[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2533-2538]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       NATIONAL DEBT AND SPENDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2015, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Westerman) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


                             General Leave

  Mr. WESTERMAN. I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 
legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and 
include extraneous materials on the subject of this Special Order.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Arkansas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I was trained as an engineer. In my 
engineering training, we were taught that, before you can solve a 
problem, you have to identify and define the problem. If you solve the 
wrong problem, you accomplish very little.
  I serve on the Budget Committee. On the Budget Committee, we take an 
in-depth look at all of government. As we examine the programs and as 
we examine revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government, we see 
many issues that are of great concern to the future of our country. We 
see threats to our safety and our security. We see overreach and 
hassles created by the very government that is here to serve.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a gargantuan issue facing our country that 
threatens all our futures. Our gross national debt, fueled by out-of-
control spending, continues to grow and is past $19 trillion, which 
exceeds our gross domestic product.
  Today, while much of the country focuses on primary elections, 
several of my colleagues from the Budget Committee, including Chairman 
Price, wish to have an open and honest conversation about this issue of 
debt and spending that you are probably not going to hear much about 
anywhere else.
  We not only hope to bring attention to this issue by defining the 
problem. We will propose real solutions to restore fiscal order so that 
Americans can thrive and Americans--not the government or any one 
person, but Americans--can make America all that she can be.
  If we delve into the major fiscal issues facing our country, it 
becomes obvious that we have an enormous spending problem. I have a 
chart here.
  This chart shows us where we have been, where we were in 1965. It 
shows where we are today with the numbers through 2015. It also 
predicts where we will be in the future in 2026.
  The spending represented by the red on these pie charts is what is 
called mandatory spending. If you want to think of it this way, this 
spending is on cruise control. This spending is on programs that were 
put in place by previous Congresses. Really, if we didn't even meet 
anymore, this spending in the red will continue to go on.
  The spending in the blue is the discretionary spending. That is the 
money that is spent by appropriations that are done in Congress every 
year.
  The 12 appropriation bills that we hope to get back to regular order 
this year and pass each of those 12 bills out of the House and out of 
the Senate and put them on the President's desk relate to the spending 
that is highlighted in blue on these pie charts.

                              {time}  1515

  The omnibus bill from last year, that affected what is in the blue. 
It didn't affect what is in the red.
  As you look at these charts, you can see that in 50 years we have had 
a little bit of a flip-flop. In 1965, two-thirds of our spending was 
discretionary, which was controlled by the appropriations process, and 
right around one-third of our spending was mandatory.
  But over that 50-year period, we have seen tremendous growth in 
spending. We have seen that now over two-thirds of our spending is 
mandatory and less than one-third of our spending is discretionary. So, 
when Congress meets and we debate these appropriations bills, we are 
only debating about one-third of the spending that takes place by the 
Federal Government.
  The real story is what is projected to happen in 2026, just 10 years 
from now. Over 50 years, we saw $17.8 trillion of increased spending in 
our gross debt. That is $356 billion a year. But in just 10 short years 
from today, the Congressional Budget Office projects that our gross 
debt will be $29.3 trillion. That will be a growth of over $11.2 
trillion in a 10-year period. That is over $1 trillion per year that we 
will see in spending growth between now and 2026 if we stay on the path 
that we are currently on.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope to explain today why we can't stay on this path. 
There are a lot of issues to look at. My colleagues on the Committee on 
the Budget will look at the path that we are on, and they will look at 
different areas of this spending. We will provide solutions to how to 
avoid the future financial crisis that is only getting worse. We are 
already in a financial crisis.
  When we look at what contributes to our national debt, to our gross 
debt, $645 billion this year will go to debt all because of mandatory 
spending. Our national debt, our gross debt, will increase $1.1 
trillion. It is at about $19.3 trillion this fiscal year. Only part of 
that can be controlled through discretionary spending. We have to start 
addressing the issues with mandatory spending if we truly want to 
address the fiscal condition of our country.
  This next slide breaks it down in a little bit more detail. Remember, 
red is mandatory spending and blue is discretionary spending. We see 
that under the discretionary spending, the part that we debate so 
vigorously in this Chamber, the part that makes all the headlines, most 
of that, or about half of that, is in defense, and then the rest of it 
is nondefense discretionary spending.
  There are five areas--just five areas--that over two-thirds of 
everything spent in this country go to. As we saw on the previous 
chart, by 2026 those five areas will make up over three-fourths, will 
make up 78 percent of every dollar spent by the Federal Government. 
Those five areas are: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on 
the debt, and kind of a lump category of other mandatory spending.
  Right now Social Security is the largest expenditure of the Federal 
Government at $882 billion per year. If we look at Social Security and 
Medicare, these are programs that working Americans have invested in 
that are very important but are headed to insolvency. We have to fix 
them to preserve them for all of us who have contributed to them.
  The people who project the numbers show that by 2030, on the course 
we are on, Medicare will be insolvent. By 2034, Social Security will be 
insolvent. Mr. Speaker, the young people in our country should be 
alarmed at this. By 2034 and 2030, these programs that we have all 
contributed to are projected to be insolvent if we don't change course.
  If we look at Medicaid, it grew by double-digit percentage points 
last year, a lot of that because of the Affordable Care Act. If we look 
at other mandatory spending, these are our social welfare programs. 
These were programs that were put in place with good intentions but are 
getting poor results.
  Finally, the one that probably should concern us all the most is our 
interest on the debt. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that by 
2025, if we don't

