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

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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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