Max Baucus: “I very much appreciate the points made by our good friend from New Mexico, the chairman of the Budget Committee, as well…”

“I very much appreciate the points made by our good friend from New Mexico, the chairman of the Budget Committee, as well as by Senator Grassley, the chairman of the Finance Committee. However, the long and short of it is, the amendment offered by Senator Conrad is very simple. It is probably the only responsible thing to do. Essentially it says Social Security trust fund money is to be kept for Social Security. We are going to keep it in the trust fund so the trust fund continues to build. It also says that the Medicare Part A trust fund money is to be kept in that trust fund to be used as it is supposed to be used. To be honest, we hear lots of arguments on the other side, but, frankly, they sound like Senators doing the administration's bidding by trying to desperately grab shoestring kinds of arguments to try to counter this amendment. If we look at all the arguments, they are transparently false. No. 1, we are playing footloose with senior citizens because it would make it sound as if the Medicare Part A trust fund is in good shape. The fallacy of that is, if we rob Peter to pay Paul, if we rob Part A to pay for Part B, it is going to make the Medicare problem more urgent. I don't think any senior wants that. Second, we hear: Those Democrats don't want to reduce taxes. That is a patently false argument.…”