Kent Conrad: “first of all, I wish to say, while I disagree with some of the observations of the Senator from Iowa, I have enormous…”

“first of all, I wish to say, while I disagree with some of the observations of the Senator from Iowa, I have enormous respect for him. He has earned that respect by the way he conducts himself as a Senator. While we have policy disagreements, I have absolutely no disagreement or question about his motive because he has proved to me repeatedly that he is trying to do the very best for this country, as am I. I want to go back to some basic facts. We heard the Senator talk about a 9-percent increase in spending that is in this budget. I don't know how they came up with that calculation, but there is no 9 percent increase in spending in this budget. If you look at the spending that is in this resolution over 5 years and compare it to the President's budget, it is 2.1 percent more. That is total spending. That is over 5 years. If we look at just the next year, 2009, the Bush budget calls for $3.04 trillion of spending. We call for $3.08 trillion. That is a difference of 1 percent. That is total spending. I think what the Senator's staff has done is to look at one small part of Federal spending, just nondefense domestic discretionary spending, which is about one-sixth or one-seventh of the budget. But if we look at total spending, there is a 1-percent difference total spending for 2009. OK? The difference between our President's budget and our budget is 1 percent--1 percent. That is a fact.…”