Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2006

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON THE BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2006 -- (House of Representatives - March 16, 2005)

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Mr. WICKER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time, and I thank him for saying what he did earlier about tax increases.

I have been watching these budget debates for 11 years now as a Member of Congress, 3 years as a member of the Committee on the Budget; and year after year the argument is the same.

Our colleagues from the other side of the aisle criticize our budgets in two respects. They say Republican budgets do not spend enough, and they say taxes should be higher. That is pretty much the gist of their complaints against our budgets. So I am glad to see the chairman pointing out his opposition and join him in adding my opposition to tax increases.

Now, I do want to talk as the chairman has asked me about mandatory spending. And I appreciate this opportunity as a member of the Committee on Appropriations, as well as a member of the Committee on the Budget.

As the chairman has noted, Congress spends a lot of time talking about discretionary spending, that part of the budget that makes up only one-third of total spending. The last time we made any real effort to restrain the bulk of our spending, that part on auto-pilot, was back in 1997 and before that 1990.

Now if we look at this pie chart, we can see how much of our total spending has come to be mandatory spending: 48.7 percent in 1995, 54.3 percent today. And if we do not get a rein on it, by the year 2015, the portion of the budget over which we have little control or have chosen to have little control will grow to 62.1 percent.

Eventually this spending will crowd out other priorities which we also need to address.

Let us look at the other chart if we might. This one deals with student loans. We address much of our student spending with discretionary money, but student loans are mandatory programs. Since 2000, student loan volume has increased by 64 percent, with loans increasing by $31.4 billion to $80.7 billion today. This represents an annual growth rate of 10.5 percent at a time when our economy has grown by approximately 4 percent per year.

The next chart deals with Medicare spending. Medicare, of course, as we all know, is the Federal Government's nationwide health care system for 41 million senior citizens and disabled persons. That is 14 percent of the population. Since 1995, Medicare spending has grown 88 percent. This year alone we will spend $293 billion on Medicare. Over the next 5 years, CBO estimates that Federal outlays will amount to $2 trillion, and as my friend from Tennessee pointed out, $1 trillion is an awful lot of money.

Our next chart deals with Medicaid. Medicaid provides medical and long-term expenses to more than 40 million low-income families, elderly and disabled individuals. This is one out of seven Americans who benefit from this program. It serves as the cornerstone of America's health care safety net. Since 1995, Medicaid spending has grown an astonishing 211 percent. Let me repeat that. Since 1995, Medicare spending has grown 211 percent. According to CBO, this year the Federal Government will spend $183.2 billion on this important program, and over the next 5 years that spending will grow by over $1.1 trillion, an enormous rate of increase in this mandatory program.

So why have we allowed it to get to this point? And why are there still so few people who are willing to admit there is a problem, let alone trying to tackle the problem?

The first reason, mandatory spending is difficult to control. This spending is tied to a variety of factors outside Congress's control, demographics, economic conditions, medical prices and so on. In addition, we have an aging population, with longer life expectancy-that is a good thing-increasing benefits and ever increasing medical expenses. In addition, the baby boom generation, my generation, is about to retire, adding huge strains to the resources of these programs.

Secondly, these programs address critical needs that must be met, Medicare payments, Social Security payments, commitments to our veterans.

Almost everyone is affected by one or more of these programs, either ourselves, our children, our parents, our grandparents. In many cases, people associate these programs with the one check that they receive with their name on it.

Now, all of these factors make it especially difficult not only to control entitlement spending but even to discuss getting it back under control without causing concern to good, deserving people who worry that their benefits will be changed. So we have a big problem to deal with, not only to get our hands around the problem, but to do it in a way that is fair for today's recipients and tomorrow's recipients.

The President's budget addressed this problem by including savings in mandatory programs, just slowing that rate of growth, as part of our effort to get the growth rate under control and to help reduce the current deficit. Our budget, while not an exact duplicate of the President's proposals, begins the process.

It is important to remind everyone that this is not happening in a vacuum. As the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Putnam) pointed out, we have already taken the first steps toward getting a grip on discretionary spending.

Specifically, what does this budget do? It provides, for the first time since 1997, reconciliation instructions to the authorizing committees. It directs each of them to find a specified amount of savings. What it does not tell them to do is where to find those savings. That will be left up to the committees. The budget has a number that is given to each committee, and it directs the committee of jurisdiction to find that amount of savings. This is a critical step to begin the process of getting our mandatory spending back to a sustainable level, simply slowing the rate of growth of programs such as the one demonstrated on this poster.

It is a critical step, and I ask all of my colleagues to support this effort by supporting the budget, and I thank my chairman again for putting together a resolution that addresses the very needed mandatory spending restraint that is going to be necessary for our future economic prosperity.

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