On the recordJuly 28, 2011
We keep hearing from our colleagues that there wasn't a proposal put forward by the President. The framework is pretty clear, and we can sort of solve this particular piece of it today, if possible. He said he will do $3 in spending cuts for $1 of revenue for deficit reduction. If someone wants to take us up on that offer while we're talking about it on the floor, that would be just terrific. Because our Republican colleagues walked out of that discussion, Senator Reid did put on the table a proposal that has been scored by the Congressional Budget Office. I have their score in my hand, dated July 27, 2011. It would reduce the deficit by $2.2 trillion, more than the $917 billion score in the Republican proposal. This is a nonpartisan, independent CBO score. The difference is he would raise the debt ceiling for 2 years so we don't keep the economy under a cloud, so we don't keep the threat of higher interest rates going into effect, which would be a hit on every American family. Why we would choose to deliberately keep the economy under a cloud and put jobs at risk is a mystery. The only answer is our Republican colleagues want to use that as a forcing mechanism to ultimately put in place their budget plan, which does end the Medicare guarantee, which does slash education and does protect corporate tax loopholes. With that, I yield 1 minute to a terrific member of the Budget Committee, the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Schwartz).
