On the recordFebruary 2, 2012
Well, thank you. And taking back my time, you really made my point, which is that if the purpose of a budget is to try and provide the most realistic projection of what services we're going to provide in the future compared to today, you should take into account the cost of those increases. The gentleman has just said that of course we're going to build in inflation with respect to veterans programs. In fact, we're going to do better than that. And I'm glad to hear that because we're going to take into account the fact that medical inflation runs higher than regular inflation. But the point is, if you put different numbers in year 10 that don't take into account inflation, you're going to give people a very misleading sense of what can be purchased for their tax dollars in terms of goods and services. The same holds true with respect to DOD, in other words, the Defense Department. Why don't we want to present the American people with an accurate representation of what it will actually cost to maintain the current defense or current discretionary veterans programs? That's the whole purpose of this. The Appropriations Committee can do what it wants with respect to decisions in increases and in cuts. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.
