National Debt and Spending
Floor Speech
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I was trained as an engineer. In my engineering training, we were taught that, before you can solve a problem, you have to identify and define the problem. If you solve the wrong problem, you accomplish very little.
I serve on the Budget Committee. On the Budget Committee, we take an in-depth look at all of government. As we examine the programs and as we examine revenues and expenditures of the Federal Government, we see many issues that are of great concern to the future of our country. We see threats to our safety and our security. We see overreach and hassles created by the very government that is here to serve.
Mr. Speaker, there is a gargantuan issue facing our country that threatens all our futures. Our gross national debt, fueled by out-of- control spending, continues to grow and is past $19 trillion, which exceeds our gross domestic product.
Today, while much of the country focuses on primary elections, several of my colleagues from the Budget Committee, including Chairman Price, wish to have an open and honest conversation about this issue of debt and spending that you are probably not going to hear much about anywhere else.
We not only hope to bring attention to this issue by defining the problem. We will propose real solutions to restore fiscal order so that Americans can thrive and Americans--not the government or any one person, but Americans--can make America all that she can be.
If we delve into the major fiscal issues facing our country, it becomes obvious that we have an enormous spending problem. I have a chart here.
This chart shows us where we have been, where we were in 1965. It shows where we are today with the numbers through 2015. It also predicts where we will be in the future in 2026.
The spending represented by the red on these pie charts is what is called mandatory spending. If you want to think of it this way, this spending is on cruise control. This spending is on programs that were put in place by previous Congresses. Really, if we didn't even meet anymore, this spending in the red will continue to go on.
The spending in the blue is the discretionary spending. That is the money that is spent by appropriations that are done in Congress every year.
The 12 appropriation bills that we hope to get back to regular order this year and pass each of those 12 bills out of the House and out of the Senate and put them on the President's desk relate to the spending that is highlighted in blue on these pie charts.
The omnibus bill from last year, that affected what is in the blue. It didn't affect what is in the red.
As you look at these charts, you can see that in 50 years we have had a little bit of a flip-flop. In 1965, we were right at two-thirds of our spending was discretionary, which was controlled by the appropriations process, and right around one-third of our spending was mandatory.
But over that 50-year period, we have seen tremendous growth in spending. We have seen that now over two-thirds of our spending is mandatory and less than one-third of our spending is discretionary. So, when Congress meets and we debate these appropriations bills, we are only debating about one-third of the spending that takes place by the Federal Government.
The real story is what is projected to happen in 2026, just 10 years from now. Over 50 years, we saw $17.8 trillion of increased spending in our gross debt. That is $356 billion a year. But in just 10 short years from today, the Congressional Budget Office projects that our gross debt will be $29.3 trillion. That will be a growth of over $11.2 trillion in a 10-year period. That is over $1 trillion per year that we will see in spending growth between now and 2026 if we stay on the path that we are currently on.
Mr. Speaker, I hope to explain today why we can't stay on this path. There are a lot of issues to look at. My colleagues on the Committee on the Budget will look at the path that we are on, and they will look at different areas of this spending. We will provide solutions to how to avoid the future financial crisis that is only getting worse. We are already in a financial crisis.
When we look at what contributes to our national debt, to our gross debt, $645 billion this year will go to debt all because of mandatory spending. Our national debt, our gross debt, will increase $1.1 trillion. It is at about $19.3 trillion this fiscal year. Only part of that can be controlled through discretionary spending. We have to start addressing the issues with mandatory spending if we truly want to address the fiscal condition of our country.
This next slide breaks it down in a little bit more detail. Remember, red is mandatory spending and blue is discretionary spending. We see that under the discretionary spending, the part that we debate so vigorously in this Chamber, the part that makes all the headlines, most of that, or about half of that, is in defense, and then the rest of it is nondefense discretionary spending.
There are five areas--just five areas--that over two-thirds of everything spent in this country go to. As we saw on the previous chart, by 2026 those five areas will make up over three-fourths, will make up 78 percent of every dollar spent by the Federal Government. Those five areas are: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt, and kind of a lump category of other mandatory spending.
