Kent Conrad: “I think that is the goal that many of us share. I hope that would be what we could accomplish, to have a balanced budget…”

“I think that is the goal that many of us share. I hope that would be what we could accomplish, to have a balanced budget in this country. It is critically important that we do that, because we face the demographic time bomb of the baby-boom generation. In very short order, the retirement of the baby boomers is going to double the number of people eligible for our major programs, from 24 billion to 48 billion. That is why we have to keep the pressure on to keep the deficit down. I will conclude the point with respect to the Clinton administration's performance. In 1992 President Clinton promised he would cut the deficit in half. He has done much better than that. In fact, the deficit is down about 60 percent during the Clinton years. Interestingly enough, the Federal Reserve Chairman, not known as a strong supporter of the Clinton administration--in fact, originally appointed by a Republican President--said that the deficit reduction in President Clinton's 1993 economic plan was ``an unquestioned factor in contributing to the improvement in economic activity that occurred thereafter.''”