Judd Gregg: “I wanted to rise to carry on the discussion which the Senator from Texas has so eloquently begun relative to the…”

“I wanted to rise to carry on the discussion which the Senator from Texas has so eloquently begun relative to the proposal that is coming forward to the Senate today called SCHIP. Under the cloak of trying to address the issue of health care for children, we are seeing an explosion in cost, the purpose of which is not necessarily to cover children who need coverage because many of the children who are going to be covered here are already covered under private plans, but the purpose is actually to dramatically expand the role of government in the area of limited health care in this country, and it is openly acknowledged as being an effort to move down the road toward universal health care. Independent of the substantive policy of how we approach insuring and making sure children get health insurance in this country, there is the ancillary policy of fiscal discipline. This Congress, so far, under its Democratic leadership has abandoned the concept of fiscal discipline. They are spending money on all sorts of initiatives around here that go well beyond even the extraordinarily high numbers which were put in the budget under this Democratic Congress. We have returned, without question, to the days of tax and spend.”