Ben Sasse: “until you arrived to relieve me, I had been presiding since the opening of the Senate this morning, and I had the…”

“until you arrived to relieve me, I had been presiding since the opening of the Senate this morning, and I had the opportunity to listen to lengthy speeches from the Democratic leader and the assistant Democratic leader this morning. I would like to correct the record on three brief items. First of all, as is common, almost an epidemic around here, there were repeated references to the Republican desire to cut Federal spending on healthcare for the poor and for the sickest among us. That is simply not true. It is an epidemic way of speaking around here, where people act as though, if you want to reduce the rate of growth, that is actually a cut. The fact that people in this body say it all the time doesn't make it true. No normal people ever talk that way. If you are having a debate at your house about your household budget and you are spending beyond your means and somebody proposes that next year you should spend 30 percent more than you spent this year, when this year you already spent more than you can afford, and you have big debate and you say ``No. Actually, next year, let's only spend 15 percent more than we spent this year,'' that is not a cut. You will still spend more money next year than you will this year. Because you have a debate about the rate of growth--that is not the same thing as a cut. It is a fundamentally dishonest way of speaking, and we should stop doing it around here.…”