Todd Tiahrt: “If you look at all the red ink we have seen on the charts and you look at today's Federal deficit, we are not talking…”

“If you look at all the red ink we have seen on the charts and you look at today's Federal deficit, we are not talking about the same thing as what we have in our outstanding debt. There is a lot of confusion between the deficit, which is how much money we spend versus how much money we take in, and then the national debt, which is when we start talking about baby-boomers, then you start talking about the impact of the national debts. Right now, our national debt is around $7 trillion. About half of that is publicly held debt. The other half is future obligations. So when we look at all that red ink and get up to $14 trillion, a lot of that is future obligations. It is Social Security for every individual in elementary school today. It is Medicare for every person that is in day care today. It is those people that exist today that at some point are going to be part of public law and they are going to qualify for Social Security, for Medicare, for the prescription drug plan.”