Christopher Shays: “In my 28 years experience being in politics, I do know that speaking at 2 in the morning is not wise, and I usually…”

“In my 28 years experience being in politics, I do know that speaking at 2 in the morning is not wise, and I usually avoid doing that. It took me awhile to figure that out, because I always made enemies when I spoke late at night. As I was listening to the dialogue of my colleagues discussing the rule, I heard a lot of passion, I heard a lot of anger. The difference is we actually have to pass a budget and you do not. The best example to me is you are talking about your budget, the Blue Dog budget, that did not even get close to a majority of votes and did not even get all the votes on your side of the aisle. We can only afford to lose 11 votes on our side of the aisle, because we know that there is not one, Mr. Speaker, on that side of the aisle that will help us pass a budget. And that is the challenge. When we passed our budget out of the Committee on the Budget, which I was proud of, and balanced the budget in 7 years, the amendments to that budget in that committee debate added up to $983 billion over the next 10 years. We never had a debate with President Clinton where he said we spent too much. The only way we could get out of town was we had to spend more. That is a fact. The problem is, even tonight, my colleagues, seriously, think about this: You say we are cutting. Only in Washington when you spend 9 percent more, or $14.6 billion more, would people call it a cut. That is what we add in Medicaid.”