[[Page 2534]]

change course, interest on the debt will be a larger expenditure than 
Social Security.
  As our debt continues to balloon and grow, the interest that we must 
pay on that debt will also balloon and grow, and that is why mandatory 
spending will become such a large part of all the spending and really 
make our discretionary spending somewhat minuscule compared to the 
gargantuan size of mandatory spending.
  I want to talk about just a couple of these areas. Some of my 
colleagues will talk about other areas as we move forward. If we look 
at some of our social welfare programs and our Medicaid program, again, 
these programs were put in place for people who were truly in need. 
They were put in place for a hand up instead of a handout, but 
oftentimes they have become just the opposite of that. Some of these 
programs, instead of helping people out of poverty, they trap people in 
poverty.
  Now, Medicaid is a unique issue because it was put in place for aged 
people, for disabled people, for blind people, people that we would all 
agree we need to help out and lend a helping hand, but now there are a 
lot of able-bodied, working-age adults--these are people 18-65 years 
old who are not disabled--who are receiving Medicaid benefits. We are 
seeing a lot of increase in cost there.
  We are seeing a lot of increase in cost in social welfare programs, 
such as SNAP. One area where we can address our budget, where we can 
address this looming fiscal crisis, is in our social welfare programs. 
Let's look at what has happened just in the SNAP program.
  Since 2000, increased enrollment in SNAP programs has grown 171 
percent. To say that another way, for every new job added since 2000--
and that is 4.3 million of them--30.4 million people have been added to 
food stamps. That is seven people being added to the Food Stamp program 
for every new job that has been created in this country since 2000.
  Again, instead of lifting people out of poverty, many of our welfare 
programs are actually trapping people in poverty. If we look at some of 
the numbers on SNAP, 57 percent of able-bodied adult households have no 
earned income. These are people receiving the food stamp benefits. What 
is even maybe more alarming is 75 percent of the people receiving SNAP 
benefits, 75 percent of childless adult households have no earned 
income. That is 17.3 million people. That is a 252 percent increase 
since 2000 in this one demographic of childless adult households who 
have zero income who are receiving SNAP benefits. Only 50 percent of 
parent households have earned income.
  So what happens? What happens if we change the scenario? What happens 
when you move people from welfare to work?
  Well, Kansas tried a program. They tried a program to restore work 
requirements for able-bodied, childless adults in 2013, and they saw 
fantastic results from that. They saw a 50 percent immediate decline in 
enrollment when they enacted work requirements for able-bodied, 
working-age adults on this program. They saw a 68 percent long-term 
decline in enrollment, and they saw a 168 percent increase in work 
participation rates among the enrollees. They saw a 133 percent 
increase in average income of able-bodied, childless adult enrollees. 
They saw a 55 percent increase in average income of able-bodied, 
childless adult enrollees.
  Mr. Speaker, a number that we can't ever forget is that only 2.9 
percent of full-time workers live in poverty. If we want to pull people 
out of poverty, we need to create an environment where people can work, 
where they can pull themselves out of poverty.
  We have also found that in these social welfare programs like the 
SNAP program and like Medicaid, where you have got able-bodied, 
working-age adults on those programs, that the populations overlap. So 
if you are able to get people back into the workforce and help the SNAP 
program, you are also going to cut costs out of the Medicaid program. 
You get a double bang for your buck when you get people back in the 
workforce. We need to train people. We need to assist people to get 
back to work. That is what these programs were originally put in place 
for. We have got to get back to that.
  It has been said many times before, but I think it is worth 
reminding, that the best social program is still a job. Again, only 2.9 
percent of full-time workers live in poverty in this country. If we 
implement work requirements for programs like SNAP, for people who are 
receiving Medicaid benefits, it will be on those who are able-bodied, 
working-age adults. We are not going to put this requirement on 
disabled people. We are not going to put this requirement on elderly 
people in nursing homes who are dependent on Medicaid. We are not going 
to put it on children or blind people. This is for able-bodied, 
working-age adults. We could save billions of dollars in the Medicaid 
program by doing this.
  We can start to address these fiscal issues with one solution of 
requiring work for people who are receiving benefits that were put in 
place to help them get back to work. It worked in Kansas. It has worked 
in Maine. It has worked in other States. It can work all across our 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Brat), a 
very capable and well-meaning and well-serving individual.
  Mr. BRAT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. 
Westerman) for yielding to me and for setting up this special session.
  It is the most important economic issue of our times. I have taught 
economics for 20 years or so, and I went to seminary before that. I ran 
on bringing economics and ethics to Congress, and that was usually kind 
of a joke in the stump speech, but most people catch it. It matters, 
linking economics and ethics together. There is no better issue from 
which to view this challenge as the issue before us today dealing with 
the monumental increase in mandatory spending.
  Congress has been monumentally irresponsible. Promises were made that 
can't be kept. Politicians sold out the future in favor of immediate 
gratification, and that future is now.
  We see headlines every day in the newspapers about promising more and 
making promises and not keeping them, but today the evidence is 
overwhelming. The major promise that has been made that has not been 
kept is balancing our budget. We promise program after program after 
program that we cannot pay for, and we have not kept our word. As we 
will show, the folks who will pay for this are the only folks who don't 
have a lobbyist in this city, and that is our kids and the next 
generation.
  The U.S. Government has $19 trillion right now in total public debt 
outstanding. Debt per citizen currently stands at $60,000. That is 
separate from the chart here. We will get to that in a minute.
  The gap between Federal revenue and Federal spending over the next 75 
years is about $118 trillion, according to Harvard economics professor 
Jeffrey Miron. That number, $118 trillion, is roughly $368,000 per 
person in America today--$400,000, if you round up, per person in 
America today.

