Ralph Hall: “Mr. Speaker, I like others here rise to support the use of a portion of our surplus to pay down on our national debt. We…”

“Mr. Speaker, I like others here rise to support the use of a portion of our surplus to pay down on our national debt. We have got a golden opportunity in front of us. For the first time in 30 years we have a budget surplus. During most of my tenure here, the great budget challenge has been to get control of the deficit. In the last 2 years, the landscape has completely changed. We are now focused on what to do with the surplus. That is a very good feeling. I am thrilled that the term surplus has entered our vocabulary up here. Now comes the hard part. Everyone has an idea as to the best way to use this surplus, tax cuts, new government programs, protecting the solvency of Social Security and Medicare and paying down the national debt. As a Member of the Blue Dog coalition, I think the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Minge) are members of that coalition, we have advocated using half of the on-budget surplus for debt reduction, a fourth for shoring up Social Security, Medicare, education and our national infrastructure and the last fourth or parts of it for tax cuts.”