Frank Lautenberg: “last night the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] offered an amendment designed to save over $40 billion over the…”

“last night the Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Kerry] offered an amendment designed to save over $40 billion over the next 5 years. I am proud to be a cosponsor of that amendment. The amendment was the product of a lengthy and at times heated discussion between a number of Senators. None of us, if acting on our own, would have put every item in the amendment on our own personal list of cuts. All of us, if acting on our own, would have added at least a few more programs to the list. But we agreed to act together, to find some common ground and use some common sense in a serious effort to actually reduce the deficit. We agreed to do a few other things as well: to avoid counting savings which had already been claimed in other legislation and avoid taking savings which need to be claimed to finance health care reform. We also agreed that all our cuts would be real and specific, scored by the Congressional Budget Office. Some of the cuts were made because we believe the programs are no longer justified or, in a few cases, have been so badly managed or designed that they simply waste the money that the American people pay in taxes. But many more cuts were made on a much difficult basis: the programs, while justified and effective, simply were not high priorities. In an age of $200 billion deficits and over $4 trillion debt, we simply cannot afford to do all the things we want. We cannot even afford to do all the things we ought to do.”