Kent Conrad: “They have doubled it. And the amazing thing to me is our colleagues are out here with a bill that is headlined…”

“They have doubled it. And the amazing thing to me is our colleagues are out here with a bill that is headlined, ``Deficit Reduction.'' If you read the fine print and look at their own estimates of what happens if this budget is finally approved and implemented, here is what it does to the debt. Anybody see any reduction of deficit here anywhere? This is taking us from $7.9 trillion of debt at the end of fiscal year 2005 and it is going to run it up to $11.3 trillion in 5 years. Each and every year, according to their estimates of what their budget does, the debt of the country is going to increase by $600 to $700 billion a year. They are out here talking about a deficit reduction package. Please. Do words have no meaning? Do we make phrases up in order to fool people? People aren't going to be fooled because each and every year they are going to be able to see what has happened under the claims that are being made. Have the deficits been reduced? Has the debt been reduced? Or is it skyrocketing? I make the assertion today that if this budget is actually implemented for the next 5 years, for which it has been approved, at the end of the time, the debt will be dramatically larger than the debt today. The kind of stunning result of all this is that our country is borrowing more and more money, much of it from abroad. I went and looked at the external debt of the country.…”