Connie Mack: “despite all the rhetoric about making the tough choices to cut spending, we find overall spending has not been…”

“despite all the rhetoric about making the tough choices to cut spending, we find overall spending has not been substantially affected. Last year, CBO projected a fiscal year 1995 deficit of $284 billion. One year later, CBO reestimated the fiscal year 1995 deficit at $171 billion, a decrease of $113 billion. But a quick look at how this was achieved will show that the serious job of making tough choices and cutting spending hardly is happening at all. According to CBO, the drop in the deficit comes from new taxes and user fees of $46 billion; technical reestimates, $45 billion; economic improvement, $15 billion; spending cuts, $5 billion; debt service, $2 billion. The point is, out of a $113 billion drop in the deficit, only $5 billion of that is a result of the actions taken to cut Federal spending. In essence, we have left in place a huge Federal spending machine which is the reason that these numbers are going to go back up in 1998, 1999, 2000 and beyond. What really drives the deficit is spending, and we certainly have not done nearly enough to cut spending. While it is nice that this year's deficit is below estimates, I am concerned that Congress is not taking advantage of the good fortune a rebounding economy has given us. From all appearances, Congress and the administration are willing to let this opportunity pass by and quietly sweep aside further efforts to cut spending.”