Bobby Scott: “$200 billion, and instead, we are going after student loans. We are going after food stamps. We are going after…”

“$200 billion, and instead, we are going after student loans. We are going after food stamps. We are going after Medicaid. This is not something new, somebody taking something somebody already has. This had not even gone into effect yet, where the millionaires get $19,000. Everybody making less than $75,000 gets nothing; $75,000 to $100,000, you get $1. You cannot even see on this chart what you get until you get up around $200,000 in income. So, when we talk about tax cuts for the wealthy, this is what we are talking about, $200,000. You talked about paying for Katrina and what that does to our fiscal situation. This chart shows the annual deficit as you have outlined, if we pay for Katrina and if we do not pay for Katrina, and the solid line shows what the projections are, and the dotted line is if we borrow money and do not pay for Katrina how much more deficit there would be. This is obviously a blip on the screen because it shows that there is a 1-year deterioration in the budget, but then it goes back. You can hardly tell a difference in the lines later on. It does not make any difference at all later on what we are doing to Katrina. When this administration came in, there was a projected over $5 trillion surplus coming in, and by the time they finish, we are looking at in excess of $3 trillion in deficit for the same 10 years, a $9 trillion swing, $200 billion for Katrina, which is the estimated total cost. That is .2.…”