John Spratt: “Exactly. That simple rule worked better than any budget resolution, any budget rule we enacted during the 1980s and…”

“Exactly. That simple rule worked better than any budget resolution, any budget rule we enacted during the 1980s and during the 1990s. I was here, involved in the process. I can stand witness to it. PAYGO worked. But don't take my word for it. Last year, while he was still chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan testified before our committee three times, and on each occasion we asked him, What is your assessment of the budget process rules we adopted in the 1990s and let expire in 2002? He said, I was a cynic then. I thought it was a diversionary tactic. But I have to acknowledge that those budget process rules had an enormous impact on the success we achieved, moving the budget from $290 billion in deficits when George Bush left office in 1992 to $236 billion in surplus in the year 2000. PAYGO, he said, works. And he recommended that it be renewed, extended in its old form, affecting both tax cuts and entitlement increases. That was Alan Greenspan saying it accounted for a lot of the success of the budget discipline we displayed in the 1990s.”