Kent Conrad: “What is interesting is that, right now, we would not be eligible to join the European Union because our deficit is in…”

“What is interesting is that, right now, we would not be eligible to join the European Union because our deficit is in excess of what is required for a member state to join the European Union. We would be disqualified. We are headed for a circumstance in which we would not be qualified for decades to come. The fundamental reason is contained on this chart, I say to my colleague. This, to me, is the single most important thing to understand. This chart shows the Social Security surplus, Social Security trust fund, the green bar. The blue bar is the Medicare trust fund. The red bar is the cost of the proposed and already-enacted tax cuts. What one can see is that right now we are running big surpluses in the Medicare and Social Security trust funds. In fact, the tax cuts right now, in this part of the time period, are less than the trust fund surpluses. Look what happens when the baby boomers start to retire and those trust funds go cash negative. It is at the very time that the cost of the President's tax cuts explode. What does that do? That leads us into deep deficits and debt. I don't want anybody to conclude from this that this Senator doesn't favor some tax cuts because I do. I think they are necessary right now to stimulate the economy, give lift to the economy.…”