Jay Rockefeller: “I want to bring up one matter, Mr. President. The Senator from West Virginia wishes to bring up one matter which was, in…”

“I want to bring up one matter, Mr. President. The Senator from West Virginia wishes to bring up one matter which was, in fact, not discussed, but which is of some aggravation to me since it comes from the Congressional Budget Office, and it was addressed to me, but I never got it. I had to go to the Finance Committee staff to get it. In that, they sort of attacked the whole idea of what this was going to cost and all the rest of it. I want to respond to that. This is the cost estimate that Senator Roth was able to get from CBO just 1 hour ago. In fairly strong terms, I want to say that CBO ought to be embarrassed by their efforts, they ought to be ashamed, and I want to tell you why. First, my amendment is not based on a more costly House bill, as the CBO estimate claims. It is based on the DOD subvention bill that Congress enacted and that DOD beneficiaries are already enjoying. So it is already out there. It is also based on a subvention proposal which moved through the Finance Committee, moved through the Senate, and then was killed in conference by presumably the House, dropped in conference by the House. Second, the Congressional Budget Office claims that my amendment does not attempt to limit the erosion of what VA is paying now. That is not true. They cannot be allowed to get away with that.”