David Obey: “Mr. Speaker, the problem we face, as was described by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), is that we essentially…”

“Mr. Speaker, the problem we face, as was described by the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), is that we essentially have no idea what the limits are. We had a phony limit that was produced in the original budget resolution in the spring, and the House pretended that it was going to live with the spending limit or discretionary funds laid out in that resolution. But we all know that, for the third year in a row, that understated the reality by about $40 billion in terms of what the Congress would eventually do. Now, following that pretense, for a long period of time this year, we now have been given a new construct by the majority party leadership. They have said, well, under our new 90/10 arrangement for use of our surplus, $28 billion will be available plus $13 billion because they are recomputing the base from which they were operating. That gives us about $40 billion on the table which can be used for tax actions or for spending actions or for entitlement actions. The problem is that that is outlays. We measure the deficit in outlays. But because we do not spend all of the money that we appropriate in any given year, there is a difference between what the committee actually appropriates and what is actually outlaid in any given fiscal year. So because of that difference, what is really on the table is up to $80 billion in additional spending.…”