Charles W. Stenholm: “The Blue Dog budget that will be hopefully eligible or allowed to be considered tomorrow is one in which we emphasize…”

“The Blue Dog budget that will be hopefully eligible or allowed to be considered tomorrow is one in which we emphasize paying down the debt. We are going to hear a lot of rhetoric perhaps later tonight, and I know we will tomorrow, about surpluses. One thing that everyone needs to understand, Mr. Speaker, is when we are talking about $4 trillion in projected surpluses, they are projected. The lion's share of those surpluses are projected to occur in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Now, who among us can predict tomorrow much less predict 5 years, 6 years, 7 years from now? That is why the Blue Dogs have taken the position for the last 2 years that the conservative thing to do with projected surpluses is to apply as much of them to our debt as we can. That is the conservative thing to do just in case they do not materialize.”