Pete Domenici: “I will not repeat what has been stated, other than generally to say most of the social programs in this bill, from Meals…”

“I will not repeat what has been stated, other than generally to say most of the social programs in this bill, from Meals on Wheels to student aid to everything else in between, even after the .97-percent cut, are substantially higher than last year and, in almost every instance, higher than what the President of the United States asked for in his budget. If doing that amounts to cutting a program, then, frankly, I don't understand what it means to increase a program and increase them as dramatically as we have in this bill. The best friend the National Institutes of Health has ever had is a Republican Congress. We are increasing National Institutes of Health because people such as Connie Mack and a few others have said double it in the next 5 years. In this bill, we had in NIH $2.3 billion more than the President; with the across-the-board cut, we are $2 billion in appropriations more than the President. Essentially, there has been a lot of talk about saving Social Security, and we have used some OMB scoring where we think it is appropriate. There are those who still come to the floor and act as if they actually know we have infringed on the Social Security surplus. Let me repeat for the Senate, in March, April, or May of next year, I predict with almost absolute certainty that a budget comes out close to this budget produced by Senator Stevens and the appropriations bill and will not take any money out of Social Security.”