April 3, 2001 Mr. CONRAD. As we have said, this program provides half as much for prescription drugs. The budget proposal that they have made provides $153 billion. But everybody acknowledges that is not sufficient and that there is simply not enough money there to provide a meaningful prescription drug benefit. They are engaged in a little bit of what I would call fiscal sleight of hand. If you look at our proposal, we take this projected surplus, and we are quick to acknowledge that this is a 10-year projection. It is highly unlikely to ever come true. We believe the prudent thing to do is to be cautious in light of the basis of all we are doing being a 10-year forecast. We save all of the money for the Social Security trust fund, all of the money for the Medicare trust fund, and with what is left we talk about one-third for a tax cut, one-third for these high-priority domestic needs, including prescription drugs and infrastructure and education. Anyone who has flown or driven on a highway knows that we need additional funds for infrastructure in America. And education is the highest priority of the American people for additional resources. We also believe we need to strengthen our national defense and then provide additional resources especially for health care and disasters. Because we know we are going to have a certain number of disasters every year, we believe we ought to provide funding for it. Finally, the last one-third would be for long-term debt and to strengthen Social Security and provide a strategic reserve in case these forecasts are wrong; then, of course, the interest costs associated with all three of those. We believe we have a cautious, conservative program--one that dedicates the vast majority of the money for debt reduction. Here is why: The Social Security trust fund money is not needed for Social Security at the moment. That goes to pay down the publicly held debt. The President uses $2 trillion of that money for the same purpose--to pay down the publicly held debt. We also reserve all the Medicare trust fund money. That will go for paying down the publicly held debt. We have $2.9 trillion reserved for debt paydown. In addition to that, we have another $750 billion for our long-term debt. This is where our friends on the other side don't have a nickel for this purpose. They don't have any money to deal with the long-term debt. In our proposal, of the $36.5 trillion forecasted surplus, we are reserving $3.65 trillion for the paydown of short-term and long-term debt. That is in comparison to the President's plan that only has $2 trillion. We have nearly twice as much to pay down long-term debt and short-term debt.