WASHINGTON - Congressman Adam H. Putnam (FL-12), a member of the Rules and Budget Committees, today made the following statement on passage of the FY06 Budget Conference Report.

“As a Member of both the Rules Committee and the Budget Committee I am pleased to support this budget conference report. This budget addresses the principles of strength, growth, and opportunity as it focuses on America’s priorities, but also ensures that we begin to implement the necessary spending restraint to deal with the problems of the future.

While our nation is clearly facing an unsustainable budget deficit, it’s important to acknowledge the remarkable economic recovery we are experiencing, the increase in jobs, as well as the startling growth in the rate of home ownership. Our goal must be to continue on this path of strong recovery while simultaneously curtailing the rate of spending that we have seen over the last decade.

The Budget cuts the deficit in half by 2009 – in both monetary terms and as a percentage of GDP.  The FY 2006 deficit is projected to be $376 billion, going down to $229 billion in FY 2009.

This Budget ensures that our nation remains strong in the face of terror.  We continue the multi- year plan to enable the military to fight the war on terrorism now and to transform itself to counter unconventional threats in the future. This budget works to prevent attacks, reduce vulnerabilities and improve readiness. It fully supports our national defense needs with an increase of 4.8%, to $419.5 billion, as well as a 2.3% increase for homeland security, to $32.5 billion. Additionally, funding for veterans’ medical care has increased from $16.2 billion in 1995 to $29.9 billion today.

For the first time since 1997, the budget includes reconciliation instructions to authorizing committees calling for the slowed growth of mandatory programs. More than half of the government’s spending today is on automatic pilot.  This is neither sound nor sustainable fiscal policy. Congress is on its way to losing control over spending priorities as entitlements squeeze the budget more and more.  Reconciliation instructions are the critical step to begin the process of getting our mandatory spending back to a sustainable level. This budget achieves $35 billion in mandatory savings, twice the amount in the Senate-passed resolution.

I believe Congress must establish priorities in these difficult times, recognizing, not ignoring the fact that we are at war, and that defense needs cannot grow at current rates without concurrent trade-offs in other parts of the budget.”

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