Judd Gregg: “what we have here is a great political game. There are a lot of people who don't want a constitutional amendment to…”

“what we have here is a great political game. There are a lot of people who don't want a constitutional amendment to balance the budget because they don't want the Federal Government to be put under the restraint of fiscal responsibility, and they ought to step forward and say that. They should not be hiding behind the Social Security argument, because it is fallacious, as I have just mentioned. Or--here is another point--if they are going to make this point with the Social Security trust fund, that it should be outside the unified budget, that it should not be part of the budgeting process and the surplus should not be accounted for under the process, but that we create a new accounting method, which has the same effect as a practical matter, then why aren't they making the same point with the Medicare trust fund? Why? Well, I will tell you why. Because if they were to make that point with the Medicare trust fund, you would see that their argument would require them to fill a huge Medicare hole. Medicare is going broke. The trust fund is going broke. It does not have a surplus.”