Bill Pascrell: “let us face the facts: Without last year's tax cut, we could have paid our entire Federal debt by 2008. That occurred…”

“let us face the facts: Without last year's tax cut, we could have paid our entire Federal debt by 2008. That occurred before September 11. That is the fact. Even with already dipping into Social Security, this budget proposes new tax cuts. In fact, the gentleman from Illinois (Speaker Hastert) said he wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Both of these actions would divert money that could have been used to strengthen Social Security and pay down the national debt. In the post-tax cut budget world we now live in, the national debt will still exist far into the future. Prior to the tax cut, it was projected that from 2002 to 2011, the government would owe $709 billion in interest. We pay over $1 billion of interest on the debt every day. That is scandalous. Members can shake their heads all they want. That is a fact of life. They should look at their own budget. Without a surplus, I do not know how we can protect the long-term solvency of Social Security or Medicare.”