We are getting better, which is the good news. In 1992 it seemed like we would never have anything but rising yearly deficits contributing to a larger and larger national debt for the rest of our lives and beyond. But we have turned that around.

We have seen the earlier deficits go down steadily since then and we have now even heard talk of actually running a surplus. The gentleman who preceded me is absolutely correct, we are not there yet, because we are still borrowing money from the social security trust fund and counting that as income, but we are getting closer. Even without counting social security, the debt this year was $30 billion, which is a lot less than it was 5 or 6 years ago. If we maintain the path of fiscal discipline we can get to the point where we begin to run surpluses.

What I would like to talk about today is taking that one step further, not just begin to run surpluses, but actually begin to pay down the debt. That debt is pushing towards $6 trillion, and has a devastating effect on our economy. We should get to the point where we can start paying down that debt to do a lot of positive things: to reduce interest rates and also stop the amount of interest we have to pay.

I have a couple of charts to illustrate this point. The first chart talks about how much money we spent on the debt. There are a lot of crushing needs that we have in government: defense, education, infrastructure, Medicare, social security. But this shows that one of the biggest items that every year out of the budget is paid is interest. Two hundred forty-three billion dollars, or 14 percent of our budget, is paid on interest, which does nothing for us. All it does is it meets our obligations on the debt.

To the extent we can reduce that debt, we can reduce the amount of money that we have to spend on interest and free up more money for tax cuts or for spending on other programs that are necessary, like national defense or Medicare. That is a huge blow to our budget. Every $100 million we can spend down on this debt will reduce this crushing figure we have to face and pay every year.

This goes beyond the effect it has on government. Paying down the national debt will have a profound effect on the lives of individual citizens, as the second chart will show. We have achieved a record level of home ownership in this country, and that is great, but it is still only about 60 or 65 percent.

We need to go even higher, and those of us who are homeowners would also like to see the monthly payment reduced. If we can pay down the debt, the government will not be the single largest borrower in this country. We will not be out there gobbling up all the money and driving up interest rates. We can actually reduce interest rates. What this basically means is that we will save in our mortgages.

This chart shows an example of an average home price of $115,000, so actually in today's market that is probably below average in a lot of areas. This shows what you can save on a home mortgage if you have a monthly payment of $844 at the 8 percent interest rate.

If we can reduce that interest rate by just 2 percent we can save as much as $155 a month, which is almost $2,000 a year out of our personal family budget. All that is by reducing the amount of money that the government gobbles up for its own debt. That can help make that money more available for people who want to borrow money for home mortgages, and also for businesses, for farms, for a variety of other interests. We can reduce that debt.

We face a lot of challenges in the next few years, but this is one of the biggest. The economy is strong right now. We have unemployment of 4.3 percent, we have low inflation, we have relatively low interest rates. Now is the time to save the money and pay down the debt, because that economy will not always be this robust.

When the time comes and the economy slows, that is when we might need to help the economy, maybe borrow money to help get the economy back up.

While we are in such a strong economic situation is the wrong time to be running debt the size of our current debt. There needs to be a constituency out there for reducing our Federal debt, help reduce interest rates and recognize the amount of money that the government is borrowing and also pays on interest each year in the budget.

As a Democrat, I want to make this a very important issue. I think for too long Democrats have been accused of not being fiscally responsible. I think we can and should be. And for my part, as a Democrat, I am going to argue we need to save some money, begin paying down that debt to reduce interest rates and reduce the amount of money that government spends on interest every year. It is the fiscally responsible and prudent thing to do when the economy is strong. If we wait, we are in no position to do it when the economy is weak.

Now is the time to step up our fiscal responsibility. We can all be proud. We can finally see someplace in the future where we will have a surplus. But let's take it one step further, let's pay down the debt.