David Thomas: “I did not say what has happened to our national debt. I said ``paid down on the national debt,'' money that went to the…”

“I did not say what has happened to our national debt. I said ``paid down on the national debt,'' money that went to the reduction of the national debt. That was my statement. Now, let me go on and talk about his concerns and my concerns about deficits, because when we have a deficit and when we add to a deficit, $1 added to the deficit in one particular way I believe is substantively different than $1 added to the national debt and deficit in a different way. For example, when we have fought past wars, especially significant societal and in fact world wars, when we have to build that battleship, build that carrier, build that bomber, build that tank, we clearly spent money we did not have. That is a dollar spent in deficit, but it was spent as an investment to ensure our way of life. No one would argue that that was not a very high calling for the deficit dollar. In the decades following World War II, and especially in the 1960s and in the 1970s and to a certain extent through the 1980s, it became a habit when the revenue did not equal the desired spending of the Federal Government that the Congress would spend $1 it didn't have, a deficit dollar, spent to sustain programs or to create new programs which would then in the future demand more deficit dollars to keep them going, unless there was a decision to raise taxes and bring in the revenue that would be required to cover the new and growing costs of the Federal Government.”