Mark Neumann: “Well, Mr. Chairman, I also think we should talk about nondefense discretionary spending. That is the part of the budget…”

“Well, Mr. Chairman, I also think we should talk about nondefense discretionary spending. That is the part of the budget we have the most control over. That was rising by 6.7 percent annually before we took over, in the 7 years before we got here. It is now going up less than 1 percent a year. And in inflation-adjusted dollars, it was going up by 3.2. It is now actually shrinking by 1.5 percent. I will say that again. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the nondefense discretionary spending, the part of the budget we have the most control over, is actually shrinking. I will wrap up my part of this presentation with something that is pretty special here. This chart shows what would have happened in 1995 if there had been no changes in the law. This line shows where the deficit was headed in 1995. This yellow line in the chart shows what happened in the first 12 months, how much progress was made during the year of 1995. Then we put this plan into place, as to what we hoped could happen. That is the green line. And I brought a marker with me today, because a year ago we produced this chart and we said we were ahead of schedule. Notice that our deficit is actually below the green line. And people said, yeah, yeah, yeah, that is 1 year. I want to conclude my part of this presentation by drawing in where we are now in our second year on this plan to reach a balanced budget. We are way down here.…”