John Spratt: “the package before us will be modified tomorrow to include provisions that reinstate a practice that was followed…”

“the package before us will be modified tomorrow to include provisions that reinstate a practice that was followed throughout the 1990s in the budget process called pay-as-you-go. Pay-as-you-go was first instituted in 1991 as part of the Budget Enforcement Act when President Bush, the first President Bush, was the President of this country. Pay-as-you-go simply provides that if you want to cut taxes when you have a deficit, you can't make the deficit worse; you have got to offset those tax cuts either with entitlement cuts in an equivalent amount or with tax increases elsewhere in the Tax Code. And, if you want to enhance an entitlement, you have to pay for it with an identified revenue stream. Our friends across the aisle are trying to imply that this PAYGO rule is a sham. I will simply say to you that our PAYGO rule is the art of the possible; it is what we can do at the present moment, and that is we can amend the rules of the House today and tomorrow to include two new PAYGO rules which we have provided for and which have been published.”