Category: Testimony

There is inherent uncertainty in projecting the future and especially the far-distant future. But using the best information and methods available, the Trustees, the Congressional Budget Office, and most private forecasters all project cash flow deficits for Social Security beginning in little more than a decade and growing worse thereafter for the indefinite future because of the demographic changes we have noted. The reason to act soon is to avoid the forced necessity of more precipitous action later.

By 2024 Medicare spending is expected to exceed Social Security spending and the differential will continue to escalate thereafter. Here I discuss several ways to assess the current and future status of Medicare as it pertains to the Federal budget.

For as long as I've been involved in this issue, I have noticed that people who believe in socialized medicine have invested in a great many myths, and they repeat these myths often to themselves and to others. They have a good number of myths that they believe in about the health care systems of other countries and about our own.

Raul Medrano: Good day to all of you and welcome to the National Press Club. I'm Raul Medrano, president and CEO of 4M-Medrano, Minority Marketing & Media, based here in Washington D.C., and I'm a member of the Newsmaker Committee.

As of January 1, 2004, 250 million nonelderly Americans now have access in principle to Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), provided they are combined with catastrophic insurance. The idea behind HSAs is quite simple. Individuals should be able to manage some of their own health care dollars through accounts they own and control. They should be able to use these funds to pay expenses not paid by third-party insurance, including the cost of out-of-network doctors and diagnostic tests. They should be able to profit from being wise consumers of medical care by having account balances grow tax free and eventually be available for nonmedical purchases.

Energy is and will remain an important factor in the U.S.'s economic growth. While for much the 20th Century, America has enjoyed excess energy capacity in the transportation and utility sectors, this is no longer the case.

Chairman Martini, Vice-Chairman Alex Heaton and honorable members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify concerning the merits of H.B. 245 today.

Madam Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts with you about ways to slow the rising cost of health care and increase choice among enrollees.

The current tax law has a bias against saving and investment. That bias retards capital formation and reduces productivity, employment and wages. In general, income that is spent on consumption is taxed once, but income that is saved is taxed as many as four times.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to discuss the administration's budget request for FY 2004. I would just like to emphasize at the outset that I am not an administration official and do not in any way speak for the administration. Furthermore, while I am generally sympathetic with the administration's philosophy, I don't necessarily support every particular of its budget priorities. I am here speaking only for myself and not on behalf of the National Center for Policy Analysis, the Bush Administration, the Republican Party or anyone else.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning on the question of raising the debt ceiling. I would like to make three main points. First, the debt subject to limit is a declining portion of the federal government's total indebtedness. Second, the debt held by the public is a declining portion of the debt subject to limit. And third, there is no evidence that changes in any measure of debt have a significant impact on interest rates.

As the financial world braces for U.S. markets to open this morning many financial leaders from legendary investor Warren Buffett to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill to President Bush and Vice President Cheney are calling on investors to be bullish and invest in America.

NCPA President John C. Goodman issued the following statement following Senator Phil Gramm's announcement that he will not seek re-election:

Investing the Social Security surplus in the stock market is less risky than maintaining the status quo, according to a study released today by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) and the Private Enterprise Research Center at Texas A&M University.

As you prepare for coverage of the official release of the interim report of President Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, we want to provide you with the NCPA’s most recent research in all areas critical to Social Security reform.

Coming just one day before the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security is scheduled to release its interim report, the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) will unveil a new study on the risk of investing the Social Security surplus in the stock market at a news conference at the National Press Club.

The Senate this week begins debate on competing versions of managed care reform, commonly referred to as the "Patients' Bill of Rights." Yet according Greg Scandlen, senior fellow with the National Center for Policy Analysis, the Senate is fighting a war over an issue that has already been decided in the courts, and for which public support appears to be dwindling.

Former Milwaukee school superintendent Howard Fuller claims opponents of school choice are using lies and half-truths about the success of choice programs in Milwaukee to influence the debate on education in Congress.

Chairman Hinojosa, Vice-Chair Dunnam and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify concerning the merits of HB 367, HB 404 and HB 635 today.

Mr. Chairman, there are three major points I would like to make this morning regarding the budgetary implications of President George W. Bush's proposed tax cut.

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify this morning on how we might meet the demographic challenges of the U.S. Social Security system.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the Commission today on the issue of Internet taxation. Whatever this Commission decides to do will unquestionably shape the debate for years to come. You are to be congratulated for the thorough job you and the other members are doing in this important area.

If people have in fact earned their Social Security benefits, then they are entitled to them. No one takes away someone's private pension or annuity if that person continues to work after they have become entitled to benefits. This disparate treatment makes a mockery of the notion that Social Security is an earned benefit that people are entitled to by virtue of long years of work.

Unwise government policies are largely responsible for the fact that the number of Americans without health insurance is 43 million and rising. Unwise government policies also are responsible for the fact that people who have health insurance are turning over an ever-larger share of their health care dollars to managed care bureaucracies that limit patient choices and sometimes give providers perverse incentives to deny care.