Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse: Current Level Of Entitlement Spending Imperils Future Generations
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse appeared on The Rich Zeoli Show on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT to discuss Donald Trump's budget proposal, saying he expects it to be completely overhauled before passage, but also issued a broader warning about entitlement spending.
"The fact of the matter is, Presidential first opening bids in a budget process are usually just a messaging document and they're never really very real. So, not beating up the current President about today's budget, but broadly, we're just not telling the American people the truth about entitlement spending. 71 percent of the federal budget is five entitlement programs: Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Social Security and interest on the debt. 71 percent of federal spending! And the remaining 29 is about half and half. 14 to 14, defense verse non-defense entitlements."
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Sasse stated that he believes the amount spent on entitlements is reaching dangerous levels.
"If you go back to the Kennedy administration, a little more than 50 years, at that point, 52 percent of federal spending was defense and one percent was entitlements. Now, we're at 70 percent entitlements, 14 percent defense. We are never going to protect our kids from generational bankruptcy if we don't tackle entitlements and right now there's just little political will to do that in Washington. That's the budgetary item that I'm most anxious about."
