Kent Conrad: “What one calls these things and what label one puts on them is striking. The fact is, whatever one calls it, what is…”

“What one calls these things and what label one puts on them is striking. The fact is, whatever one calls it, what is being done is not conservative--to run record deficits not just at a time of economic weakness, and not just at a time that we are engaged in a conflict, but for the foreseeable future, for 10 years in the future, massive increases in debt under the President's plan. I showed this chart which talks about the pattern of the President's tax cuts that explode beyond the 10-year window. We see the same thing with the alternative minimum tax--a billionaire's tax--now becoming a middle-income tax trap with 3 million people affected. At the end of this period, it is going to be 40 million people. The President's budget only provides for dealing with that crisis in the first year. Look at the pattern of the cost of fixing it beyond that first year. It absolutely skyrockets. The President provides nothing past the first year, again hiding from the American people the full effect of his budget plan. The President told us repeatedly he would not use Social Security money for other purposes. But when you look at his budget plan, that is not the case. He is taking every penny of Social Security surplus over the next 10 years and using it to pay for tax cuts and for other things--$2.4 trillion, every penny of which has to be paid back, and the President has no plan to do so. That is a reckless plan; again, something the President pledged not to do.”