[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 13 (Wednesday, February 9, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    $750 BILLION ``ROUNDING ERROR''

  (Mr. EMANUEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EMANUEL. Madam Speaker, we have all done it. We all make 
mistakes. They are unavoidable. Yesterday we learned that the White 
House budget made a tiny little mistake, a $750 billion ``rounding 
error.''
  According to the President's budget, the new Medicare prescription 
drug benefit is now going to cost the taxpayers $1.2 trillion, not the 
$400 billion they told us just last year. That is quite a difference 
from last year when the White House budget director, the man 
responsible for the money, assured everybody, ``The Congressional 
Budget Office estimate for the prescription drug bill was and remains 
$395 billion.''
  And lest we forget, last year during debate on the Medicare benefit, 
our distinguished colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. 
Johnson), chairman of a House subcommittee on Ways and Means, ``I am 
pleased that the President has proposed to strengthen Medicare with a 
$400 billion plan which adds prescription drug coverage.''
  Well, the joke is on the taxpayers and the senior citizens of 
America. Rather than funding $400 billion, it is a $1.2 trillion 
``rounding error.'' What is worse, this mammoth new program does 
nothing to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. We need reimportation 
legislation to deal with the affordability and cost of prescription 
drugs.
  These are the same individuals who are now trying to sell Americans 
on their fix for Social Security.

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