Kent Conrad: “let me just pick up where I left off and point out that while we are in a period of surpluses now with respect to…”

“let me just pick up where I left off and point out that while we are in a period of surpluses now with respect to Medicare and Social Security, we all know what is to come. The Congressional Budget Office has alerted us. The Comptroller General of the United States has alerted us. The Social Security Administration has alerted us. Medicare has alerted us. And they all have told us the same thing: That when we get past this decade--in the next decade when the baby boomers start to retire--these surpluses turn to massive deficits. That is what happens. The cash deficits begin in the year 2016, and then they grow geometrically as more and more baby boomers retire. That should warn us, that should alert us that we should not be using the trust funds for other purposes. We should not be using the Medicare and Social Security trust funds to fund other operations of Government. Yet we are poised to do that this year. We are poised to do it to an even greater degree next year. And we are poised to do it for the next decade even in a time of strong economic growth.”