Charles W. Stenholm: “I hope that everyone will pay particular attention to some of the comments that many of our colleagues are going to be…”

“I hope that everyone will pay particular attention to some of the comments that many of our colleagues are going to be making. We will have the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), who will be on the floor momentarily, and will talk very accurately about the fact that we really do not have a surplus. When we look at the Social Security trust fund, the Medicare trust fund, the Military Retirees trust fund, highways, airports, that really and truly, there is no $5 trillion, 600 billion surplus. We ask our colleagues, particularly our friends in the majority, to not just look at part of the CBO report, but take a look at the whole report. Notice where they make a very sound observation in that, first off, projecting the economy of the world for 10 years is almost impossible. No one pretends to be accurate. Yet, here we are now all of a sudden taking 10-year projections, and we hear $5.6 trillion of surpluses, and we have folks beginning to act like it is real, really beginning to say, 'We are going to spend that money like it is real.' Here we ask Members to consider one major fact, that 70 percent of the projected surpluses that we are talking about do not occur until the years 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011. Who of us can project tomorrow, much less 2011?”