Lloyd Bentsen: “on balance, this is a good plan. Certainly it is much better than this House passed in 1995 and 1996, and fortunately…”

“on balance, this is a good plan. Certainly it is much better than this House passed in 1995 and 1996, and fortunately the President vetoed those plans. If it works and the economy stays strong, it will balance the budget for the first time since 1969, which was the year that I was 10 years old. Increasing education and environmental funding is what this budget does and it is a good thing. It begins to address the national disgrace of the 10 million uninsured children in this country, including more than 2.5 million in Texas, and it increases access to college by increasing Pell grants and making tuition deductible. There are some points that I think the committees need to look at. With respect to Medicare and Medicaid, the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Commerce need to make sure that we have stable funding for medical education in the context of the Medicare changes that are made, ensuring that low-income seniors are protected from premium increases due to the shift of home health care, ensuring that there is Medigap protection so that we give seniors a real choice between fee-for-service and managed care, and ensuring that the disproportionate share that is used by the States continues to have the flexibility, so that it covers not just high Medicaid populations, but also unreimbursed charity care as well. Let me speak with respect to the tax cuts. Many are appealing, and I support many of them.…”