                              {time}  1530

  The deficit is increasing as far as the eye can see. Today is Super 
Tuesday, and many people from across the Nation are going to the polls. 
They are, rightly, upset with the fiscal mismanagement in this city 
over the last couple of decades.
  What are they upset about? Here are a few numbers. The deficit is 
increasing as far as the eye can see. It was $439 billion in 2015, and 
it is up--by a $105 billion increase--to $544 billion in 2016. That is 
just the deficit. That is the amount we add to the debt each and every 
year.
  By 2022, CBO, who are the folks who forecast the economic figures for 
the country--the deficit, the amount we add to the debt in 1 year, will 
be $1 trillion. By 2026, it will be $1.3 trillion.
  In total, by 2026--not that far off--10 years away and high school 
graduates this year will be 28 years old--the debt will reach nearly 
$30 trillion.
  That is what we are handing to the next generation. We are having the 
pizza party and we are going to give the next generation the tab.

[[Page 2535]]

  More important than the debt--or at least a bigger economic number--
autopilot spending is exploding. This is complex. Not many folks know 
about this issue. Many terms are linked: autopilot spending, 
entitlement spending, mandatory spending.
  Sometimes these terms can be used interchangeably. Sometimes they 
can. You have got to get down in the weeds. And we will do that today.
  But, in general, autopilot spending is, as the gentleman before me 
just referred, net interest payments, Social Security payments, Federal 
health programs, Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare, Federal civilian 
military pensions, and welfare programs.
  In 1966, these made up 33 percent of Federal spending and 5.6 percent 
of GDP, the economy. In 2027, these programs will make up 78 percent of 
Federal spending and 18 percent of GDP, as Congressman Westerman's 
graph showed. That is assuming that we will be able to borrow in the 
future.
  Another way to look at autopilot spending, on the graph right here, 
it shows that, in 1966, autopilot spending made up 33.9 percent of 
Federal revenue. But, by 2027, it will eat up 100 percent of Federal 
revenue.
  So you see the Pac-Man here is getting hungrier by the minute. The 
autopilot spending is 34 percent in 1966, 68 percent in 2006. 
Autopilots will consume all Federal revenues in 2027. Again, it is not 
that far out.
  Again, you can go to CBO--the Congressional Budget Office--and this 
is one of the primary graphs you will see in the first few pages at the 
Congressional Budget Office.
  So, in restatement, in just 11 years--2027--1 year beyond the 10-year 
budget window--autopilot programs will consume all Federal revenue 
incoming.
  If you are paying attention, what does that mean? That means there 
will be zero revenue left for law enforcement, medical research, 
national defense, education, transportation, or even intelligence. The 
government will have to borrow 100 percent to finance itself, starting 
in 2027. More and more autopilot spending will be debt that is financed 
as well.
  Is this sustainable? Our friends on the other side are always talking 
about environmental sustainability. That is a great thing. But what 
about financial sustainability? What about the sustainability of our 
Nation? What about the sustainability of Western civilization?
  For an answer to that, you may look at the cradle of Western 
civilization. You can look to Greece. How is Greece doing when it comes 
to fiscal responsibilities? What happens to your country when your debt 
load becomes too heavy? Significant problems emerge and it is very hard 
to return to a normal, functioning economy.
  This is absolutely crucial to the sustainability of American 
civilization. It is critical that we address this problem for our 
children's sake. We cannot do this without reforming Federal programs 
and boosting growth by creating opportunities for people to support 
themselves.
  We need to restore civil society. After all, we are not just 
physically bankrupt. The government also has a moral, ethical, and 
spiritual deficit.
  Why is that? How can you see the ethical deficit? Many government 
policies weaken families, as Congressman Westerman just showed you on a 
graph. We weaken communities, churches, and other faith organizations, 
clubs, associations, and even businesses. Small startups are not 
starting up. This is a tragedy.
  The only hope for the young kids is to enter business. There is no 
