Connie Mack: “I want to refer to a couple charts before I make further comments because I want to set the stage for the reason for…”

“I want to refer to a couple charts before I make further comments because I want to set the stage for the reason for offering this amendment. This first chart shows total spending as calculated by CBO in the budget resolution passed last year. It shows the total amount of spending for 5 years of $8.364 trillion. If you look at the other bar, you will find very little distinction between it and the first bar. This is the total spending proposed in the Senate budget resolution that we are debating today. It calls for $8.319 trillion in spending over 5 years. This is roughly a $45 billion change. This amounts to roughly a one-half of 1 percent reduction in spending over a 5-year period. I heard someone earlier today say in reference to the budget, 'let's stay the course.' The next chart illustrates what happens to the deficit under a stay-the-course approach. The deficit for the next couple of years will be, in fact, low in relative terms, but it turns up in 1998, 1999, and the year 2000, and on and on and on it goes. My point is that despite all of the good effort made on both sides of the aisle to come together with a proposal to control Federal spending, frankly, nothing has happened. It is for this reason that I have offered this amendment this morning.”