Sam Brownback: “First, the budget resolution puts Social Security and Medicare first. I think people recall that the President was…”

“First, the budget resolution puts Social Security and Medicare first. I think people recall that the President was saying we should use any surplus to save Social Security, that this is an important program and we need to invest and protect Social Security and, therefore, we should take any surpluses and put it into Social Security. We agree, but we also believe that we should go one step further and say that any extra funds and resources here should be used to preserve and protect Medicare as well. Medicare is an enormously important program to the American public. I don't know how many people remember last year when we debated how to save, preserve, and protect Medicare. What is being talked about in the budget agreement is using the resources to save Medicare. Now, you can go a couple of ways here. You can say, OK, I am going to use these resources to save Medicare, this enormous program that provides health care for over 35 million Americans that have had a very difficult financial time, or you can say we are going to start a whole bunch of other programs to do this-- which, by the way, we are taking care of in other parts of the agreement. The Budget Committee decided to save and use these resources to preserve and protect Medicare. Let's take care of first things first, and Medicare is one of those programs.”