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(Washington, DC) At a U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs hearing held Wednesday on funding for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, U.S. Senator Larry Craig warned that mandatory funding will not solve the long-term funding needs of that agency.

"We already have three very large programs that are considered to be funded by ‘mandatory spending.' Namely: Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid," Craig said. "Very few younger Americans believe that Social Security will give them much, if anything, when they retire. Being a ‘mandatory' program is no cure-all. We need across the board reform."

Mandatory funding is a long-sought goal of many of the nation's veterans' organizations. But Craig noted that unless Congress changes course, federal spending on Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will crowd out every other federal program - including defense and homeland security.

He pointed to remarks by the director of the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO), who recently warned lawmakers that unless changes are made in federal spending, the federal government will be able to do little more than "pay interest on the mounting debt and some entitlement benefits." Craig also noted that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently warned Congress that the time to fix the nation's fiscal problems started "ten years ago."

The Idaho Republican has been working on a solution for more than 20 years. He is a long-time sponsor of the Balanced Budget Amendment  and reintroduced that legislation in January - the first day Congress met this year.

At that time Craig said that the solution to true fiscal responsibility is three-fold: "We must not simply reduce the deficit, but eliminate it. We must not amend the tax code, but replace it. And we must not talk about limiting spending, but legally cap it."

During Wednesday's hearing Craig told his colleagues, "Congress not only isn't addressing the current problems, but we're here considering legislation to add to the problem."

While a budget hawk on many federal programs, Craig has advocated for more federal spending on veterans' programs. In March of this year he endorsed a record $86.4 billion budget for VA next year - which is almost 8 percent over this year's budget and would be 77 percent larger than it was when President Clinton left office in 2001.

"Veterans are absolutely a priority to me. That's a choice I have consciously made," Craig said. "But a mandatory agency budget would, in my judgment, be terrible national fiscal policy."

While cautioning his colleagues about establishing mandatory funding for VA, the Idaho Republican noted that now that the Democrats are in power, they have not actively been pursing mandatory funding either.

"I cannot help but recall that over the past several years [when Republicans were in power] there have been Senate bills introduced in each Congress to address mandatory funding. And there have even been a number of attempts to add some form of mandatory funding to the Defense Authorization Act," said Craig.

"At that time there were full page ads urging ‘Congress' to act on mandatory funding. Yet, with the new majority taking over control of Congress this year, oddly there were no amendments from the majority to the Defense Authorization Act to provide mandatory funding. I have not seen a bill introduced and now full page ads are bought to urge ‘The President' -- not Congress -- to act on mandatory funding."

"I also can't help but notice that we are holding this hearing almost exactly one month after the Committee marked-up its health care legislative package for the first session. I've often wondered, in debating the amendments on the floor over the past few years, how much politics was behind them. I think I've learned a little about the answer to that question this year," Craig said.

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