Kent Conrad: “What a difference a few hours makes. What a dramatic transformation. When we proposed this morning a prescription drug…”

“What a difference a few hours makes. What a dramatic transformation. When we proposed this morning a prescription drug benefit and the funding for it of $311 billion, the other side said: There the Democrats go again. All they want to do is spend money. But here we are at 4:30 in the afternoon and the Republicans are back. And what do they want to do? They want to spend almost the identical amount of money. What has occurred here is absolutely fascinating. There has been a transformation. It has been really quite remarkable. All of this morning the Republican line was, Oh, the Democrats just want to spend money. But by 4:30 in the afternoon the Republicans want to spend the same money. The difference is they want to raid the Medicare trust fund, and we want to protect the Medicare trust fund. We want a prescription drug benefit directly and clearly out of surpluses outside of the trust funds.”