Lloyd Bentsen: “since everybody was using props, I think I will use a prop, in my opinion, that talks about the deficit. It is a credit…”

“since everybody was using props, I think I will use a prop, in my opinion, that talks about the deficit. It is a credit card. It is not cash. We do not have the cash yet. Anybody who believes a 10-year projection on what the surplus is going to be really has lost their mind. We do not know if it is going to be $1.5 trillion. We hope it is $1.5 trillion. We do not know that. This whole tax cut and this whole 90/10 scenario is predicated on a surplus that we do not even have yet. It is a fraud on the market, and it is a fraud on the public. The fact is, we are looking down the barrel at $5.5 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay, including the debt in the Social Security trust fund. To go and start spending all that money now without a rational plan of how it is going to be done means that we are going to end up adding more debt. And, ultimately, our debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio will go to 200 percent, and then Social Security will really be in trouble. So bills like this are not going to strengthen Social Security. In fact, it probably makes it worse. This is nothing more than a political gimmick to cover what the true intention is, which is to take us back to supply side economics and back to the days of $200 billion deficits, because many Members on the other side just seem to think that does not really matter.”