Kent Conrad: “we have begun debate on the budget resolution, the budget resolution for the country for the next year. Under the rules…”

“we have begun debate on the budget resolution, the budget resolution for the country for the next year. Under the rules of the Senate, we are also required to put it in the context and the framework of a 10-year budget, and so begins what is in many ways perhaps the single most important debate that we will have this year. It is the question of choices we make with respect to the priorities of the Nation. Our President has said on many occasions that it is the people's money; we ought to give the money back to the people. I think all agree that the President is exactly right when he says it is the people's money. Of course it is. That is exactly right. But I think we also understand that there are more choices than just giving the money back to the people by way of a tax cut. There are certain things that we do collectively as the people of a nation which we cannot do individually: for example, providing for our national defense. There are other things that we do as a society to make it a better nation. We have a Social Security system to safeguard our elderly. We have a Medicare program to provide for the health of our senior citizens. We have support for education because we all understand that is the Nation's future. We also have a national debt, a publicly held debt that, as we meet here today, is $3.4 trillion. But there is another debt that we don't talk very much about. That is the gross debt of the United States. That gross debt is $5.6 trillion.”