John Spratt: “Mr. Speaker, but for one vote, the budget resolution that we now seem to send to conference would have gone down.…”

“Mr. Speaker, but for one vote, the budget resolution that we now seem to send to conference would have gone down. Fortunately, there is still a way out for this budget with its massive deficits and its misguided priorities: we can rewrite it in conference. If we cut through all the words, all the legislative language and the motion that was just read, that is what the motion to instruct calls for. Now, we do not cover the waterfront and take out every change that we find objectionable and make every change that we feel needs to be made, but we do send the conferees a strong message, and that is to get rid of the worst of the entitlement reconciliation directives in this budget resolution. First of all, Medicare. Originally, our Republican colleagues on the Committee on the Budget sought to cut Medicare by $262 billion and Medicaid by $110 billion. That was to offset the cost of their prescription drug benefit under Medicare.”