Brett Guthrie: “I have always liked to describe the process I have seen in the last few weeks of trying to put a bill together like…”

“I have always liked to describe the process I have seen in the last few weeks of trying to put a bill together like putting a puzzle together, but forcing pieces together and trying to make them fit. And in the end, the puzzle doesn't have a complete picture. And one of the pieces they are trying to make fit to keep this under $1 trillion, is what the score is; but what we are not mentioning is the incredible unfunded mandate that we were placing on our States. Just a couple of years ago I was a State senator. And tonight, State senators in Kentucky, my former colleagues, are meeting together to try to close a billion-dollar budget gap. And what does this bill do? This bill puts a $30 billion unfunded mandate by CBO estimates onto our States. To the south of Kentucky, Phil Bredesen, a very respected Democratic Governor of Tennessee, says this is the mother of all unfunded mandates. And just to the north of me in Indiana, Governor Mitch Daniels said a half a million more Hoosiers will be on Medicaid, costing the State taxpayers billions of dollars. It's going to cost my State, according to the Heritage Foundation, $303 million from 2014 to 2019. So that's what our next budget session- mates will be budgeting for 2014. So the State legislators tonight who are hoping the economy will turn around, maybe there will be a light at the end of the tunnel, are now having to deal with the $303 million freight train that's the light at the end of that tunnel.”