Paul Ryan: “This amendment is commonly referred to as the discretionary lockbox. It simply says this. If you are a Member of…”

“This amendment is commonly referred to as the discretionary lockbox. It simply says this. If you are a Member of Congress and you come to the floor of Congress with an amendment to reduce or cut spending, that money will go toward debt reduction. What it says is that money will go toward debt reduction unless you choose to designate that money to go toward other parts of spending. But today under current law, we have this crazy budget system under which if you go to the floor of Congress, pass an amendment to cut or eliminate spending, save some taxpayer dollars, that program may not be authorized or appropriated but the money you save by law will have to be respent at another part of the Federal Government. That is part of the crazy budget laws we live under today. Simply put, this amendment says if you want to pass an amendment to cut out some pork barrel spending, to cut some wasteful spending, that money will go toward paying down the national debt rather than being plowed into spending in another form of the Federal Government.”