Bolten Restates Commitment; Warns of Escalating Entitlement Deficits

October 14, 2003

In an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, current director of the White House Office of Management and Budget Joshua Bolten said he "would not be at all surprised" were the president to center Social Security reform as a major domestic issue in his 2004 re-election bid.

In response to questions of mounting budget deficits, Bolten argued that we are about to enter a period of expensive entitlement payouts that will dwarf the current deficit figure of over $400 billion: "The real problem comes about a decade from now as some of us baby boomers retire and we see enormous challenges to our budget situation, not from the discretionary spending which is what we are talking about now—that is the subject of budget resolutions and appropriations and so on—but the entitlement side of the ledger (principally Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid). Those are huge challenges that I think need to be addressed on their own merits.

Rather than shy away from reform, Bolten said: "I think entitlements actually will be on the agenda in the 04 campaign and I think they ought to be. I would not be at all surprised were [the president] to decide that was an important issue to take to the people."

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