Jack Kingston: “Well, I think, though, that when you're talking about spending, you have to look at everything. And when you have such a…”

“Well, I think, though, that when you're talking about spending, you have to look at everything. And when you have such a large portion on mandatory spending, and I think of it in terms of automatic spending, and I understand that Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are sacred cows, that if you touch them politically somebody's going to twist your words around and say that you're trying to do something nefarious, but the reality is if you're ever going to balance the budget, you have to look at everything. And there are areas I know that we can do a better job on. Now I'm on the AG Committee on Appropriations. Many people don't know this, and they always complain about how big the USDA is. Sixty-three percent of the agriculture budget is in welfare. Food stamps, the WIC programs, school nutrition programs, these are supplemental assistance programs to the poor. Now, I was here in 1996 when we reformed welfare, and it went from 14 million people who were on welfare down to 5 million people. That was a step in the right direction because you want to help those who truly need it, but you don't want to create a system where able-bodied people are able to game it and not work.”