Judd Gregg: “I am, of course, always impressed by the Senator from North Dakota, although there is a darkness to his presentation.…”

“I am, of course, always impressed by the Senator from North Dakota, although there is a darkness to his presentation. There is a sense of doom he puts forward I am not necessarily a subscriber to. But he certainly is a person who has committed himself to understanding the numbers and trying to present them in a form that most adequately and appropriately reflects his view of where we are as a Nation fiscally. It is hard to guess, but I suspect it was in the range of 50 different charts. There were a lot of charts. Some of them were charts that were charts on top of charts which restated the chart that came before the chart, but they were good charts. They were excellent charts--very colorful and nicely presented. What we did not see was a chart that presented the Democratic budget. Where is it? Where is the budget from the other side of the aisle that addresses all these concerns which have been raised by the other side of the aisle about the Republican budget? It does not exist. No budget has been offered. No budget was offered in the committee, and no budget is going to be offered here in the Chamber. Why is that? Because if you look at the substance of what is being presented by the other side, they are basically saying, in order to address this problem, they are going to raise taxes.”