Mark Souder: “the second point I was going to make is that on the 1.9 percent amendment, it has been very interesting, because if this…”

“the second point I was going to make is that on the 1.9 percent amendment, it has been very interesting, because if this was the only bill where we heard that a 1.9 percent across the board cut in this department would devastate a particular program or a department, it would be a little more believable. One point nine percent is not the total amount that comes out of the IRS. It comes out of many different subsections of this bill. It seems like we hear this week after week after week, that we cannot do 1.9 percent, that 1 week we are devastating Yosemite Park, the next week we are devastating the entire thing. It is 1.9 percent. If the committees, and with all due respect, they have worked hard to get the budgets down, but if the committees would have been committed to not having the deficit go up the second year, we would not have offered this amendment. This is a principled amendment. We came to Congress, and we talk about balancing the budget. We say we are trying to balance the budget. But the fact is the deficit goes up the second year. One point nine percent would change that. It would be nice to get some of that out of the entitlement programs, but since we cannot pass an entitlement bill, if we are not going to have the deficit come up, it has to come out of the discretionary programs. One point nine percent will not devastate the IRS; it will not devastate Yosemite Park.”