Right now Social Security is the largest expenditure of the Federal Government at $882 billion per year. If we look at Social Security and Medicare, these are programs that working Americans have invested in that are very important but are headed to insolvency. We have to fix them to preserve them for all of us who have contributed to them.
The people who project the numbers show that by 2030, on the course we are on, Medicare will be insolvent. By 2034, Social Security will be insolvent. Mr. Speaker, the young people in our country should be alarmed at this. By 2034 and 2030, these programs that we have all contributed to are projected to be insolvent if we don't change course.
If we look at Medicaid, it grew by double-digit percentage points last year, a lot of that because of the Affordable Care Act. If we look at other mandatory spending, these are our social welfare programs. These were programs that were put in place with good intentions but are getting poor results.
Finally, the one that probably should concern us all the most is our interest on the debt. The Congressional Budget Office tells us that by 2025, if we don't change course, interest on the debt will be a larger expenditure than Social Security.
As our debt continues to balloon and grow, the interest that we must pay on that debt will also balloon and grow, and that is why mandatory spending will become such a large part of all the spending and really make our discretionary spending somewhat minuscule compared to the gargantuan size of mandatory spending.
I want to talk about just a couple of these areas. Some of my colleagues will talk about other areas as we move forward. If we look at some of our social welfare programs and our Medicaid program, again, these programs were put in place for people who were truly in need. They were put in place for a hand up instead of a handout, but oftentimes they have become just the opposite of that. Some of these programs, instead of helping people out of poverty, they trap people in poverty.
Now, Medicaid is a unique issue because it was put in place for aged people, for disabled people, for blind people, people that we would all agree we need to help out and lend a helping hand, but now there are a lot of able-bodied, working-age adults--these are people 18-65 years old who are not disabled--who are receiving Medicaid benefits. We are seeing a lot of increase in cost there.
We are seeing a lot of increase in cost in social welfare programs, such as SNAP. One area where we can address our budget, where we can address this looming fiscal crisis, is in our social welfare programs. Let's look at what has happened just in the SNAP program.
Since 2000, increased enrollment in SNAP programs has grown 171 percent. To say that another way, for every new job added since 2000-- and that is 4.3 million of them--30.4 million people have been added to food stamps. That is seven people being added to the Food Stamp program for every new job that has been created in this country since 2000.
Again, instead of lifting people out of poverty, many of our welfare programs are actually trapping people in poverty. If we look at some of the numbers on SNAP, 57 percent of able-bodied adult households have no earned income. These are people receiving the food stamp benefits. What is even maybe more alarming is 75 percent of the people receiving SNAP benefits, 75 percent of childless adult households have no earned income. That is 17.3 million people. That is a 252 percent increase since 2000 in this one demographic of childless adult households who have zero income who are receiving SNAP benefits. Only 50 percent of parent households have earned income.
So what happens? What happens if we change the scenario? What happens when you move people from welfare to work?
Well, Kansas tried a program. They tried a program to restore work requirements for able-bodied, childless adults in 2013, and they saw fantastic results from that. They saw a 50 percent immediate decline in enrollment when they enacted work requirements for able-bodied, working-age adults on this program. They saw a 68 percent long-term decline in enrollment, and they saw a 168 percent increase in work participation rates among the enrollees. They saw a 133 percent increase in average income of able-bodied, childless adult enrollees. They saw a 55 percent increase in average income of able-bodied, childless adult enrollees.
Mr. Speaker, a number that we can't ever forget is that only 2.9 percent of full-time workers live in poverty. If we want to pull people out of poverty, we need to create an environment where people can work, where they can pull themselves out of poverty.
We have also found that in these social welfare programs like the SNAP program and like Medicaid, where you have got able-bodied, working-age adults on those programs, that the populations overlap. So if you are able to get people back into the workforce and help the SNAP program, you are also going to cut costs out of the Medicaid program. You get a double bang for your buck when you get people back in the workforce. We need to train people. We need to assist people to get back to work. That is what these programs were originally put in place for. We have got to get back to that.
