Bill Archer: “This bill does not increase the deficit. And why is the deficit down since 1993? Not because of the taxes that are taken…”

“This bill does not increase the deficit. And why is the deficit down since 1993? Not because of the taxes that are taken out of the pockets of people for gasoline. It is down because, yes, we did not have to bail out any more insurance on depositors of savings and loans. That was taken off as a spending item because of the courage of President Bush in taking on that responsibility. But that was no longer there. It declined and went away. And because of the reduction in defense spending, which was already on the books when President Bush left office, and the down building of the Defense Department. And then, what I believe was a very, very unwise thing, to convert more long-term debt to short-term debt because temporarily interest rates were lower on short-term debt. So the cost of interest went down. Those were the major factors that reduced the deficit. But the democrats do not to talk about that. Let us get back to the focus on this tax increase.”