Jack Kingston: “I want to say I certainly appreciate the concern of our friends across the aisle about spending on this bill and…”

“I want to say I certainly appreciate the concern of our friends across the aisle about spending on this bill and spending on all bills. I think it is a great day when Democrats are worried about fiscal responsibility. Having said that, I have one of my good Blue Dog friends there who is always concerned about it, but I am glad now we have some other people who are. I wanted to point out one of the arguments that we are hearing is we should be spending that money domestically. And this chart shows what our budget calls for in Medicare spending under the Republican budget, which is traditionally passed without a single Democrat vote. Medicare takes care of our elderly population. Essentially everybody over the age of 65 is on Medicare; and under a Republican budget, as we can see, from the year 2004 on, it is going up. And yet this is happening without a single Democrat vote of support. Education, which again is one of those bills that is important to another population, the young population in our society, and again under Republican leadership and a Republican budget, it has gone up every year 12 percent. So when people are saying do not vote for this, that we ought to be spending it domestically, we are doing that.”