Jim Nussle: “Mr. Speaker, not one penny of the Medicare funds will be used for anything except Medicare. That is the commitment in…”

“Mr. Speaker, not one penny of the Medicare funds will be used for anything except Medicare. That is the commitment in this budget. That remains. If the projections change in August, it is because of one reason: there has been a downturn in the economy. And why? If there is a downturn in the economy, it is for a number of reasons. We warned President Clinton about those reasons. The number one reason, Mr. Speaker, the number one reason that we warned President Clinton about was that taxes were too high. We changed that this year in the budget and in the tax bills. Number two is because we had no trade policy for this country, and we will change that as a result of this Congress. But the most important reason why there has been a downturn in this economy is because this Nation has not had a long-term energy strategy. Vote down this motion to recommit, and let us pass a long-term energy strategy for this country and get this economy going again.”