On the recordMarch 19, 2013
I yield myself such time as I may consume. Do you know what's wrong, Mr. Chairman? What's wrong is to pretend to the American people that you can have it all ways. What's wrong is to pretend that you've got a budget that's in balance in 10 years and pretend that you're getting rid of all of the Affordable Care Act, all of ObamaCare. What's wrong is going around the country demagoguing $715 billion in Medicare savings, which we achieve by ending overpayments to private insurance companies and Medicare, and then using it to balance your budget and then saying, We didn't use it to balance our budget. That's what people don't like, is people trying to have it all ways. We have taken an approach to steadily and rapidly reduce our deficits in a way that doesn't interfere and hurt economic and job growth right now. And we do it in a balanced way. And what I find astounding is to hear our Republican colleagues talk about the deficit and debt in one breath and then talk about all those tax breaks and expenditures that disproportionately benefit very wealthy people in the other breath and then say they won't close one single tax loophole for wealthy people for the purpose of reducing the deficit--not one dime in their budget for that purpose. And yet they're willing to hit Medicaid to the tune of $110 billion. They're willing to hit the food and nutrition program by over $100 billion. They're ready to hit transportation funding by over 15 percent in this budget window.…
