Political Quotes

“I rise in support of the Deficit Reduction Lock-box Act which is an idea whose time has arrived. The bipartisan support for this legislation is very well known. We are going to be able to hold the line on waste and return savings to reduce the deficit. This is a bipartisan milestone legislative item that I think all of those who have been involved over the number of years before this Congress deserve a great deal of credit for bringing about and I think that the leadership of the gentleman from Idaho [Mr. Crapo] today on this particularly should be highlighted. I thank him for his efforts. The legislation before us, Mr. Chairman, will create a series of lockboxes to capture savings from the floor amendments and give appropriators maximum flexibility in allocating such savings. The process is one jointly with three lockboxes from both the House and the Senate and a joint House-Senate account that will lock in the savings. After a bill is passed, the Congressional Budget Office will enter the final amount saved into the House lockbox. The Senate will follow a similar procedure and then average the two figures. At this point the CBO, the Congressional Budget Office, will reduce the overall allocations for the House and Senate appropriations committees by the amount in the shared lockbox. As Members can see, the American people, Mr. Chairman, have been saying for a long time, ``We want the lockbox.”