Kent Conrad: “we also paid for our amendments by closing corporate loopholes. The Senator says there wasn't the money in corporate…”

“we also paid for our amendments by closing corporate loopholes. The Senator says there wasn't the money in corporate loopholes to cover the spending we have provided. That is not true. In fact, we have taken a corporate loophole closing this body has previously passed and used it to fund high priorities such as money for education, such as money for veterans. How has the other side done it? They have offered a series of amendments to add more spending, but they have taken it out of a function that does not have any money in it. They have raised money for defense, but they took it out of function 920, which does not have a dime in it. They said they raised spending on defense $3 billion. There is no money in the fund from which they say they are taking the money. It is right here in the budget book, page 29. Go to function 920. Here it is. It says function 920 is $500 million in the hole. That is before they increased defense spending by $3 billion and supposedly took it from function 920. That is before this morning, when they took $2 billion to supposedly strengthen our borders. They took it out of function 920, where there is no money. It was $500 million in the hole. The Senator is exactly right. This does define the differences between our parties. We think we ought to pay for the spending; the other side just wants to put it on the charge card, run up the debt.…”