John Spratt: “one beneficial result of our fiscal policies in the 1990s was that we brought down the national debt by $400 billion…”

“one beneficial result of our fiscal policies in the 1990s was that we brought down the national debt by $400 billion between 1998 and 2001. We also, because the government was not borrowing money, but actually putting money into the pool of savings in this country, helped bring down interest rates. As a result, debt service, the interest paid on the national debt, net interest paid on the national debt, dropped from around $240 billion to $250 billion a year to about $160 billion a year. That is a dividend that we had available to do things that people needed and wanted us to do. Because of the Bush administration policies, that interest payment is going to go up steadily, so that 10 years from now, if we follow the course that CBO plots for the President's budget in its March analysis, debt service, interest paid on the national debt, will be close to $370 billion. It will more than double from its current level. What does that do? That is $370 billion we will not have for education in North Carolina... Furthermore, it builds a sort of cynicism about our government, because people will pay substantial taxes. These are not tax cuts.”