David Minge: “Mr. Chairman, we have labored long and hard in this body to find a solution to the deficit problems that confront our…”

“Mr. Chairman, we have labored long and hard in this body to find a solution to the deficit problems that confront our Nation. The Committee on the Budget last Friday adopted a resolution by a bipartisan vote. It was historic. It has been years since we have had a bipartisan vote in support of a budget resolution that is now headed to the floor, is on the floor and is expected to pass by a wide margin. Many of us have focused on what we feel are the critical parts of a successful effort to balance the budget. We have established standards. We would like to see a glidepath; that is, we would like to see the deficit reduced steadily rather than having the task of the heavy lifting backloaded in the last year or two and have such an amount that it is unrealistic to expect that we would actually be able to balance that budget in the last year or two. Mr. Chairman, we have talked about having realistic projections, conservative projections as to how the economy will perform, realistic projections as to what it will cost to run government, to support the programs that we have established: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, environmental programs, conservation programs, agriculture, consumer protection and hundreds of others.”