Chuck Grassley: “every once in a while, when we take defeat after defeat because of a Presidential veto--and I think the President has…”

“every once in a while, when we take defeat after defeat because of a Presidential veto--and I think the President has vetoed half of the appropriations bills that we have passed this year. Oddly enough, most Presidents veto appropriations bills because the Congress is wasting money. This is the first President I know who is vetoing appropriations bills because we are not spending enough money. And yet he is talking to the Governors' association this morning about how he is going to balance the budget, and he vetoes the appropriations bills that are balancing the budget. But anyway, once in a while we get an opportunity to say we were right. In this particular case, this Balanced Budget Act of 1995 was right because one of the major provisions of this Balanced Budget Act of 1995, which we would have had to do unrelated to balancing the budget or even unrelated to tax decreases, was to save Medicare from bankruptcy. This document not only saved Medicare from bankruptcy, it strengthened Medicare, and it also gave for the first time the elderly people of America, the senior citizens of America, the retired people of America, those who rely upon Medicare as their primary health insurance group, an opportunity to have something different than just a Government-run program.”