Jim Ryun: “as we take up the Deficit Reduction Act, I think there are a few things that Americans should know. This bill has been…”

“as we take up the Deficit Reduction Act, I think there are a few things that Americans should know. This bill has been demonized, demonized by those who want to ignore the growing Federal deficit, the waste, the fraud, and the abuse that exist in several Federal Government programs. But we all know that entitlement spending is growing at nearly three times the rate of inflation and that we simply cannot sustain that growth. Entitlement spending on programs such as Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security make up 54 percent of the government spending now, and it is projected to double in the next decade. Medicare is growing at over 7 percent annually and Medicaid is at 8 percent annually. There are no easy answers to this problem, Mr. Speaker, but if we do not act on these programs now, they will only grow worse. The Deficit Reduction Act simply starts with the most obvious, commonsense reforms to save taxpayer dollars by finding waste and abuse in entitlement programs and eliminating them so that the funds that we put into these programs go to people who really need them. In my State of Kansas, a pharmacy recently received a Medicaid payment of $1 million for eardrops that only cost $1.95. Mistakes happen, Mr. Speaker. But in a program that is growing at an unsustainable rate, we need to do all that we can to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse.…”