Kent Conrad: “In answer, Mr. President, I might just say it is perhaps one of the most perplexing stories in this town, because this…”

“In answer, Mr. President, I might just say it is perhaps one of the most perplexing stories in this town, because this is not a balanced budget plan. I mean, honestly stated, to take the retirement funds of the people of the United States and throw those into the pot and call it a balanced budget, frankly, borders on laughable. There is a $103 billion deficit by the year 2002 under this plan. Sometimes I think the media just do not get it. They are reporting on what we call the unified budget. The unified budget is when you put everything into the same pot and then you see whether you have balance or not. The problem with that, of course, is that includes Social Security, all of the receipts and all of the expenditures. Social Security is not contributing to the deficit, as the Senator from North Dakota knows, Social Security is in surplus, substantial surplus. And that is going to continue. In fact, those surpluses are going to grow, and the reason we put a plan in place to have Social Security surpluses grow is because we are getting ready for when the baby boom generation retires. But, of course, we are not getting ready; we are spending every dime. As a result, to call these balanced budgets is not accurate. It is misleading.”