other way to make money. And we are capping their futures. These 
critical institutions just don't provide resources and help our 
communities. They also foster responsibility, mutual accountability, 
fellowship, and a sense of purpose in our society.
  How do you see the ethical deficit in other ways? It is pretty easy 
to see. The two major mandatory spending programs, Medicare and Social 
Security, will both be insolvent in 2034. That is about 18 years out. 
So our 18-year-olds will be 36 years old.
  The major programs that seniors rely on today will be insolvent in 
2024, and by the time our kids retire, nothing is certain. That is a 
deficit in ethics.
  It is interesting that President Johnson's war on poverty hasn't 
really eliminated poverty, at least as the government measures it. It 
is striking that the massive increase in government spending tracks 
more closely with family breakdown and other concerning trends.
  Before the war on poverty--and this is fairly well known--began in 
the 1960s, self-sufficiency was going up, up, up. The percentage of 
those in poverty was going down, down, down, down, down.
  After the war on poverty begins and all the Federal programs go, that 
line flattens out and our progress on self-sufficiency comes to an end.
  We need to expand opportunities for productive work and fix welfare 
so earning income always makes people better off.
  We now spend half a trillion dollars on welfare programs. And what do 
we get? We get a flat line with no measurable progress toward self-
sufficiency where people can be proud of their work product and the 
incomes they bring home and the progress of their kids.
  Congress is managing too many programs. States need the flexibility 
so that they can take on these responsibilities. That is the way our 
Founders intended things to be set up.
  All of human history was ruled from the top down until about 1800. 
All of human history was also marked by subsistence living. For all of 
human history, the average person made $500 per year to live on.
  We need to break away from this top-down approach before it is too 
late. The free market system has lifted us up from $500 a year closer 
to $50,000 per person per year.
  More recently, the Chinese and the Indians have moved their way out 
of top-down government toward free markets. Chinese incomes in the past 
20 years have gone from $1,000 a year to $9,000 a year.
  If you add up the Chinese population and the Indian population, we 
have 2.5 billion people on this planet that have seen the most massive 
increase in human welfare imaginable. That came about because they got 
rid of top-down, central government planning and they moved toward the 
free market system.
  The free market system is not perfect because human beings are not 
perfect, but there is no debate in the economic textbooks about all of 
human history versus the move toward human freedom. We all know that 
human freedom is a great future and something we need to aim for.
  Even more important in politics these days is to ask yourself this 
question: Does this city, Washington, D.C., serve the powerful or does 
Washington, D.C., truly serve the poor?
  Look at the towers going up. Look at the consulting class. Look at 
the special interests. Look at the millions and millions of dollars 
that pour into this city. Does this city serve the powerful or the 
poor?
  Tonight, in elections across the Nation, I think you are going to see 
a resounding answer to some of these questions.
  Let's move government back to the people so that we can solve our 
significant debt problems, our mandatory spending problems, and give 
our kids hope for their own futures.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his thoughtful 
input, his training, and his expertise. This is the kind of expertise 
that we need to rely on here in this body.
  Next, as Congressman Brat talked about the laboratories of democracy 
being the States, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Alabama 
(Mr. Palmer), who spent a career working with States all across this 
country and may possibly have a better understanding of more State 
policies in more regions of the country than anybody else, certainly, 
that I know.
  Mr. PALMER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from 
Arkansas for putting together this Special Order and for those 
excessively kind compliments.
  The budget should present a vision to the American people and should 
reflect how the American people approach their own finances. As of 
late, we simply have not governed according to the

