Kent Conrad: “I have been completely ineffective at stopping what I think is a rush to deficits and debt and, ultimately, decline. I…”

“I have been completely ineffective at stopping what I think is a rush to deficits and debt and, ultimately, decline. I believe it is profoundly wrong--profoundly wrong--to run up these budget deficits. Unfortunately, the budget that the President of the United States sent to us and the budget that has come out of the committee will dramatically increase our budget deficits. As the Senator has indicated, we are going to have a deficit, if the President's budget is adopted, of over $500 billion this year and will never have a budget deficit below $400 billion any year for the rest of this decade under the budget the President sent us. Under the budget that has come out of the committee, we will never have a deficit under $300 billion. The gross Federal debt is going to go from $6 trillion, in 2002, and is going to reach $12 trillion by the end of this budget period. What I think should sober us all is that the cost of the President's tax cuts explodes at exactly the time the cost to the Federal Government of the retirement of the baby boom generation explodes--deficits and debt.”