John Spratt: “Mr. Chairman, let us just go to the bottom line and look at the differences between the two proposals that will be the…”

“Mr. Chairman, let us just go to the bottom line and look at the differences between the two proposals that will be the chief proposals before the House when we vote tonight on the budget resolutions, the Democratic proposal and the Republican proposal. As anyone who can see this chart can easily see, under our budget in every year from 2004, next year, through 2013, the Democratic budget has a lower deficit than the Republican budget, and by a significant margin. What is more, every year our bottom line gets better and better and better, until in the year 2010 we are in unified balance. All accounts included, we have no more deficit by the year 2010. And we do not get there with improbable, unlikely spending cuts of the kind you have heard mentioned on the floor today. We get there with good, solid economics and with complete fairness to things that are important to us. It is a huge difference. But this tells it all: Over that 10-year period of time, the cumulative difference between us and them, between Republicans and Democrats, between our resolution and their resolution, is $913 billion less public debt. So as we move from a deficit to a surplus, we accumulate $913 billion less debt than do the Republicans in their resolution. That is an enormous difference, particularly for anybody who says that deficits matter. We insist that deficits do matter. This administration has taken a different attitude.”