Joe Cunningham: “there may be a perception that this is not important to the other side, but the reality is important. For 28 years we…”

“there may be a perception that this is not important to the other side, but the reality is important. For 28 years we have not been able to balance the budget because it has proven too difficult. In Gramm-Rudman, the deal was that for every tax dollar we take in, we will cut it by 3, and we will push out the cuts into the last year. We could not do that because the cuts were too hard. Remember when George Bush moved his lips? The deal was that for every tax dollar we take in, we are going to cut spending by 3, and we are going to give you an absolute way to do that. We are going to put firewalls between each of the appropriation committees and we are going to put a cap. The leadership on my colleagues' side, how did they get around it? With emergency spending. We found outlandish emergency spending things on there, and the continuing resolutions that just carried over the spending. And it was not viable. Remember in the 104th when the President gave us three balanced budgets? All increased the deficit by $175 billion. And then in the fourth one he gave us, he balanced it using CBO numbers in 7 years, and 72 percent of the cuts came in the last year. It is not realistic, even if the President gave us a second budget balanced but most of the cuts take place in the last year. We know that that is not feasible. It is smoke and mirrors.…”