Kent Conrad: “I believe that is correct. I say to the Presiding Officer in response to my colleague, I really do not know what could…”

“I believe that is correct. I say to the Presiding Officer in response to my colleague, I really do not know what could be more clear. We do not need to just look at economists' projections. We can look at our own history. We had this attempt in the 1980s to pursue the economic policy that is now being attempted. It did not end happily. It exploded the deficits and debt of the country. It quadrupled the national debt. Then in the nineties, we took a different approach, the approach of balancing budgets, of investment in technology, of bringing down Federal spending, of raising revenue to balance budgets. What it kicked off was the longest economic expansion in our Nation's history. We turned deficits into surpluses, and we had the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest inflation rate in 30 years, and the strongest period of business investment in our Nation's history. That is a real-world example of two competing views of how to strengthen the economy. Now we are going back to the failed policy of the eighties and doing it at the worst possible time. Then there was time, before the baby boomers started to retire. Now there is no time. The mistakes that are made now will be paid for by increased debt, by reduced benefits, by increased taxes. That is where we are headed. And I would quote again our most distinguished colleagues warning us: Congress cannot simply conclude that deficits do not matter. Over the long-term, deficits matter a great deal.”