James Davis: “when this debate started, the chairman referred to this as a wartime budget. We are united in the war on terrorism. What…”

“when this debate started, the chairman referred to this as a wartime budget. We are united in the war on terrorism. What exactly are we fighting for? We are fighting for a democracy. We are fighting for the right to have an open and honest debate on the floor of the House of Representatives about our Nation's priorities. We are failing that standard miserably today, because there was absolutely no response whatsoever to the fact that we are using a faulty set of numbers to have this debate. For years, there has been universal support for using the Congressional Budget Office, which has been widely referred to as a nonpartisan, apolitical office, so we can discuss how spending proposals and how tax cut proposals affect our ability to have a balanced budget and pay down the massive Federal debt, which influences interest rates and has a lot to do with the solvency of Social Security and Medicare. Instead of using those numbers, we are left with the flippant comment, ``If you do not like the weather, change the channel.'' Also, we are using the politically-charged Office of Management and Budget numbers. No one disputes that fact. So we are not going to have an honest road map, an honest blueprint with which this body can judge how our spending and tax cut proposals affect our ability to get back to a balanced budget, to keep interest rates low, and to begin to prepare Social Security and Medicare for the solvency of the baby boomers.”