John Spratt: “They come from the budget documents. His budget calls on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for example, to reduce…”

“They come from the budget documents. His budget calls on the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for example, to reduce spending by $107,359,000,000. The only thing they can take that out of is the Medicaid program. He calls on the Committee on Government Reform, which has jurisdiction over the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan and the Civil Service Retirement Plan, to effect cuts in those programs of $38,319,000,000 to achieve savings. They are there. If you look at function 550 in this budget, which is the health function, if you look at the level of funding, it is $2.4 billion below what is necessary to maintain purchasing power. We say 'current services.' That has got to come out of some of the organizations like NIH who get their funding from this particular function of the budget. It is there. No question about it.”