Mike Conaway: “In its purest form it would mean that any new spending that this House decides is good Federal new spending, whether…”

“In its purest form it would mean that any new spending that this House decides is good Federal new spending, whether that's new, new spending or a growth in expenditures that is built into current mechanisms, would be paid for, in effect, by raising taxes, new taxes from somewhere, or reducing expenses in some other place in this Federal Government so that you have a net zero. In its purest form it would apply to both new programs as well as existing entitlements that grow on their own, that we would continue to keep the number, in effect, flat if we are using offsets against expenses; or if we increased it, we would increase taxes to pay for it so that the deficit wouldn't get any worse or any better under PAYGO. We wouldn't cause any problems with new legislation that would cause the Federal deficit, in effect, to go up by either doing like we do at home, getting a part-time job to help pay for those other expenses, or making some tough hard choices on priorities, setting priorities to reduce spending in some other area to provide for monies for this new spending that may be coming in. So that is PAYGO in its purest form. It's unusual, not likely that we would get, collectively, both sides of the aisle to agree to that strict a term of PAYGO.”