Judd Gregg: “let me quickly respond to some of the points made by the Senator from North Dakota, whom I greatly admire and enjoy…”

“let me quickly respond to some of the points made by the Senator from North Dakota, whom I greatly admire and enjoy working with on the Budget Committee because I think the context of those comments have to be put in proper form. There is no question but that the revenues of this country dropped significantly at the beginning of this administration. There is obviously a significant argument as to why those revenues dropped. The point that I made earlier, and which I think is very valid, is that coming out of the 1990s we had experienced an explosion of growth, much of which was unsupported. It was called a bubble, the Internet bubble. What is a bubble? That is when people are speculating irrationally--as at the time Chairman Greenspan said, irrational exuberance--irrationally in a way that is basically creating stock, in this instance, which has no substance behind it but is still being sold at a higher and higher price. That bubble burst. When a bubble bursts, the history of economics is that there is a severe contraction in the economy that is experiencing the bubble. That is what happened to us. We saw a severe recession begin. We followed the Internet bubble bursting with the attacks of 9/11. That was a huge catastrophe for us as a nation, a vicious attack killing thousands of Americans, but it was also an attack on our economy.…”