Byron Dorgan: “The answer, I say, to that is once you change the Tax Code, that change is generally permanent unless altered. We have…”

“The answer, I say, to that is once you change the Tax Code, that change is generally permanent unless altered. We have had the experience before of a very aggressive appetite to reduce taxes, only to discover that we run into a recession, experience very significant Federal budget deficits, and then the confidence of the people about the future tends to erode and you have a further economic contraction. I say to the Senator from West Virginia, one of the things that I think is very important is to the extent that there would be tax cuts following a reduction in Federal debt and shoring up Social Security, I hope that it will be triggered by the actual experience of the surplus. If you don't have a mechanism to trigger the tax cuts, what will happen ultimately will be an economic slowdown--nobody has repealed the business cycle--and experience significant budget deficits.”