Pete Domenici: “The other thing I wanted to close with, and it seems to be quite obvious, is there is no question but that some of our…”

“The other thing I wanted to close with, and it seems to be quite obvious, is there is no question but that some of our best Senators have already, or will speak about this plan, and they are worried. They will speak with trepidation and principally they will talk about two things, but the big one will be it is going to cost more than we think. Can we afford it? There is another question that is asked around, and that is: Are we giving benefits to the right groups of people in the right quantities? I served on the Budget Committee for 28 or 30 years. I was chairman 14 times. When I left the Committee, I could have given a little speech and said, here is what is going to happen over the next 10 years, and here is what is going to happen over the next 15 years. Of course, I could have predicted cycles, that we are going to have big deficits, and we are going to come out of them and we are going to get bigger ones. I probably could have talked about the fear of the baby boomers and our ability to pay what we have said we are going to pay them when their day comes. That is lingering and that is kind of washing its way through this debate. The question is not, will we, because we will pay. The question is, When we get there and we have to make all of those payments, how are we going to pay for it? Frankly, I do not think that is a reason to say we should not do this. We do not know whether in 15 or 20 years we will be able to have a balanced budget.”