On the recordFebruary 10, 2016
We could actually break down all of the programs, but this is already a little geeky as it is because we are going to be talking about numbers that are in the billions and trillions, and people's eyes glaze over when you talk about that. It means zeros. Yet what is really, really important here is understanding the pattern of what is going on and how quickly these numbers are eroding. One of the reasons for this board here is, as we talk about this Congressional Budget Office report, some of the erosion in our fiscal situation is because of our lack of economic growth and of our failure to reform, repair, preserve a lot of these very programs we are talking about. There is this slide here. This is 2026. Understand, in 9 years, mandatory spending, earned benefits, and other types of entitlements are going to have increased over those 9 years 83 percent in spending. What you and I get to vote on of military and other discretionary--the Park Service, the EPA, education, health, medical research--that will have grown 22 percent. That is over 10 years. So think of this. What we would consider discretionary will grow about what we expect inflation to be, and that is how it has been budgeted. It is meant to basically be flat on purchasing power but where the entitlements grow dramatically.
