Cord Byrd: “I am convinced that if this budget resolution conference agreement is fully implemented over the next 6 years, it will…”

“I am convinced that if this budget resolution conference agreement is fully implemented over the next 6 years, it will lead the Nation into far more serious fiscal difficulty than we are in today. It follows the familiar supply-side policies of the Reagan administration, which, as we all recall, promised to balance the Federal budget while at the same time enacting massive tax cuts, it calls for increases in defense spending even when the Pentagon says it does not need the money, and cuts in entitlements--which never came to pass under the Reagan administration. President Reagan's policies did not result in the economy growing itself out of deficits or in balancing the budget. I voted with the President, Mr. Reagan, in support of his massive tax cuts and I also supported his buildup of a bloated defense budget. Instead, what did we see? We saw a massive increase in the national debt, which rose from under $1 trillion in the previous 200 years of the Nation to over $2.6 trillion on January 20, 1989, the day President Reagan left office. Astoundingly to me, the fiscal blueprint contained in this budget resolution conference agreement is remarkably similar to those failed Reagan policies which nearly bankrupted the Nation, and from which we are still suffering, and which are still placing us in desperate straits with respect to our fiscal situation.”