Thomas Foley: “the other thing I want to discuss quickly is Alan Greenspan's testimony today that Congress should not spend budget…”

“the other thing I want to discuss quickly is Alan Greenspan's testimony today that Congress should not spend budget surplus. And I agree. To get our fiscal house in order, we have got a $5.3 trillion debt, we should be reducing the deficit, reducing the outlay that we are spending on interest on the debt alone, finding ways to reduce that so we will then free up capital that is now being spent on interest to help the needed projects in America, the road construction and other things. My colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann], and several of my colleagues have cosponsored his measure that would allocate additional increases or surpluses, 1 percent of those surpluses to Social Security Trust Fund restoration, Highway Trust Fund restoration, and, more importantly, reduction of the debt. That would bring us into a balance, if you will, allowing us to use legitimate business principles. When we have debt, we reduce debt, it frees up capital to spend on other programs. It is very simple, very common sense. And it probably will fail in this city, because people like to spend more than they have, because they are used to it. We clearly feel that Mr. Greenspan's testimony today indicates that we have significant benefits from running some surpluses. There is nothing wrong with running a surplus. We tell all Americans to save for a rainy day. We tell all Americans they should have a surplus in their checking account.…”