Pete Domenici: “so in health care reform everybody should know that this budget resolution provides an open-ended invitation in terms of…”

“so in health care reform everybody should know that this budget resolution provides an open-ended invitation in terms of how big and how expensive the health package can be so long as we pay for it with new taxes and other savings. I believe, even though by estimates it is deficit neutral, it is very risky to do that not knowing exactly what the total is going to be. While budget authority levels are binding on appropriations, one of these funds effectively eliminates the enforcement of budget authority levels for entitlement spending. This budget resolution also weakens the pay-as-you-go point point of order to make it even easier to expand mandatory spending by doing the following: First, it eases the discipline by only requiring legislation to be deficit neutral for the first year, years 1 through 5, and years 6 through 10. Under current enforcement procedures, legislation must be deficit neutral for each year through 2003. That is changed and made more generous by this resolution. Maybe we should discuss easing the application of this point of order. That time may be with us. But clearly, there ought to be a major discussion about what it means. Second, it exempts legislation from a requirement to pay for deficits created by legislation enacted since the 1993 reconciliation bill. Frankly, this catches me totally by surprise. I am sure it is going to catch plenty of Senators by surprise.”