Kent Conrad: “This process and this budget, to me, is totally disconnected from reality. In fact, I have never seen a greater…”

“This process and this budget, to me, is totally disconnected from reality. In fact, I have never seen a greater disconnect with reality than is represented by this budget. Here we are, with record budget deficits, approaching $500 to $600 billion this year, and what we do is increase spending under this resolution, cut the revenue, plunging the country deeper into deficits, when we are at war, the cost of which we do not know, and when we are on the eve of the retirement of the baby boom generation. Let me just say, this fiscal turnaround that we have seen--when people ask us, well, where did the money go? Here is where it went. Over the period in question, 36 percent went to the tax cuts--both those already passed and those proposed. The second biggest reason for the disappearance of the surplus is the additional spending caused by the attack on the country and the war; that is, the increased defense spending and the increased homeland security spending. The third biggest reason is that revenue is coming in below expectation, apart from the tax cut; that is, the tax cut is the biggest single reason. The third biggest reason--close to the second-- is that revenue is coming in below what was anticipated. And the smallest reason, over the 10-year period, is the economic downturn at 9 percent.”