Chuck Grassley: “The basis of this is that we ought to develop the policy and then put in the amount of money it takes to carry out the…”

“The basis of this is that we ought to develop the policy and then put in the amount of money it takes to carry out the policy. I have no crystal ball to tell me what amount might be necessary for a bill. My friends on the other side have this crystal ball telling them we must have $311 billion for Medicare. They are going to develop a policy around a certain amount of money. I don't think that is the way to do business. Another difference between these approaches is that they are going to reduce the amount of tax relief that goes to working men and women by some $158 billion. We will use the reserve fund, meaning the money that is left over. After we take out $153 billion of the surplus for Medicare and $1.6 trillion for tax cuts, there is still $900 billion left. Ever since the President proposed his budget, we all understood that some of this left over money would be used for prescription drugs. We are not going to deny the working men and women of this country a tax break that they deserve. We have the money to fund this, but we don't know how much money we need just yet.”