John Thune: “Another thing that is important, and I hear all across South Dakota when I travel the State is, why do you guys not do…”

“Another thing that is important, and I hear all across South Dakota when I travel the State is, why do you guys not do something about paying down the Federal debt? That is something now for 2 years in a row we are actually going to pay down debt. The reason that we are able to do that is because, again, through the hard work of the American people and generating the surplus and to agree that Congress has any control over this, it is in the area of controlling fiscal or Federal spending and keeping the tax burden under control, which we did, and we reduced taxes. The gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) noted earlier that reducing the capital gains tax actually increased revenues and put us in a position now where we are running surpluses. But the reality, of course, again is that we would not be in this position if we had not exercised control over Federal spending. It allows us to pay down Federal debt, which is a huge, huge priority, ought to be, so that for the next generation on whose back all of this is going to fall someday, we are actually lifting that load.”