On the recordMarch 13, 2008
Mr. Chairman, we have to remind ourselves exactly where we are with the policies that took place in 2001 and 2003 and what has happened to our budget. You will see that we dug ourselves out of a ditch from 1993 to 2001, and it had a surplus. And overnight that surplus has absolutely collapsed. In fact, in the 10 years after 2001, we had a projected surplus of $5.5 trillion. After the policies of 2001 and 2003, it looks like we are going to have a $3 trillion deficit, not a surplus, a swing of $8.8 trillion. Everybody knows that the Social Security program is in trouble. In 2001 we had a shortfall of $4 trillion in the Social Security program. If we had $4 trillion in the bank in 2001, we could pay Social Security for 75 years without reducing benefits. We had a surplus of $5.6 trillion, not just the $4 trillion we needed to solve all of the problems in Social Security.
Source
govinfo.gov
