[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 1]
[Senate]
[Page 6]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          PAYING DOWN THE DEBT

  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Mr. President, before I start my principal subject, I 
will take a couple minutes to commend the Democratic leader for his 
earlier comments.
  We are all ready to go to work, and tomorrow we start with the Budget 
Committee. We are to hear from Chairman Greenspan from the Federal 
Reserve, and we are going to be talking about where we go from here in 
terms of the economy.
  Based on what I hear in the various Presidential campaigns, it looks 
as though we are going to be discussing paying down the debt to some 
degree. The question is, to what degree? Where is it that we ought to 
be focusing the use of the significant balances, the surpluses we are 
going to see? I hope, consistent with Senator Daschle's comments, we 
will not be looking at tax cuts as a principal direction. To paraphrase 
Will Rogers, I never met anyone who didn't want to pay less taxes. But 
the fact is, our economy is moving at the pace it is for very specific 
reasons--encouraging investment, curbing our spending, and in many 
cases curbing it where it hurts but is necessary to get through this 
transitory period where we went from a debit balance to a credit 
balance. Looking at our surpluses and wondering about the debates, I 
contemplate where we are going to be spending these surpluses. I think 
the way to continue this prosperity, the way to make sure that America 
goes into this new century with as much energy as it can have, is to be 
looking at paying down the debt, paying it down as fully as we can, 
taking care of the essential programs that we know are needed by our 
constituents across the country.
  The last thing I think people want to see is random tax cuts that 
benefit the wealthy to an unusually high degree, while those struggling 
to make a living are concerned about interest costs for mortgages, 
their schooling, and various other things that are an important part of 
basic life.

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