Byron Dorgan: “let me describe a couple of things that represent front-page news these days. Regrettably, I believe, these things…”

“let me describe a couple of things that represent front-page news these days. Regrettably, I believe, these things threaten the potential future prosperity of our country and require an urgent response on the part of the President and the Congress. The economy and fiscal policy of this administration--and the lack of regulatory interest on the part of this administration--has led us to an abyss that is very troublesome. We see the dollar dropping in value to other currencies. We see a dramatic trade deficit of $2 billion a day, that we are buying from other countries more than we are selling to other countries. We see a fiscal policy budget deficit that the President says is coming down. The only way he can say the deficit is significantly coming down is that he is taking all of the surplus Social Security revenues that are supposed to go into the Social Security trust fund and using every dollar of that surplus as an offset against other revenue and other spending in order to show a much lower deficit. We are far off track in trade policy and fiscal policy, and now we have in front of us a proposal for $196 billion in emergency spending--none of it paid for. That will bring us very close to three-quarters of a trillion dollars that the President has requested on an emergency basis--none of it paid for. That is not conservatism. We have a responsibility to begin paying for these costs.…”