Paul Ryan: “today is the beginning of a new Congress. Our new President hasn't even taken the oath of office and we are throwing…”

“today is the beginning of a new Congress. Our new President hasn't even taken the oath of office and we are throwing fiscal discipline out the door. This whole idea of PAYGO is gone. It doesn't exist. It is a charade. Let's take a look at what this bill actually does. This bill proposes to add all these new kids on the SCHIP program, and then in the out-years it shoves them off a cliff, taking 7 million children off of the SCHIP program. They do this only to carve and jam this bill into compliance with PAYGO. I received a letter from the CBO just this morning that if this bill was actually carried through, if you didn't kick all of these children off of this program, it would cost $42 billion more. This bill has a $42 billion deficit hole in it. The spending increase in SCHIP in this bill increases on average 23 percent a year. Madam Speaker, Medicare is going bankrupt according to the trustees, and that increases at 6.5 percent a year. We are being deprived of a bipartisan opportunity to extend the current SCHIP program, which would have an enormous vote here if you brought a bipartisan bill to the table. That is not what is happening. Budget gimmicks, fiscal irresponsibility, a $42 billion deficit, and the creation of a brand new entitlement program. And what is worse, we are committing our taxpayer dollars, which are so precious in this difficult economic time, to pay for insurance that people already have.”