Kent Conrad: “Not only have I voted for a balanced budget plan, I have presented three in the U.S. Senate in the last year. I…”

“Not only have I voted for a balanced budget plan, I have presented three in the U.S. Senate in the last year. I presented the fair share balanced budget plan last year; got 39 votes. It was the most ambitious deficit reduction plan that has been presented by anybody in either House--got 39 votes in the U.S. Senate. No. 2, I cosponsored with Senator Simon last year the commonsense balanced budget plan. We got 19 votes in the U.S. Senate for that plan. That plan was the second most ambitious deficit reduction plan that anybody has presented in the U.S. Congress. Third, I have been involved in the centrist coalition, which will have a substitute to the Republican plan that we will offer this week, which is a 7-year balanced budget plan that 22 of us have put together--11 Democrats and 11 Republicans. Not only have I voted for balanced budget plans, I have helped author them, or in some cases authored them in their entirety. I just want to set the record straight.”