Kent Conrad: “remember last year? We have to put this in context. We have to think about the circumstance within which we are making…”

“remember last year? We have to put this in context. We have to think about the circumstance within which we are making decisions. Last year, we were told there was going to be $5.6 trillion of surpluses over the next decade. That is what we were told just last year. Now we look at the budget circumstance of the United States, and the surpluses are all gone. There are no surpluses. In fact, if we look at the President's budget and we look at the latest shortfall in revenues and we look at the stimulus package just passed, what we see over the next decade is not $5.6 trillion of surpluses, what we see is $600 billion of deficits. It is a pretty stunning turnaround. In 1 year we go from $5.6 trillion of surpluses to $600 billion of deficits. And our friends on the other side want to dig the hole much deeper--much deeper--by adding $100 billion, and another cost in the next 10 years of $740 billion, right at the time the baby boom generation retires. It does not make much sense to me to eliminate this estate tax instead of reforming it.”