Jon S. Corzine: “I, too, rise to stand in support of the Biden amendment. The concept of shared sacrifice is fundamental to the American…”

“I, too, rise to stand in support of the Biden amendment. The concept of shared sacrifice is fundamental to the American life--something all of our predecessors on this floor and the people of America through history have understood. In times of war, we have understood we all have to participate. It should be no different this time. It is clearly a time when we have not asked for our society to stand up and accept the responsibility--financial responsibility--of standing with those men and women who are sacrificing their lives for us. Instead of actually husbanding our resources so we can carry on that struggle and stand with our men and women in uniform, we are actually undermining that by putting our financial condition into real jeopardy, both now and for a long time into the future. In guns-and-butter policy, one that is totally discredited throughout any kind of analysis, whether in the private sector or academia--and it should be here on the floor--we are now facing $535 billion budget deficits in the coming fiscal year, with budget deficits of that dimension long into the future, borrowing against the retirement security of our seniors and our Social Security trust fund, using the payroll taxes people are reportedly putting into Social Security to protect their retirement to fund tax cuts, at the same time we are actually at war to protect the American people.…”