[[Page 2536]]

standards that the average American governs by.
  While we have reduced deficit spending over the last few years, the 
fact is that we continue to spend more than we take in, adding billions 
more to our burgeoning debt.
  This budget provides us with an opportunity not to repeat the 
mistakes of the past. Democrats and Republicans can find common ground 
to get our fiscal house in order.
  I want to point out three commonsense solutions to the financial 
crisis that we face.
  First, we can reform the Medicare payment system. Medicare currently 
uses more than a dozen different payment systems to set payment rates 
for medical items and services that the program covers for 
beneficiaries.
  The location where someone receives a service determines which 
payment system applies. Republicans and the President believes this 
should be corrected. According to the President's own budget, a site-
neutral system would save $10 billion over 10 years.
  Second, the General Accountability Office has identified $125 billion 
in improper payments made in 2014. This is where the government sends a 
check to someone not entitled to it.
  The GAO attributes about 65 percent of this to just three programs: 
Health and Human Services' Medicare fee-for-service, Medicaid, and the 
Treasury's earned income tax credit. Just three programs account for 
almost $81 billion per year in improper payments.
  Combined, if we are averaging about $100 billion a year in improper 
payments over this 10-year window that we always talk about with the 
budget, that is $1 trillion.
  Some of these payments are being sent to dead people. Certainly, no 
one should be opposed to correcting this problem. The GAO points out 
that interagency communication is not at its finest, but also that 
there are major errors within the Social Security Administration's 
death data. Some files show a person's death preceding their recorded 
birth date. Others show age of death between 115 and 195.
  According to the ``Guinness World Records'' book, in the modern age, 
the oldest person ever lived to the age of 122. If Social Security's 
records are correct, they need to inform the Guinness World Records 
that someone outlived Ms. Jeanne Louise Calment by 73 years.
  If we could eliminate these erroneous payments just based on what was 
paid out in 2014, as I pointed out, that is over $1 trillion in 10 
years. I think we can all agree that that would be a great start toward 
getting our fiscal house in order.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, I am not an advocate of more taxes, but we 
could do a better job of collecting those that are actually due. As of 
September 30, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service's total tax debt 
inventory was $380 billion, which is a 23 percent increase since 2009. 
This is $380 billion in uncollected taxes.
  I think it is safe to assume that we would prefer not to have our 
hard-earned dollars taken from us, but I also think it is safe to 
assume that the average person would be disgusted to hear that, while 
they are paying taxes, others are failing to pay theirs.
  One other thing that we could do in the area of tax reform, since I 
brought that up, is corporate income tax. It is estimated that there 
are more than $2 trillion in revenues that are being held offshore that 
could be repatriated to this country if we lowered our corporate income 
tax rate, which could, again, provide a substantial flow of revenue to 
help us address our deficits and pay down our budget.

