Pete Sessions: “I thank the Chair. But fundamentally it is going to be harder for us to confront this problem as we go forward in the…”

“I thank the Chair. But fundamentally it is going to be harder for us to confront this problem as we go forward in the future because we will have more cuts over 9 or 10 months than would otherwise have been the case if we don't make any of them in the first 2 months in this Congress. I would say to our colleagues who are thinking, ``We may need to waive the budget points of order. Let's just go forward, and somehow we will work all this out in the future. We are going to be watching''--I can't support it. But those who feel they have to do so to keep the ball moving when the House sends another bill back over here, it ought to be on the budget level, not above it. I hope they will do that. That will relieve one more problem. But the truly big issue is how to understand the cost of this health care law. My colleagues, using a score from the Congressional Budget Office, are going to contend that if you eliminate ObamaCare, it will cost the Treasury money. That is what they are going to tell you, and that is the score CBO would issue. But the CBO Director told us it is double-counting the money. You can't score this money twice. But according to the conventions of accounting and the 10-year window over which this occurs, by reducing the cost of Medicare, you can therefore spend more money to fund a new program. You can do that, and it will appear not to add to the debt. But you can't count the amount of money coming in because it is Medicare's money.…”