Lloyd Bentsen: “Now, the bill before us today perpetuates a fraud on the Federal budget process and the American people. The Republicans…”

“Now, the bill before us today perpetuates a fraud on the Federal budget process and the American people. The Republicans have produced a Federal budget which in reality exceeds the spending caps set in 1997 by more than $30 billion and, according to our own Congressional Budget Office in this letter, spends at least $17 billion against the Social Security surplus, even with the across-the-board cuts, advance funding and gimmicks such as delaying medical research funding and paying the government's bills to private contractors late. Today we read that the Speaker of the House and the Republican leadership, in their effort to pursue this budgetary fraud for political goals, has cut a deal with the chairman of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, promising him that they will make him whole later on. He will get his highways, but medical research, trying to find cure for cancer and AIDS in Houston, Texas, will get the shaft.”