John Kerry: “Since 1979; since the dramatic increase--I might add, it is a very interesting coincidence. The year 1979 marks the…”

“Since 1979; since the dramatic increase--I might add, it is a very interesting coincidence. The year 1979 marks the period where we had a $1 trillion debt in this country. From 1980 to 1993, which represents the greatest period of diminution of earnings, we also have the greatest single period of increase of debt in America. As I know the Senator from Iowa knows, if we separate it out--the interest payments on that debt period from the current budget--not only are we in balance, but we run a surplus. So it is the Reagan-Bush years and Congress, too. I will not dump that one. I am tired of hearing that it is exclusively one or the other. Both were complicitous in a process of unwillingness to be fiscally responsible. But that irresponsibility has become one of the things that is stripping away the capacity of these folks at the bottom to gain the skills necessary in the new marketplace, where information is power, and skills, or the capacity to earn income that has significantly stripped away those folks' access to those skills or to that opportunity.”