Kent Conrad: “In some ways, it is almost hard to place language on this document. The Senator says it has makeup. This isn't pretty…”

“In some ways, it is almost hard to place language on this document. The Senator says it has makeup. This isn't pretty with or without the makeup because the results of this are going to be a country that is deeper and deeper in debt, whose long-term economic security is put at risk, that more and more is dependent upon the decisions of foreign central bankers on our economic well-being. The harsh reality here is that you can live beyond your means for a while, but it catches up with you. And that is what this budget represents. Our friends on the other side of the aisle want to spend money. Make no mistake about that. The spending is going up under this budget. They just don't want to pay for their spending. They prefer to borrow the money. They don't want to raise the taxes necessary to support their spending. One could have more respect for their position if they did one of two things: if they either cut their spending to match their willingness to pay for it by raising revenue or if they were willing to raise the revenue to match their spending appetite. But our friends on the other side of the aisle are not willing to do either. They want to spend the money, but they don't want to raise the revenue to pay for it. Instead, their answer is, borrow the money. Borrow the money to fund tax cuts. Take the money from the Social Security trust fund, $2.5 trillion. They say Social Security is short of money. So what is their answer?…”