Cord Byrd: “No. The green line means the estimate was, indeed, right on target. It was not above or below the line. It was not too…”

“No. The green line means the estimate was, indeed, right on target. It was not above or below the line. It was not too high. It was not too low. Would the Senator agree with me that based on this chart, in every year from 1980 to 1996, the estimate was wrong? It was off. It was not correct. In some years the revenues were more than estimated and in some years they were less than estimated. The point of the chart being to show that the estimates have never been absolutely correct. In many instances they have varied; in one instance here, $78 billion. The estimate was off $78 billion. In another instance, the estimate was off $65 billion. This is the record. This is not a Member's estimate here of what should have been in each of those particular years. This is the record. These bars indicate what went wrong, by how much the estimate was off for each year. Would the Senator tend to believe that in the future the estimates are going to be better than they have been on this chart, which represents 17 years of experience?”