Jack Kingston: “we are at a real interesting time. We are in the home run stretch of the legislative session. We are in a position on…”

“we are at a real interesting time. We are in the home run stretch of the legislative session. We are in a position on the budget that we are negotiating with the President because of three different reasons. Number one, we had the 1997 budget agreement. That agreement was a bipartisan agreement, over 300 Democrats and Republicans alike joined forces to say, let us put some fiscal order, some discipline in this place. The President signed off on it. Now even though it is a bipartisan agreement, it seems like only one party is responsible for carrying out that agreement. That party is the Republican Party. Number two, we do not want to spend Social Security money. Now, do not take my word for it as a Republican. This is John Podesta, the Chief of Staff at the White House. He works for Bill Clinton. Here is his exact statement: ``The Republicans' key goal is to not spend the Social Security surplus.'' I am glad, suddenly the White House is saying things right and we are very glad about that. Indeed, if you look at this smaller chart, that is exactly what we have been able to do. In the past, the Democrat controlled Congress and under Republican control, Social Security money has been taken for general purposes. But this year, zero. A historic moment. We have not raided Social Security. Very important. The third reason we are in this position is that the President had promoted a tax increase as a way to fund a lot of new programs.”