Jim Baird: “One of the issues this budget does not address that I know is important to the people of Wisconsin, as it is to my own…”

“One of the issues this budget does not address that I know is important to the people of Wisconsin, as it is to my own State of Washington and, in fact, to the Committee on the Budget chairman's State of Iowa, is Medicare fairness. Many of our States are desperately underfunded in terms of Medicare compensation rates. This budget does nothing to fix that. My own State of Washington faces a terrible injustice, that we cannot deduct our sales taxes like other States can deduct their income tax. This budget does nothing to fix that. There are a host of problems with this budget. It was passed at 2 a.m. in the morning. The majority of the Members of this body who voted for it had never read it. They had seen summaries perhaps, but I guarantee they had not read it because there was not time. When you pass a budget that spends $2.2 trillion, that takes 24 hours to debate it and you have not read it, we have a problem on our hands and, unfortunately, our country has a much bigger problem.”