Karen Thurman: “As a firm supporter of the concept behind this legislation, I believe it is extremely important to correct these…”

“As a firm supporter of the concept behind this legislation, I believe it is extremely important to correct these problems. I strongly support the principle behind this legislation. We should enforce the budget agreement to ensure that this budget agreement delivers on the promise of a balanced budget. Everyone in this body agrees that the best thing we can do for working men and women is to ensure that we actually balance the budget. If we do not add legislation enforcing the budget agreement, we could repeat the history of past failed efforts to balance the budget. Because this issue is so important, we should correct these problems so that we can pass an enforcement bill that does not have these problems. This motion to recommit would correct the unintended problems with the bill that have been pointed out by many of its critics. This motion makes several important improvements to the bill: First, it begins the process of restoring the integrity of the Social Security trust fund by reserving the first hundred billion dollars of any surplus to take the Social Security trust fund off budget. Second, it protects Medicare beneficiaries by addressing the concern that Medicare beneficiaries would bear an unreasonable burden of sequestration.”