John Spratt: “I support student loans, and I support the kind of compromise that has been reached in this bill, but as the ranking…”

“I support student loans, and I support the kind of compromise that has been reached in this bill, but as the ranking democrat on the Committee on the Budget I have to raise concerns about this bill because I do not think it complies with the Budget Act, and I think those concerns should be expressed. For the first time in 30 years, we have got a balanced budget this year, and we have got a balanced budget in part because of disciplines and budget process changes we made in the Budget Summit Agreement of 1990, the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 and the Balanced Budget Act last year, 1997. One of those rules which we established in 1990 and have carried forward in each of those years was the so-called pay-go rule, which simply provides that any time anyone wants to liberalize or add to an entitlement the cost of it must be paid for either by identifying a revenue stream to pay for it or by reducing an entitlement somewhere else in the budget. This particular bill increases direct spending for student loans by $2.8 billion, according to the Office of Management and Budget, over and above what was provided in the balanced budget agreement last year.”