Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) said on Tuesday that future budget priorities must focus on reducing debt and addressing both mandatory and entitlement spending.
Portman outlined ways to achieve future budget goals in an address before the National Press Club.
“The biggest part of the budget, now two-thirds of the budget, is called mandatory spending,” Portman said. “Within 10 years, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tells us that will be three quarters of our budget. So, it is the fastest growing and biggest part of the budget, and we have our work cut out for us.”
The current debt and deficit are “very serious” issues and are projected to top $1 trillion within the next decade, Portman said.
“I hope we continue to keep this very much on the front burner and talk about how we resolve this problem,” Portman said. “The problem driving this debt is entitlement spending. I do think that most folks on both sides of the aisle understand that, so I won’t spend a lot of time talking about the math. I don’t think it’s a big mystery. I don’t think it’s a matter of ideology or point of view. I think it is a matter of arithmetic. The numbers are simply overwhelming.”
Spending on health entitlements, social security and debt interest currently account for approximately half of the budget, Portman said, yet it will comprise 86 percent of all new spending in the next decade.
“Entitlement spending is set to double over the next decade,” Portman said. “It will consume almost 100 percent of tax revenues within a decade. In other words, the entire discretionary budget from defense to health research to education to the Second Chance Act that we talked about, infrastructure, all of that would have to be funded through the nation’s credit card because any revenue coming in will have to be used to pay for this expanding entitlement spending. We have to act. We have to save these vital but unsustainable programs.”