Steve Watkins: “I stand in support of the bill. I think we all need to be grateful from the standpoint of being able to balance the…”

“I stand in support of the bill. I think we all need to be grateful from the standpoint of being able to balance the budget. One of the reasons why I returned to Congress, was to do anything I could do to balance the budget, and also to try to provide some tax relief for a lot of the working families in this country. We can also be very proud of the fact that we are setting aside 90 percent of the projected surplus to help protect and secure Social Security. A 90 percent set-aside or $1.4 trillion is more than any other time in the history of our country. An historic record breaking amount of dollars that we are willing to set aside to protect Social Security. Also, as one of the previous speakers said, President Clinton, proposed a set-aside in January, of approximately $600 billion. We are setting aside over twice as much; $1.4 trillion is over twice the amount that President Clinton proposed in January. So, I think we can be very thankful with what we have done to protect Social Security. The 10 percent will help save our farmers and our ranchers. Let me share with you what that 10 percent does. One, it allows us to provide income averaging with a 5-year carryback to farmers and ranchers. And let me tell my colleagues, my farmers and ranchers who are hurting with low prices and the worst crisis since the Great Depression. They feel that the 5-year carryback is one of the best provisions they could possibly have to help them survive through this time.”