Paul Ryan: “The current system we have is dysfunctional. It has games built into the system so that the House can do one thing; the…”

“The current system we have is dysfunctional. It has games built into the system so that the House can do one thing; the other body, the Senate, but I am not supposed to say that word, can do another; and the President can do a third thing. What happens in the current budget system is we go into a stalemate and to get out of that stalemate at the end of the year, we end up spending more money than the budget ever planned on spending. What we simply want to do is to bring this budget up to the level of the law so that we are all on the same page at the beginning of the budget process so that we can enforce that budget because it is in law. The budgets we pass here are not really binding, they are guidelines. They are not legally protected. We cannot protect and enforce our budget if it does not rise to the level of the law. We cannot be on the same page at the beginning of the year, if we are not on the same page at the beginning of the year. That is why we are trying to pass this very common sense idea, so that we are all on the same page and so that this can be law and, therefore, our budgets can be enforced. I urge adoption of this amendment.”