Steny Hoyer: “Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago President Bush and congressional Republicans promised us that we could have it all. They said we…”

“Mr. Speaker, 1 year ago President Bush and congressional Republicans promised us that we could have it all. They said we could afford the largest tax cut in a generation and still be able to invest in domestic priorities, strengthen Social Security and Medicare, and pay off our publicly held debt. When we Democrats questioned whether we could afford the President's $1.7 trillion tax cut, and that is absent the additional interest we have to pay, which the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) talked about, and still pay down the debt, our Republican colleagues responded there was a danger in paying off the publicly held debt too quickly. Well, worry no more because we are not in any hurry to pay off any debt. In fact, we are in a hurry to incur a lot more debt. The OMB now projects that our national debt, which includes publicly held and intergovernmental debt, will approach $7.8 trillion by the end of 2007. That is $275 billion more debt than was projected at the beginning of last year.”