Specifically, the motion instructs the House conferees to accept the pay as you go rules that were adopted by a bipartisan vote in the Senate.

This motion is based on the simple philosophy that when you find yourself in a hole, the first rule is to quit digging.

The simple concept of pay as you go – if we want to pass a tax cut or spending increase, we need to say how we would pay for it – will take the shovels away from Congress and the President to stop us from digging the hole deeper

The Concord Coalition, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and a bipartisan majority in the Senate have all expressed support for a balanced and effective PAYGO rule that applies to both tax cuts and entitlement spending.

The original PAYGO legislation was part of the bipartisan 1990 budget agreement between President George H.W. Bush and the Democratic Congress. It was subsequently extended in 1993 and 1997, but was allowed to expire in 2002 by President George W. Bush and the Republican Congress.

The budget enforcement rules Congress and the President enacted in 1990 were an important part of getting a handle on the deficits in the early 1990s and getting the budget back into balance.

The pay as you go rules enacted in 1990 have been tested, and they worked. There is no question that they significantly improved the responsibility and accountability of the budget process and were instrumental in going from large deficits in the 1980s and early 1990s to budget surpluses in the late 1990s.

The Thompson motion calls on conferees to restore the original intent of the 1990 law establishing pay as you go rules.

If we are truly serious about restoring fiscal discipline, budget rules must apply to all legislation which would increase the deficit. Everything must be on the table.

Those who want to extend expiring tax cuts or make the tax cuts permanent should be willing to put forward the spending cuts or other offsets necessary to pay for them.

Similarly, those who want to spend more in certain areas need to be willing to say where they would cut or how they would raise revenues to pay for their proposals.