Richard Gephardt: “this Republican budget is a bad deal for America's families, and it is really when you think about it the worst of all…”

“this Republican budget is a bad deal for America's families, and it is really when you think about it the worst of all worlds. It does not extend the life of Social Security by one day. It does not provide one penny for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. And worst of all, it hurts every family in America in some important way. Today's Congressional Budget Office letter to Speaker Hastert repudiates the Republican false claim about safeguarding the Social Security surplus. The CBO clearly and directly says the Republican budget has already spent $17 billion of the Social Security surplus on the spending bills. This letter does not use Democratic or Republican numbers to come up with the $17 billion figure, it uses CBO's own nonpartisan numbers. It exposes once and for all the clear fact that the Republicans are the raiders of the Social Security surplus they claim to have safely stowed in the lockbox. And, remember, the use of CBO numbers is something that Republicans felt so strongly about in 1995, they shut down the government over using CBO numbers consistently throughout the budget. They passed a resolution of the House in 1995 saying we would only use CBO numbers. Well, under the CBO numbers consistently applied across this budget, they say that we are spending $17 billion of Social Security surplus.”