Chuck Grassley: “Well, I was talking about Presidential candidates and what their budget plans might do. Like the Democratic leadership's…”

“Well, I was talking about Presidential candidates and what their budget plans might do. Like the Democratic leadership's budget, the candidates on the other side oversubscribe the revenue sources from proposals that are popular with the Democratic base. The deficiency can only be made up in three ways: One, other undefined sources of revenue would need to be tapped. The taxpayers should rightly be worried about that avenue. Two, the proposed spending plan would need to be abandoned or curtailed. There is not much history on the Democratic side of this avenue being taken. Three, add to the deficit for the cost of the new programs. Unfortunately, this avenue has been taken too many times. We will hear a lot of criticism of the Republican candidate, Senator McCain, from those on the other side. They will argue, like the President's budget, a continuation of current-law levels of taxation somehow costs the Federal Government too much revenue, just like all the money every worker makes belongs to the Government and we let the taxpayers keep a little bit of it. They will argue that the spending increases they propose are more important than the restrained levels of the President's budget, and they will argue that despite the record tax hikes in their budget, entitlement reform is a matter for another day. In fact, Senator McCain's plan intends to keep the revenue take where it is as a share of the economy. You see revenue averages of about 18.3 percent of the economy.…”