Pete Domenici: “I want to spend a little time talking about what has transpired with the U.S. budget over the last 35 years, and I will…”

“I want to spend a little time talking about what has transpired with the U.S. budget over the last 35 years, and I will focus mostly on the last 5 years. I think everyone knows that next month we begin the process of producing a congressional budget plan for the fiscal year that begins this coming October. The Senate Budget Committee, which I have been honored to chair, will complete its hearings next week on the President's budget which was submitted to Congress earlier this month. Before we begin the task of producing that budget blueprint, I thought it might be of interest to some of my colleagues and some of those who might be watching to briefly review some facts surrounding the Federal budget. One can provide different interpretations of numbers, but a number is a very stubborn thing. It is what it is. Using the help of some charts, I will provide a very brief historical overview of the Federal budget today. Chart No. 1 is the total budget surplus and deficit over the last 30 years. After nearly 30 years of Federal deficit spending--and my colleagues can see the surplus/deficit excluding Social Security is in green and the total budget surplus is in red. The green, as one can see, starting back in 1965 and going all the way to 1998, is constantly below the line, meaning we have been in deficit for that whole period of time. We finally reported a balanced budget, under the unified budget process in 1998, of nearly $70 billion.”