John Spratt: “Yes. It is a serious problem. It is a result of policies. It did not just fall off out of the sky. It is not terrorism…”

“Yes. It is a serious problem. It is a result of policies. It did not just fall off out of the sky. It is not terrorism necessarily. It is not war, even. It is the fiscal policies of this administration. Now, one thing we did, as the gentleman will recall, in 2001 we did not do it, I did not vote for that budget; but in the Senate in particular, they said these tax cuts will have to sunset at the end of 2010 because, one reason, there may not be the surplus that we think there will be. This is a blue-sky estimate. It may not obtain it. If it does not, we do not want to be committed to these tax cuts only to find out that the surplus that they are predicated upon does not actually happen. And so they were all made to expire or terminate by December 31, 2010. Now, we know that the surplus projection was wrong, grossly off, vastly overstated. And we have huge deficits in the place of huge surpluses now. But the administration is still pushing the same fiscal policy, asking, insisting, scheduling these tax cuts to be extended, all of them, almost all of them, after the year 2010, even though they can only do one thing at that point in time and that is go directly to the bottom line and vastly, hugely, expand the deficit of the United States.”