On the recordMarch 6, 2001
America and indeed this Congress has a lot to celebrate. After years of wasteful spending and rising deficits, our fiscal house is in order. Congress has a balanced fiscal budget. Since 1997 we have paid down approximately $363 billion of our public debt. We are on the course to paying off the complete $2 trillion public debt over the next 10 years. The Republican Congress has walled off nearly $3 trillion for the protection of Social Security, Medicare and further debt relief. The nonpartisan CBO estimates that we will have a $5.6 trillion surplus this year. Our fiscal house is not only in order, it is in the best possible shape it has been in generations. Now is the time to give Americans some much-needed tax relief. If the surplus money stays in Washington, it will only be spent on bigger and more wasteful government bureaucracy. We need to put America's families first. They want and deserve real tax relief now.
Source
govinfo.gov
