Dianne Feinstein: “I have joined with Senators Biden, Kerry and Corzine to introduce legislation that will provide us with the necessary…”

“I have joined with Senators Biden, Kerry and Corzine to introduce legislation that will provide us with the necessary financial footing to appropriately execute our obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 1998, following nearly 30 years of deficits and a 17-fold increase in Federal debt from $365.8 billion to $6.4 trillion, bipartisan cooperation brought the budget back into balance once again. For the first time in more than a generation, some of the funds which would have gone to pay interest on the debt were instead spent actually paying down the debt. Now, deficits and interest costs are growing once again. Net interest payments on the Federal debt will increase sharply, from approximately $170 billion in 2003 to more than $300 billion by 2012. We face a host of new challenges, particularly the war on terror, the war in Iraq, and the threat of North Korea. This has necessarily led to a shift in government spending toward improving our defense and homeland security capabilities. Yet many of the challenges predating September 11 are still with us: improving education, updating infrastructure, and preparing for the retirement of the baby-boom generation, which will severely strain the Social Security and Medicare trust funds. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the Federal deficit for fiscal year 2004 will top $500 billion.”