John Spratt: “the point I was making at the outset is, 2 years ago OMB projected a surplus of $5.6 trillion. The Bush administration…”

“the point I was making at the outset is, 2 years ago OMB projected a surplus of $5.6 trillion. The Bush administration then enacted a massive tax cut taking advantage of that big surplus. They now acknowledge that they overstated, miscalculated by some $3.2 trillion. It really was not $5.6 trillion in surplus. It was more like $2.4 trillion in surplus. The problem is that tax cuts have largely already committed that amount of money. As we begin this fiscal year, instead of having a cushion fund, a huge surplus of $5.6 trillion, we are in the red. We have fully dissipated that surplus and we are in the red $129 billion. But they, knowing that, proposed additional tax cuts and additional measures that would drive us deeper in the red over the next 5 years to the tune of $2.1 trillion which is intentional. You could at least excuse what happened before as negligent miscalculation. I do not. I think they should have seen the storm clouds gathering over the economy and understand that the surplus was overstated; but chalk it up to negligence. This is willful, wanton, and intentional.”