Kent Conrad: “There certainly are other items. One of the items that is left out is the true cost of the President's tax cut proposals…”

“There certainly are other items. One of the items that is left out is the true cost of the President's tax cut proposals because the President switched from 10-year budgeting to 5-year budgeting, and I think here is why. The dotted line shows the end of the 5 years, and this chart shows the cost of the President's tax cut proposals. As we can see, it is very interesting, right after the fifth year of this budget, the cost of the President's tax cut proposals takes off like a scalded cat. None of that is captured by the President's budget because his budget ends right here at this dotted line. But look what happens right past the dotted line. The revenue hemorrhage escalates dramatically, and it is not just there, but it is also with respect to the alternative minute tax, the old millionaire's tax that is rapidly becoming a middle-class tax trap. Here is the trend line of the cost to fix the alternative minimum tax. It is straight up, and there is no funding in the President's budget to deal with it. So with 3 million people affected by the alternative minimum tax last year, 10 years from now it is going to be 40 million people a year. It costs $774 billion to fix. Last year, the President had 1 year of funding to deal with it. He has no funding in his budget this year to deal with it. And so, again, it is an unrealistic budget because it does not capture items we all know are going to have to be dealt with.…”