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Alexander: Obama 10-Year Budget Never Balances, Adds $8 Trillion to Federal Debt


Says president should have proposed “more accurate” way to calculate inflation and considered reforms in the Fiscal Sustainability Act by Alexander and Corker to help address entitlement spending

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“If we don’t make tough decisions now, we’ll have let America slip from the hands of the ‘greatest generation’ to the ‘debt-paying generation’ with nothing to show for it but the bill.” – Lamar Alexander

WASHINGTON, March 4 – U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) today said President Obama’s proposed 10-year budget for 2015 “never balances” and does not do enough to address “runaway entitlement spending” that is driving the federal government’s debt, which is more than $17 trillion.

“President Obama’s proposed 10-year budget never balances and adds about $8 trillion to the federal debt over the next 10 years,” Alexander said. “The president also failed to include a more accurate measure of inflation for adjusting entitlement spending and tax rates, a simple, fair way to fix the federal debt that he already proposed last year.”

Alexander continued, “We need to do more to fix the federal government’s more than  $17 trillion debt by enacting plans like the Fiscal Sustainability Act I’ve introduced with Senator Corker, which would reduce the growth in runaway entitlement spending by nearly $1 trillion over 10 years. If we don’t make tough decisions now, we’ll have let America slip from the hands of the ‘greatest generation’ to the ‘debt-paying generation’ with nothing to show for it but the bill.”

In last year’s 10-year budget, the president proposed what is known as the chained Consumer Price Index (CPI), which Alexander said is a more accurate way to calculate inflation for entitlement spending and tax rates. The Fiscal Sustainability Act Alexander introduced with Senator Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) includes chained CPI and other reforms to reduce the growth in mandatory entitlement spending by nearly $1 trillion over the next 10 years.

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