Russ Feingold: “this amendment will simply return us to the rules by which Congress played in the decade of the 1990s. We eliminate the…”

“this amendment will simply return us to the rules by which Congress played in the decade of the 1990s. We eliminate the exceptions to pay-go included in last year's resolution that exempt new tax cuts and new mandatory spending included in the budget resolution, an exception that facilitates more damage to the Federal bottom line. This amendment will not--I repeat, will not--prevent the extension of the expiring 10-percent bracket or the child tax credit or the marriage penalty. This body will vote to extend those tax cuts by a huge margin, and I will be part of that huge margin. But this amendment will return some of the budget discipline that helped us balance the budget. Deficits matter. Debt matters. Let's not leave our children and grandchildren with an even bigger tab than we have already stuck them with. I yield the floor.”