House Falls 1 Vote Short of Entitlement Spending Amendment

Matt Lewis | July 02, 2008 2:32 PM

Via The Examiner, we learn that an effort to deal with entitlement spending was defeated by just one vote. The amendment, titled Securing America's Future Economy Commission (SAFE), would have forced Congress to vote on a package of specific recommendations for handling Social Security, Medicade and Medicare. According to the article:

“Its failure (Congress) to do anything [about entitlement programs] — despite numerous warnings from economists from across the political spectrum — makes the case that only the SAFE approach has any chance of working.

There is little encouragement on this issue from the presidential campaign. An analysis by the National Taxpayers Union found that the new programs proposed by Barack Obama would increase federal spending by $343.6 billion, while John McCains’ would push expenditures up by $68.5 billion.

Both are essentially ignoring the entitlement crisis. Instead of adding to the spending burden by proposing new federal programs, Obama and McCain should get on board the SAFE bus.”