Byron Dorgan: “One of the things I found in North Dakota is that people believe very strongly that if this country is blessed with…”

“One of the things I found in North Dakota is that people believe very strongly that if this country is blessed with better economic times-- and we certainly have had good economic times in recent years--that produce a budget surplus, we ought to as a country decide to use a significant part of that surplus to reduce the Federal debt. If during bad economic times you increase the Federal debt, during good economic times you ought to reduce the Federal debt. We have a $5.7 trillion Federal debt. We have been very fortunate to eliminate the yearly Federal budget deficit, but we still have this debt that we have run up as a country over many years. It seems to me that one of the best thing for America's future to use some of the expected future surplus to reduce this debt. But it is important in the context of a discussion of the type we just heard about tax cuts to understand the following: There is not yet a surplus.”