                              {time}  1545

  All this is to say that we need to be more efficient in collecting 
what we owe and spending what we collect. The budget process is where 
we can begin to get our fiscal house in order.
  Just in these examples, there are over $1 trillion in savings from 
eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, and making some sensible reforms. 
Not only can we balance the budget without increasing spending, we can 
have a surplus. Let's work together and use these commonsense solutions 
to restore our fiscal house.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I would again like to thank the gentleman from Alabama 
for his comments.
  Mr. Speaker, you have heard from three freshmen Members today. Next I 
would like to yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), a more 
seasoned member of the Budget Committee.
  Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I 
thank him for his leadership on this issue.
  Say what you want to about freshmen in this institution. I was 
elected with the vice chairman of the Budget Committee back in 2010, 
the largest freshman class in history, and it changed this place; 
changed this place. Largest freshmen class of Republicans and Democrats 
in history. You need new faces and new ideas. And what you all have 
done in terms of a Budget Committee at work has just been amazing.
  What I have here to contribute is a chart of CBO's projections of GDP 
growth. And we have some of our Democratic colleagues here on the 
floor. I just want to say, and I hope folks hold me accountable to it, 
we can't cut our way into prosperity. We just can't do it. Cutting our 
way into prosperity isn't going to happen.
  You cut budgets because there is bad spending in budgets. You don't 
cut budgets because cutting is an end in and of itself. You cut things 
that are bad. You plus up things that are good.
  So much of the challenge that we have balancing this budget--we have 
done amazing things in terms of reducing wasteful spending in the 5 
years that I have been in this body. But the economy keeps declining, 
the regulation nation that is the new United States of America, 
draining productivity.
  When I arrived, the CBO projected we would be growing at about 3 
percent a year as a nation. The next year they revised it down to 2.9; 
the next year, 2.5; the next year, 2.3; this year, 2.1 percent growth; 
2.1 percent growth. That looks like a downward trend. But every 0.1 
percent of economic growth that is lost translates into about $300 
billion of economic activity.
  If people don't have jobs, they don't pay taxes. If people don't have 
jobs, they can't contribute to the system. If people can't contribute 
to the system, revenues go down. If revenues go down, budgets don't 
balance.
  We have to grow our way out of this. We have to grow our way out of 
this, and that is a bipartisan challenge.
  There is not a man or woman in this room who doesn't want to see more 
American jobs in this country, not one. There is not a man or woman in 
this room who doesn't want to see our entrepreneurs be the most 
competitive on the planet, not one.
  There is not a man or woman in this room who does not believe that 
America's best days are still going to be tomorrow.
  We cannot balance budgets by cutting discretionary spending. In fact, 
if we zeroed out discretionary spending, zeroed out the courts, zeroed 
out the parks, zeroed out the military, zeroed out everything, 
environment, everything people think of as government, and we only paid 
our Medicare bills, our Medicaid bills, our interest on the national 
debt, our mandatory spending programs, Social Security programs, that 
would consume virtually the entire revenue stream of the United States 
of America.
  We have to grow our way out of this, and that is a partnership issue 
that we can do together.
  What Mr. Westerman is doing with his leadership on the budget 
provides that foundation. If you don't know where you are going, you 
are not going to get there. We have to have folks who are providing 
that vision of where we are going. That is what our budget is.
  It is our one opportunity as a Congress to come together and talk 
about our collective vision, not the Republican vision, not the 
Democratic vision, our vision, America's vision. Unless we are looking 
at unemployment slides, a downward slope is not our vision. Our vision 
is more growth, more jobs, more economic activity.
  The kind of disciplined budget that Mr. Westerman is talking about 
today

