Kent Conrad: “questions have been raised about the credibility of this President on the budget. If anybody in this town has…”

“questions have been raised about the credibility of this President on the budget. If anybody in this town has credibility on the budget, it is this President. When he came to office, the deficit was $290 billion, and under the plan that was passed in 1993, the deficit is now down, on a unified basis, to zero or very close to that. That has been a dramatic improvement and a dramatic record of deficit reduction by this President. Now they raise questions about a new CBO score of the President's budget. The President did not have that available to him when he submitted his budget. He submitted his budget based on the Office of Management and Budget projections. By the way, both OMB and CBO have been overly conservative with respect to their projections. Neither of them have been close to right in projecting the dramatic decline in the deficit. The President used the numbers in his budget that were available to him at the time he submitted his budget, and his budget projections have proved to be far more accurate in terms of deficit reduction than some others. So I just say with respect to credibility on the budget, this President has a demonstrated record. He has done the heavy lifting. He has gotten the results that have put this country in such a strong position. Now we have a question of a difference of projections. Both of the projections of OMB and CBO have been off the mark. They have underestimated what a good job we have done in reducing the deficit.”