Political Quotes

“we all want to cut the budget, we all want to reduce the deficit, we all want our constituents to pay less taxes. But eliminating baseline budgeting is not the way to go. The budget baseline predicts future spending in Government programs, Federal programs. It is, of course, an account of inflation. But it also registers population changes, the business cycle, interest rates, to name just a few variables. It is not just the indexing of inflation. For example, the baseline for Medicare includes not only an inflation adjustment, but the estimate of how many people reach each year 65 years old. For example, we must know and have to plan for when the baby boomers meet 65 as an age and they go on Medicare. It is very significant that we understand these numbers. The increase in defense spending, that has been proposed is before us. But couple this with an elimination of baseline budgeting, and it would result in unprecedented cuts in discretionary spending. The people that we represent have a right to know what this means. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to reconsider this proposal and to instead continue to implement the realistic, practical ways, that we have preached in the past. Baseline budgeting works. We know where we are coming from, we know where we are going. I urge my colleagues not to eliminate baseline budgeting as we do the budget in this upcoming fiscal year.”