal responsibility and have supported a number of strong budget tools this year like the provision which reestablishes a strong pay-go rule, which would require any new spending or tax cuts be paid for elsewhere in the budget or receive a supermajority of at least 60 votes in the Senate. The amendment offered by Senator Coburn takes the wrong approach.”