Dan Burton: “just briefly let me just say that this has bipartisan support. I obviously want to congratulate the gentleman from…”

“just briefly let me just say that this has bipartisan support. I obviously want to congratulate the gentleman from Minnesota for his hard work as well as my distinguished colleague who was gracious enough to yield to me. We are moving in the right direction as far as these mandates are concerned. I think the people of this country, both public and private, are going to congratulate us for this effort. I would just like to say, once again, to my colleague, congratulations on the amendment. As has been stated, our amendment equalizes the threshold for requiring a CBO cost estimate of mandates on the public and private sector. Under H.R. 5, if a mandate will have an annual impact of $50 million or more on State and local governments, then CBO must do a cost analysis of the mandate and find out how much it will actually cost. A point of order can be raised if the bill does not contain this information. The threshold for the same cost estimate for the private sector is $100 million, and a point of order can also be raised here as well if this information is not included. My amendment lowers the threshold for the CBO cost estimate for the private sector to $50 million. This helps to level the playing field. In many cases, the mandate should then be reduced or killed, and if it is really necessary it should be paid for.”