Lloyd Bentsen: “let me say to my dear friends on the other side that this is, in my opinion, not a serious budget, this is a placeholder…”

“let me say to my dear friends on the other side that this is, in my opinion, not a serious budget, this is a placeholder budget. In their haste to try and get something done by April 15, having failed miserably last year, they have thrown together this budget. About the only serious thing is the language from the other body chastising the South Koreans on beef and pork sales that is in this budget. The fact is, and with respect to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Smith), I offered an amendment in the committee that would have extended the 1997 caps going forward, would have used all the on-budget and off-budget surplus to pay down the national debt, just like they quote Mr. Greenspan in here as saying it is a good thing to do. The committee rejected that. All the Republicans rejected that. The other problem with this is this is a budget that is betting on the come, because they know they cannot write the appropriations bills with the numbers in here. On page 22 they state that the CBO will report an update to them in July. Normally they do it in August, but we are going to pummel the CBO to report an update, so then we can go back, bust the caps, and try and use some of the on-budget surplus, and instead of paying down debt, to use it for a tax cut.”