other republicans are running into the same problem as democrats running into the elections with mecare. the unions are dogging him as he goes around wisconsin.. >> what's interesting is i would have fought in the polling, it would be 3-1 against. it is adulate neck and neck, 49- 47, -- actually neck-and-neck, 49-47 who are against him in. if you break it down a generation are the ones -- can a russian, the ones who are most of those are the young. -- if you break it down a generationally,he ones wh are st alarming are the young. with all the demagoguery, it is still neck-and-neck. it is not the poison that democrats are hoping it will be brought the president is in trouble because of the economy. the gdp number was so low this week, and if it stays low and gas prices are high, the republicans have a much better chance than anybody would have thought two or three months ago. >> pray tell, what i date neck- and-neck about? -- what are they neck-and-neck about? >> ryan plan to voucherize medicare. >> the polls i have seen -- maybe we don't move in the same circles. >> the one i saw asked

health, mecare and medicaid are 20%. things like agriculture programs, other retirement programs. then you have to go in and change the law in order to have them operate differently. >> what percentage is defense spending? >> 24. >> so 57 and 24, that would be about 81%. >> so discretionary spending, the thing that everyone looks to to solve the problem is 12% of the budget. thother 6% is interest. >> so you have 12% to play with. that's all you can really change. >> and the appropriations process for nonsecurity spending. that's why we always made the case, when you look at a deficit that is large as we're looking at, if you're talking about a deficit it's $700 billion. there's no way you can solve the deficit. nonsecurity. so we thought it was important to produce spending in the nonsecurity area. we produced $38 billion of reductions. that's also why we say we've gone to the edge. there's not a lot more to cut without going into things that really undermine our future. and it's going to be a question of how you balance the trades. one of the things that everything has to be on

improve with the ryan budget because it provides states with block grants under their mecare program. how great would it be to give seniors vouchers to purchase health insurance? and this week we're busy taking away funds to make sure we train physicians to make sure that all americans have access to affordable care. once again, the republican majority is wrong in this. i reserve the balance of my time. the chair: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from kentucky. mr. guthrie: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from pennsylvania, the chairman of the subcommittee. the chair: the gentleman from pennsylvania is recognized for two minutes. mr. pitts: i'd like to thank the gentleman from kentucky for his leadership on this issue. it authorizes the secretary to award grants to teaching health centers to establish newly accredited or expanded primary care residency programs. the new health care law, hi packa, provides a mandatory appropriation of $230 million for this purpose for the period from f.y. 2011 through f.y. 2015. you may recall that in the president's f

this year the projected exhaustion date of the mecare hospital insurance trust fund did move forward from last year's projections. this is due in large part to lower payroll tax revenues as a result of the slower than expected economic recovery. it's important to note this is exactly what we've seen inprevious recessions. and that, having the affordable care act in place is the main reason that those projections are not worse. indeed what the trustee's report shows that the affordable care act has put medicare on a much more sustainable path. because of the law, medicare costs per enrollee are now expected to grow more slowly than gdp per capita, through 2019 after growing much faster than gdp per capita for the last four decades. still the report shows we have work left to do. every day, nearly 48 million people our parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends rely on medicare for the medical treatments and prescription drugs they need to stay healthy. to keep medicare strong for them and for their children and grandchildren we need to continue to look for opportunit to slow medicar

market through job corps and other training initiatives fundamental strengthen social security and mecares. we're also working hard to tackle worker misclassification. when workers are properly classified they receive the pay they earn and deserve and for the work that they do and social security and medicare services receive the appropriate taxes that are paid on their behalf. additionally we're also creating opportunities for our workforce development system to partner with state and community-based organizations, businesses serving associations and economic development agencies to expand employnt opportunities for people with disabilities. let me be clear. people with disabilities can and want to work. there's a growing body of evidence that proves that workers with disabilities meet and exceed the job performance of coworkers without them. yet the talent, those with disabilities bring to the workplace, continues to be undervalued. thus, their labor force participation remains lower and their unemployment rate remains very high. increasing the employment of people with disabilities is