Jack Kingston: “I wanted to answer the question with something practical, not necessarily philosophical, but strategically important…”

“I wanted to answer the question with something practical, not necessarily philosophical, but strategically important, and that is when we had the November shutdown, the 6-day shutdown, you will remember we had a continuing resolution passed that reopened the Government for a 3-week period of time, at which time, by December 15, the President of the United States was to have submitted a 7-year balanced budget, which he did not on December 15. So what has happened is there are a lot of Members who feel somewhat, ``burned once, and it is your fault; burned twice, it is my fault.'' I am not going to be burned twice. That is their concern. What would be different now? The President did not do it then. It was a public agreement to do a Congressional Budget Office 7-year balanced budget, which he did not submit. The other thing I wanted to say is that we are arguing numbers here. We think we should spend $12 trillion over the next 7 years, and the President wants to spend $13 trillion over the next 7 years. But beyond that we are also arguing policy. We have to have some policy changes. For example, give our senior citizens more choices to preserve and protect their Medicare program by allowing, for example, a medical savings account, which takes a change in the tax law. If you do not have that tied into the balanced budget, then, unfortunately, this President is not going to do that. He is not going to sign that and give our seniors a choice.”