Barbara Kennelly: “As we go to conference this evening on the budget resolution, we really should assure the American people they will get…”

“As we go to conference this evening on the budget resolution, we really should assure the American people they will get a balanced budget as promised. So that means crafting the tax package in a way that makes it possible to provide the promised tax cuts while adequately measuring their cost to assure that the budget will actually balance in 2002. That means playing fair with the numbers. The numbers cannot be jury-rigged so as to provide only the illusion of a balanced budget. How tragic it would be, Mr. Speaker, if in fact after these tax cuts were promised and the budget were laid out, that we would not have a balanced budget but would have a deficit that we have worked so hard to get rid of. I think we should all agree on a bipartisan basis that such an outcome is absolutely unacceptable. We will balance the budget, we will give the tax cuts, and we will use fair and honest numbers.”