[[Page 2537]]

will make all the difference in the world. I thank him for his 
leadership. I thank him for the time. It is a real honor to serve.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for 
his comments.
  This is an American problem. It is not a Republican problem or a 
Democratic problem. It is a bipartisan debt that we all created, and it 
is going to take bipartisan solutions to fix this debt.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita), the 
vice chair of the Budget Committee.
  Mr. ROKITA. Mr. Speaker, let me just say on the Record that I greatly 
appreciate the leadership of our newer members of the Budget Committee, 
especially the member from Arkansas. I think the people of Arkansas 
were right to send him to Congress. Not only does he come ready to 
identify the spending problems that this country has, but he comes 
ready with solutions, too. And I think that is, in essence, Mr. 
Speaker, the definition of leadership. I thank the gentleman.
  I also thank the gentleman from Georgia who just spoke. He speaks so 
eloquently on so many subjects, a member of the Rules Committee. I am 
also very appreciative of his contribution to the Budget Committee. He, 
of course, as we all are today, and almost every day, unfortunately, 
was talking about the debt.
  And let me just put it in a pictorial form. This is the new red 
menace, Mr. Speaker. Look at that trajectory. It goes nearly vertical.
  So the question is: How do you turn that big ship, that Titanic, if 
you will, so, number one, it doesn't sink this entire country and, 
number two, it gets on a more meaningful, more productive course so 
that we can continue to be the world's best hope in a 21st century 
world?
  Now, some, especially those on the other side of the aisle, will 
immediately turn to the fact that there are two ways to, in fact, solve 
this problem. One is to control spending. The other is to grow revenue.
  Let me talk about the latter for just a second. The latter is a false 
choice because at 10,000 people a day retiring into unreformed social 
programs, that trajectory will not turn around, it will not plateau.
  No matter how much property you confiscate from the American people, 
Mr. Speaker, no matter how much you take in the form of taxes, with 
10,000 people a day retiring in unreformed programs, can you get that 
to go down.
  So let's look at that more closely. This is what the Federal 
Government confiscates from the American people to run itself. In 
fiscal year 2015, it was $3.25 trillion, revenue we took in to run the 
operations of just the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, the American people know we don't have a revenue 
problem, we have a spending problem.
  The question should be what can't you do? What can't you do, Mr. 
Speaker, with $3.25 trillion of property confiscated?
  More revenue is not the answer. Thankfully, the majority here in the 
House of Representatives doesn't think it is the answer either. We know 
we can do better. We know we have to do better for the American people. 
We know we have to control the spending.
  That is why I am very proud to be part of a committee, the Budget 
Committee, and part of a new crew that came, starting in 2011, that for 
every year we have put in a budget, a narrative, something that we 
don't legally have to do as part of the budget process, but we took the 
extra step to put a narrative in our budget to give the solutions that 
are needed to correct this debt problem, reforming Medicare, reforming 
Medicaid, putting us on a track that will reduce that red menace, that 
will plateau it, and start pointing it downward over the next 
generation.
  We took the political risk to have that conversation with the 
American people, and we have done it every year since 2011. Some people 
called it the third rail of politics. Touch it and you will be 
politically electrocuted.
  Well, we touched it, Mr. Speaker. And we touched the next year, and 
the next year, and the year after that. And my hope and my pledge is, 
on this House floor, that we will continue to have that conversation 
with the American people, backed up with votes that show, really, how 
to solve this problem.
  Mr. Speaker, I will refer us to the spending that I am talking about. 
This chart was used before by the gentleman from Arkansas. I will refer 
to it again.
  Here is what is on autopilot. Here is what needs to be reformed. And 
if you look at one piece of that pie there, Medicaid, a solution for 
that has been in our budget for the last 5 years.
  In the remaining time I have, Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about that 
solution, a State flexibility grant, block grant, if you will. We have 
had that idea in our budget for the last 5 years.
  It is the idea that we in the Federal Government, we are going to get 
out of the business of Medicaid. We are going to get out of the 
business of deciding who is poor in terms of health care, what the poor 
need in terms of health care, or how the poor get it, that health care 
service.
  We are going to give it to the States, to individuals, to locally 
elected officials, people who know their communities better, in fact, 
than any Federal bureaucrat does; people who can determine, given a 
finite amount of money from us, their money back, in fact, what the 
poor need, who the poor really are, who the disabled really are, what 
they should get in terms of healthcare services, and how they should 
get it.
  Maybe, like the gentleman from Arkansas alluded to earlier, maybe 
there ought to be a work requirement for the able-bodied ones of them. 
Maybe there ought to be other conditions, but let the States decide 
what that would be, pressured, in a good way, by the fact that there 
would only be a finite amount of money coming from our budget.
  That would allow us to know exactly what we are in for, as a Federal 
Government, exactly what we are giving out, and not a cent more, and 
would naturally incentivize the States to innovate, to come up with 
better ways of service, to serve those who really need health care who 
can't get it any other way. And those who, in fact, are gaming the 
system will be naturally forced off.
  The States are in the best position to provide that when they are 
properly incentivized with a finite amount of money that doesn't grow 
over time.
  The Republican budget for the last 5 years, the one that has passed 
this House of Representatives, has done that very thing. We are on the 
right track. We need to continue these votes. We need to continue to 
have a budget. We need to continue to have stand-alone votes on these 
reforms to take this issue to the American people, especially in a 
Presidential election year when, frankly, the candidates, I haven't 
seen them talk enough about what is really on people's minds, and that 
is how they are going to leave their children and grandchildren with a 
better life than they have, when we are knowingly saddled with $19 
trillion in debt, a very hard thing to do.
  In fact, I think this is the first generation in American history, 
Mr. Speaker, that is poised to leave the next generation worse off. I 
refuse to let that happen on this Budget Committee's watch, and that is 
why we are here today, that is why we are providing the leadership.
  I thank the gentleman very much for his leadership.
  Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for his remarks. I 
thank him also for his leadership on the Budget Committee. I thank him 
for his passion to see a better future for our kids and for our 
grandchildren.
  Mr. Speaker, having served in a State legislature before coming to 
Congress, I served in one where we had to balance our budget. And in 
our State legislature, our single largest expenditure was, by far, 
Medicaid.
  Medicaid exceeded all the money that we spent on public education, 
higher education, and the Department of Corrections combined. We spent 
more money on this one Federal State program than we spent on all of 
education, and that we spent on our prison program.

