Rep. John M. Spratt Jr., D-S.C., said yesterday he is not interested in creating a commission to recommend entitlement reforms. “The first order of business is to put the regular budget back into balance,” he said.

Spratt says Congress first needs to balance the budget to halt the explosive growth of interest on the national debt — which he called “the most mandatory of entitlements” because lawmakers must fund it or force the government to default on its obligations. In an interview with Budget Tracker, he noted interest on the national debt has grown steadily in the past few years (increasing $54 billion last year to a total of $406 billion) and is increasingly crowding out possible spending for other activities. “As long as that wedge in the budget is widening each year, it’s squeezing out other priorities and our ability to address Social Security and Medicare,” Spratt declared.

Balancing the budget could provide a critical boost to efforts to tackle other entitlement programs, Spratt argued. “If we succeeded, particularly if we did it in a bipartisan way, it would give us momentum to take on the tougher challenges.” He said Social Security should then be addressed next “because its solveable,” but Medicare is more problematic because its costs are tied directly into the nation’s health care delivery system, the costs of which have consistently exceeded inflation each year.

So Spratt said lawmakers should move one step at a time now rather than seek comprehensive solutions, which would be too much for a commission or Congress to handle. “I don’t think one commission can begin to address them all and expect to accomplish anything. It’s simply more than the traffic can bear.” He also said he didn’t sense enthusiasm on either side of the aisle for creating a commission and he didn’t think the House would pass such a proposal.