Christopher Shays: “this is not about process, it is about substance. Sure, there are good things in this bill. This bill has 4,000 pages.…”

“this is not about process, it is about substance. Sure, there are good things in this bill. This bill has 4,000 pages. There are bound to be good things in this bill. It weighs over 40 pounds. It is bound to have good things in here. But this bill represents everything I fought against as a fiscal conservative in this House, and I fought as a Republican who wanted to change this process and this place. Republicans got more money for defense. They did not look at closing bases, they did not look at ending needless weapons systems, they did not look at burdensharing. Democrats wanted more money for social programs. Instead of paying for it, we are taking it out of the surplus. Both won, so it is a big celebration. It is bipartisan. But that is what we have done since 1969. That is how we got in the mess we are in. We are right back into it. What bothers me is it is happening under my watch and our watch. There is $21 billion over the budget caps. We can call it emergency spending. It is over the budget caps. It is front-loaded. Now, are we going to cut it out next year and the year after? No, we are talking about $100 billion above the caps over 5 years. There is $3.5 billion in the year 2000 budget, in this budget that we are voting on. Then there is the D.C. pension fund, $2.4 billion, of revenue? What about the unfunded liability? We are putting it on budget, so we are counting this liability as revenue? We are doing it under our watch?”