Byron Dorgan: “later this week, I am told, we will be getting in the Senate a proposal to increase the Federal debt limit. My…”

“later this week, I am told, we will be getting in the Senate a proposal to increase the Federal debt limit. My assumption is that the increase in the Federal debt limit we will be asked to consider will be nearly $1 trillion--$900-some billion. I am told it is shaved just enough to be under $1 trillion. That increase in the debt limit will equal, incidentally, all of the debt accumulated from George Washington until 1980, until Ronald Reagan took office. For all of those years, we accumulated less than $1 trillion in debt. The debt limit increase we will be asked to vote on will be just slightly under $1 trillion. What does that say about the country's fiscal policy? It says we are running very large Federal budget deficits. Two years ago, it was expected that we would run large budget surpluses as far as the eye could see. President Bush said: Let's have the American people keep their own money. Let's move the surpluses back. Let's have a $1.7 trillion tax cut. Some of us said: Maybe we should be more conservative. What if these Federal budget surpluses don't materialize? What if we are wrong about that? They said: Never mind. And they pushed it through the House and the Senate, and with great fanfare they signed the bill. Two years later, we have budget deficits as far as the eye can see; this year, the biggest budget deficit in history and this week, apparently, a proposal to increase the Federal debt limit by nearly $1 trillion. I don't understand that.…”