Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I think it is absolutely correct that the flexibility exists for the Joint Committee to determine the benchmark it wishes to use and that such flexibility is entirely appropriate given the circumstances. The leader mentioned three bipartisan groups that came to a similar conclusion. I was a member of two of those groups, the President's Fiscal Commission and the so-called Group of 6. We devoted considerable time to considering the most appropriate baseline to use in our deliberations given our goals. In both cases, on a bipartisan basis, we decided what made the most sense was not a standard current law baseline, as CBO normally uses for the work we do around here, but a baseline that was adjusted for more realistic policies, such as more realistic war costs, more realistic tax policies, and more realistic health spending given the need to regularly provide the so-called doc fix. I can tell the leader that having that flexibility was critical to both groups reaching completion of its work. The joint committee should have that same flexibility, and I believe the bill provides it.”