[[Page 2538]]

  Mr. Speaker, there is an inverse incentive for States to be good 
stewards of Medicaid money. In my State, we received $2.37 of Federal 
money for every $1 of State money that we spent.
  What my colleague from Indiana is talking about is giving States 
incentives to manage these programs. If the States had incentives to 
manage the programs in a better way right now, their hands would be 
tied by CMS.
  The Federal Government won't allow the States to create programs and 
manage their Medicaid population the way that the States could if they 
had the opportunity to do that.

                              {time}  1600

  If we give these laboratories of democracy across the country the 
ability to innovate and the ability to meet the needs of the people 
that they serve, then they will do that. Government has always been 
most effective when it is closest to the people. I served on a school 
board. I know that I had a lot more interaction with my constituents on 
the school board because I lived in the same community with them than I 
did as a State legislator or even as I do as a Member of Congress.
  We have to be able to give States more flexibility. We have to let 
them innovate and let them learn from one another across the country to 
use ideas that work one place and adapt them for another place. That is 
how we bring fiscal stability back to our Federal budget, by allowing 
States to manage their State budgets better.
  As we look at these mandatory spending programs, as the gentleman 
from Indiana mentioned, the large part of this mandatory spending--
nearly half of it--is all associated with health care. That is 
Medicare, which is $634 billion in 2015; Medicaid, $350 billion in 
2015; and then other programs that make up about $47 billion. Those, 
combined, are greater than the one single largest expenditure, which is 
Social Security, which we obviously need to reform, not to punish 
people but to make it sustainable, to make it last for those who really 
need the program, and to make it last for all Americans who have 
invested in that program. The same thing for Medicare.
  If we refuse to make changes, if we continue to let the status quo be 
the current reality, then we will see all of these programs shrink and 
become insolvent over time, and at the same time we will see our 
Federal debt continue to bloom, and we will see the amount of interest 
we pay on the debt continue to grow.
  Now is the time for us to take action. Now is the time for us to not 
only produce a budget that balances, but to enact that budget and to 
follow that budget.
  Again, I would like to thank all the members of the Budget Committee 
who spoke on the issues today. We will be speaking on them more as we 
move forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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