Russ Feingold: “I wish I could say what is in the budget resolution before us is pay-go, but it is not pay-go. It is pay-go without an…”

“I wish I could say what is in the budget resolution before us is pay-go, but it is not pay-go. It is pay-go without an absolutely critical component, and that is making it apply to the tax cuts. It is almost like saying I want pay-go as long as it does not apply to what I want, and that is not the pay-go that worked in the 1990s. That is not the pay-go that brought us a balanced budget. I have to reiterate, this does not stop the tax cuts the Senator from Oklahoma is talking about--child care credit, 10-percent bracket, marriage penalty. Not only can all of these survive under pay-go, they will. They just need to get 60 votes. I predict in each case, they will probably get 35 to 40 extra votes on top of that, if anyone even raises the point of order. So it is simply false to say somehow this stops the tax cuts from being extended. Let's be honest about it. The only reason this exemption is needed is those tax cuts were not made permanent. Had they been made permanent, the Senator from Oklahoma would not have to be worrying about extending them. Why weren't they made permanent? They weren't made permanent so we could have this phony idea the deficit isn't as bad as it really is out in the future years. It is a gimmick. It is a game to make them temporary so you can say it is not going to cost more in the outyears. Then when it comes time to face the music, what do we do? We say the normal rules do not apply.”