Martin Sabo: “Sometimes I think we keep fighting old fights. We are fighting the problems of Gramm-Rudman. That is long passed. The…”

“Sometimes I think we keep fighting old fights. We are fighting the problems of Gramm-Rudman. That is long passed. The reality is that the budget enforcement mechanisms of 1990, extended to 1993 and extended this year, work. Discretionary spending caps, with some flexibility for emergencies, worked. The pay-as-you-go provisions that are current law as they relate to new entitlements have worked. What cannot work under our current law unfortunately and is not solved by the Minge-Barton bill are the structures of tax cuts that explode beyond the 5-year limit. Those games are being played with backloaded IRA's and capital gains that explode in the outyears. Current provisions cannot prevent it. Unfortunately the current proposal before us solves none of that problem. The only way we can deal with that problem, where we have backloaded tax cuts that explode in the future, is to say no to those kinds of proposals when they come before the House. The proposed bill does not solve that problem because it is a 5-year bill. And if we extend it beyond 5 years, we then have new baselines from which we are operating. I urge defeat of this bill. Do not undo a system that is working with ration and reason today.”