Kent Conrad: “I will be happy to use my time at this point if that will help the managers. Mr. President, the question before us is…”

“I will be happy to use my time at this point if that will help the managers. Mr. President, the question before us is, What is our vision for the future? If this chart shows your vision of the fiscal future of the country, vote against my amendment. If you think the answer to our fiscal future is just to add more and more to the debt, then vote against me. If you believe it is time to get our fiscal house in order, at least to begin steps to get our fiscal house in order, vote with me. If you believe the underlying budget makes sense, here is what the underlying budget does. For the next 5 years it adds to the debt, going from just under $8 trillion to over $11 trillion. It is going to add over $3 trillion to the debt over the next 5 years. If you think that is a mistake, then support the alternative that I am offering, which says: Yes, we will provide the hurricane disaster relief; yes, we will provide extensions of the expiring provisions on alternative minimum tax--in fact, we will protect 600,000 more taxpayers than the chairman's mark. And we will provide the R&D tax credit, the State sales tax deduction, the college tuition deduction, the Welfare-to-Work and Work Opportunity Tax Credits, the teacher classroom expenses deduction, the leasehold improvement and restaurant depreciation, and all other traditional tax extenders--but we will pay for them. How do we pay for them?…”