On the recordFebruary 3, 1995
As I was trying to say, every single earmark, because of the fact that every single subcommittee comes to this floor under a fiscal cap, those earmarks are provided at the expense of other spending, but do not add one dime to the deficit. If you want to take a look at the root cause of the deficit--you can argue about the propriety of those earmarks, and I will share the gentleman's concern about many of them--but you cannot, with a straight face, suggest that they have added to the deficit because under the budget rules, which we all helped write, they do not do that. They do not do that. They simply come at the expense of other spending. That may not be good practice, but it does not make the gentleman's point.
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