Entitlements Overhaul Proposed: Garn Urges Overhauling Entitlements Programs
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.VA., June 17ÛÓThe chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, challenging his congressional colleagues to put up or shut up on the budget deficit, today proposed a gradual overhaul of entitlement programs as a primary means of reducing deficit spending and lowering interest rates.</br></br>Sen. Jake Garn (R-Utah), in an address to the D.C. Bankers Association, chided both Democrats and Republicans for blaming each other for deficits that have accumulated over three decades. Garn said he sees no useful purpose in such an exercise because it provides no solutions. The answer is a long-term structural change in federal entitlement programs. he suggested.</br></br>"We simply have provided more benefits over the years than taxes we have provided to pay for them," Garn said of the entitlement programs. which he cited as the primary budget problem.</br></br>It is unlikely that the budget can be balanced any time soon, ÛÏbut you can start trimming the growth,Û Garn declared. ÛÏWhen you start taking some of those actions, then I think we will see a dramatic reduc-</br></br>Mindful that he might be accused of proposing solutions that could hurt the poor, the elderly and minorities, Garn quickly pointed out that it is not necessary to penalize those groups in order to accomplish his aim.