Todd Rokita: “Mr. Moolenaar points out some of the obvious and perhaps maybe not so obvious problems the budget faces and what we face…”

“Mr. Moolenaar points out some of the obvious and perhaps maybe not so obvious problems the budget faces and what we face as a Congress. Really quickly, before introducing a veteran member of the committee, I want to illustrate a little bit what, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Moolenaar was discussing. Here you see, in a pie graph form, what our Federal Government, what your Federal Government spends its money on. I have taken the liberty of dissecting or pushing out two pieces of that pie to show you, really, from a year-to-year perspective situation, what we get to vote on as Members of Congress. It is defense discretionary, as we call it, and there is nondefense discretionary. In terms of the fund centers and the lines in the budget, we can dial those up or dial those amounts down year to year, Budget Control Act deals and all that notwithstanding. But it is the rest of this pie that Mr. Moolenaar indicates that is so alarming, because the rest of this pie, I can't, Mr. Speaker, you can't, Mr. Moolenaar can't dial up the spending or dial it down year to year by our vote on the budget or our vote on appropriations bills because the funding formula for those programs is found in the underlying law.…”