It has been said many times before, but I think it is worth reminding, that the best social program is still a job. Again, only 2.9 percent of full-time workers live in poverty in this country. If we implement work requirements for programs like SNAP, for people who are receiving Medicaid benefits, it will be on those who are able-bodied, working-age adults. We are not going to put this requirement on disabled people. We are not going to put this requirement on elderly people in nursing homes who are dependent on Medicaid. We are not going to put it on children or blind people. This is for able-bodied, working-age adults. We could save billions of dollars in the Medicaid program by doing this.
We can start to address these fiscal issues with one solution of requiring work for people who are receiving benefits that were put in place to help them get back to work. It worked in Kansas. It has worked in Maine. It has worked in other States. It can work all across our country.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his thoughtful input, his training, and his expertise. This is the kind of expertise that we need to rely on here in this body.
Next, as Congressman Brat talked about the laboratories of democracy being the States, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Palmer), who spent a career working with States all across this country and may possibly have a better understanding of more State policies in more regions of the country than anybody else, certainly, that I know.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. I would again like to thank the gentleman from Alabama for his comments.
Mr. Speaker, you have heard from three freshmen Members today. Next I would like to yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Woodall), a more seasoned member of the Budget Committee.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for his comments.
This is an American problem. It is not a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. It is a bipartisan debt that we all created, and it is going to take bipartisan solutions to fix this debt.
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Mr. WESTERMAN. I thank the gentleman from Indiana for his remarks. I thank him also for his leadership on the Budget Committee. I thank him for his passion to see a better future for our kids and for our grandchildren.
Mr. Speaker, having served in a State legislature before coming to Congress, I served in one where we had to balance our budget. And in our State legislature, our single largest expenditure was, by far, Medicaid.
Medicaid exceeded all the money that we spent on public education, higher education, and the Department of Corrections combined. We spent more money on this one Federal State program than we spent on all of education, and that we spent on our prison program.
Mr. Speaker, there is an inverse incentive for States to be good stewards of Medicaid money. In my State, we received $2.37 of Federal money for every $1 of State money that we spent.
What my colleague from Indiana is talking about is giving States incentives to manage these programs. If the States had incentives to manage the programs in a better way right now, their hands would be tied by CMS.
The Federal Government won't allow the States to create programs and manage their Medicaid population the way that the States could if they had the opportunity to do that.
If we give these laboratories of democracy across the country the ability to innovate and the ability to meet the needs of the people that they serve, then they will do that. Government has always been most effective when it is closest to the people. I served on a school board. I know that I had a lot more interaction with my constituents on the school board because I lived in the same community with them than I did as a State legislator or even as I do as a Member of Congress.
We have to be able to give States more flexibility. We have to let them innovate and let them learn from one another across the country to use ideas that work one place and adapt them for another place. That is how we bring fiscal stability back to our Federal budget, by allowing States to manage their State budgets better.
As we look at these mandatory spending programs, as the gentleman from Indiana mentioned, the large part of this mandatory spending-- nearly half of it--is all associated with health care. That is Medicare, which is $634 billion in 2015; Medicaid, $350 billion in 2015; and then other programs that make up about $47 billion. Those, combined, are greater than the one single largest expenditure, which is Social Security, which we obviously need to reform, not to punish people but to make it sustainable, to make it last for those who really need the program, and to make it last for all Americans who have invested in that program. The same thing for Medicare.
If we refuse to make changes, if we continue to let the status quo be the current reality, then we will see all of these programs shrink and become insolvent over time, and at the same time we will see our Federal debt continue to bloom, and we will see the amount of interest we pay on the debt continue to grow.
Now is the time for us to take action. Now is the time for us to not only produce a budget that balances, but to enact that budget and to follow that budget.
Again, I would like to thank all the members of the Budget Committee who spoke on the issues today. We will be speaking on them more as we move forward.
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