Marcy Kaptur: “this evening I would like to dedicate my remarks to Social Security, its trust funds and our growing national debt. In…”

“this evening I would like to dedicate my remarks to Social Security, its trust funds and our growing national debt. In January of last year, our Nation finally moved to an annual balanced budget after decades of being awash in growing debt as far as the eye could see. Many of us fought very hard to bring that budget back into balance and, in fact, the Congressional Budget Office at that time projected that we were on course to have the publicly held debt, the over MMMM$6 trillion of accumulated debt, paid off in about 10 years, by 2011. Now, not even one and a half years later the Congressional Budget Office projects that under the Republican budget passed here in March, there will be a $1.8 trillion in budget deficit over the next 10 years. So instead of paying off our Nation's debt by 2011, under the Republican budget the publicly held debt will stand at nearly $3 trillion. I can remember when they took the debt clock down in Time Square and everybody across America cheered. Well, I would encourage those folks up on Wall Street to put it back up because it is growing again. Now, what is the biggest reason for this radical reversal in our Nation's financial health? Primarily, the Bush tax gives away mainly to the super rich. Now, what does this burgeoning public debt represent? First and foremost it means Social Security trust funds are being drawn down to pay for those tax breaks.”