Kent Conrad: “I did not refer to the Senator by name. I referred to ``the Senator from Arizona.'' The Senator from Arizona came out…”

“I did not refer to the Senator by name. I referred to ``the Senator from Arizona.'' The Senator from Arizona came out here and said there has been extraordinary deficit reduction. There is no deficit reduction. There is record explosion of debt, that is what is going on. The Senator said that deficit, as a share of GDP, is not so bad. That is only because he leaves out something. And the something he leaves out is all the money that is being taken from Social Security and used to pay for other items because back in the eighties there was no Social Security surplus, or virtually none. Last year, the Social Security funds that were being used to try to mask the true size of what is going on was $173 billion. You add that back in, and the increase in debt of this country was 4.5 percent of GDP. In the European Union, you can't be a member if you run deficits above 3.0 percent of GDP. But the addition to debt in this country last year was 4.6 percent of GDP when you add back all the money that is being taken from trust funds and used to pay for other items. Here is what he doesn't want to talk about. Here is the explosion of Social Security money being taken to pay for other things. Look back in the eighties, there was virtually no Social Security surplus. In fact, in 1983, there was none. Then there was a couple hundred million dollars a year. Now it is approaching $200 billion a year, and they want to forget about it, they don't want to count it?…”