Wayne Allard: “the purpose of the Allard amendment, which we did debate last night--I brought it back to continue the debate this…”

“the purpose of the Allard amendment, which we did debate last night--I brought it back to continue the debate this evening--is to explain just how easy it is for us to make a commitment to pay down the debt by making some commitment of revenue flow for that sole purpose. I have a chart with a provision called the ``American Debt Repayment Act.'' Basically, what it does is take the budget bill, the 5-year plan we have before us, take the revenues, and say we don't spend it, we save it to pay down the debt, and after 5 years we will take $11.7 billion, less than 1 percent of the total budget allocated over 30 years, and we will eliminate the debt by doing that. The American family today, when they take out their largest loan-- usually to buy a new home--has a 30-year mortgage. I am just saying that we can make a minimal commitment from the budget and we can pay off this debt within 30 years. That is the reason I propose my amendment, because I want this body to make a minimal commitment to paying down the debt. When you do this, several things happen. First of all, there is tremendous savings on interest, some $3.7 trillion in interest over that 30 years that is saved that can be used for other programs, whether it is tax cuts or whether it is additional spending. I am not in favor of additional spending. I think tax cuts is the way to go, but the money is there to do it.…”