Kent Conrad: “The Senator is correct. If you go to the next step, what we have is a situation that is more serious even than that. The…”

“The Senator is correct. If you go to the next step, what we have is a situation that is more serious even than that. The deficit does not capture the increases in the debt. The deficit last year was $319 billion. I say ``last year'' because we are now in Federal fiscal year 2006. That started October 1. So the 2005 deficit ending the end of September, the year ending the end of September, was $319 billion. But here is how much got added to the debt: not $319 billion but $551 billion. All of it has to be paid back. Of course, as the Senator knows, the big difference between the two calculations--the deficit and what got added to the debt--the biggest difference is the money being taken from Social Security to pay other bills. Last year, the last Federal fiscal year, $173 billion of Social Security money was taken to pay for other things. The result is, when you add that with the deficit and other trust funds that are being raided--another $59 billion--what got added to the debt was really $551 billion. If we look back on the relationship between spending and revenue expressed as a share of gross domestic product--and we do it in that way because economists tell us that is the best way to make these comparisons--the red line on this chart is the spending line. You can see, the spending had come down substantially until we reached the year 2000. Spending had come down each and every year of the Clinton administration as a share of gross domestic product.…”