Well, I'm not an economist, so I don't know how best.... I think government is always balancing the needs of current programs and their costs and debt reduction. From a risk management perspective, though, my understanding is that the federal debt is around $600 billion. The debt is very short in term, and we're at a point now where interest rates are at historic lows. So if the surplus was $13 billion...let's make it simple and say it was $12 billion. We'd only need a 2% increase in interest rates flowing through the system to eliminate the budget surplus. I think it's always going to be a balancing act, and I don't think we can ignore some of the advantages of paying down the debt.
On September 28th, 2006. See this statement in context.