Lizzie Fletcher: “I am certainly very pleased to have bipartisan support and bipartisan rhetoric on this floor. Let me first correct a few…”

“I am certainly very pleased to have bipartisan support and bipartisan rhetoric on this floor. Let me first correct a few things though. This does do something different than what is done. Right now, at this point, it is really contrary to popular convention. There is no Federal law that exists that requires surpluses at the end of the fiscal years to be used to reduce the debt. It is the stated practice of the Treasury. In reality, there is some cash the Treasury holds. Let me give an example. Despite the surplus of $124 billion in fiscal year 1999, the Treasury reduced publicly held debt by just $87 billion. Even when accounting for the seasonal variation, the Treasury will have a cash balance of about $60 billion if this rate continues over the next 2 years. What this piece of legislation does and what is historical about it is it will set a pattern for the next decade. It allows us, like we do every year when we are appropriating money, to have an account to which we can appropriate money for debt reduction, and certain instruction is given to the Department of Treasury to reduce the debt with that money in that account.”