John Spratt: “every year the Budget Committee has one all- important task, and that's to outline a budget for Congress to follow.…”

“every year the Budget Committee has one all- important task, and that's to outline a budget for Congress to follow. Today, we do just that as we pass the conference agreement on the budget for fiscal 2009. The Senate passed the conference agreement just yesterday. Passing a budget is never an easy task. This, in fact, will be the first time in 8 years that Congress has passed a concurrent budget resolution in an election year. Our conference agreement charts a new course. It returns the budget to balance reaching a surplus of $22 billion in the year 2012 and staying in surplus through 2013. Our budget adheres to pay-as-you-go because we believe in it. It embraces middle-income tax cuts and holds non-defense domestic discretionary spending to an increase of about 1 percent over inflation. Our budget begins by undoing the damages done by the President's budget to services that people depend upon. Take Medicare and Medicaid, for example, pillars of medical care for millions of Americans. The President would cut Medicare by $479 billion over the next 10 years and Medicaid by $94 billion. We reject those cuts. We restore Medicare and Medicaid to current services, and we accommodate adding up to $50 billion more for the Children's Health Insurance Program, fully offset, to reach the millions of children who are eligible but not yet enrolled in CHIP.”