Paul Ryan: “I have here an apples-to-apples comparison of the Bush plan for the surplus and the Gore plan for the surplus. I think…”

“I have here an apples-to-apples comparison of the Bush plan for the surplus and the Gore plan for the surplus. I think it is very important to put aside all the rhetoric you hear, because a lot of times when you listen to politicians' rhetoric, when you listen to the presidential campaign rhetoric or the media's interpretation of the rhetoric, you do not actually see what is being proposed. Let us take a look at what is actually being proposed. We have a monumental chance, a historic opportunity to use this surplus to address the many challenges facing our Nation. We have a chance to pay off our national debt. We have a chance to shore up Social Security. We have a chance to modernize and fix Medicare, and we have a chance to let people keep more of their hard-earned money as they continue to overpay their taxes. What the Gore plan does is it says for every dollar coming into the Federal Government in the form of a budget surplus for the next 10 years, we are going to take 46 cents out of that surplus dollar, 46 cents out of every surplus dollar will go toward Washington, will go toward new spending.”