Kent Conrad: “I do not know. But I know this: History will not treat them kindly. When people have a chance to look back and see the…”

“I do not know. But I know this: History will not treat them kindly. When people have a chance to look back and see the decisions that were made here and now, and where it is leading, history will not treat them kindly. On this question of spending and revenue, here is the historical chart on spending, again, as a share of gross domestic product. You can see it goes back to 1981. In the 1980s, spending, as a share of GDP, got to 23.5 percent. At the end of the Clinton years, spending was down to 10.4 percent of GDP. It is very interesting. Spending, as a share of gross domestic product, went down each and every year of the Clinton administration. Now we have had a significant bump up. Ninety-one percent of that increase is defense, homeland security, rebuilding New York, and the airline bailout. That is where the money has gone. But even with that increase, you can see spending is well below where it was in the 1980s and 1990s as a share of GDP. The revenue side of the equation, however, which our friends never want to talk about--and I started this morning by quoting Mr. DeLay, who said: You cut taxes, you get more revenue. Well, that is a theory. It is a philosophy. It is an ideology. The problem is, it does not work in the real world. Here is what has happened to revenue. Revenue has collapsed to the lowest level as a share of national income since 1950. So their theories are not working in the real world, and the result is, we have a weakening economy.”