Pete Domenici: “Senator, when we first proposed this, we could find no way to do this without doing exactly what you said. But the White…”

“Senator, when we first proposed this, we could find no way to do this without doing exactly what you said. But the White House came along, and they are a little more ingenious than are we. They offered us a proposal that is now in this bill. It does not change universal service, nor does it use that fund in any way other than what it was originally intended to do. All we have is, those who were paying into it get a 1-year reprieve, to the tune of $3 billion. Then they pay it in the next year. I think they are delighted. They get a reprieve because we lend them the money for the year and everything is exactly as you want it, and in the following year the companies that would have been paying it pay into it the next year. That happens to give us the $3 billion credit on the budget. That was dreamed up by the White House. We said, "It's extremely ingenious and it fits all the tests," and that is why we are here. Thank you for yielding.”