[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 107 (Friday, August 5, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          HEALTH CARE, THE CRIME BILL, AND MILITARY READINESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Hunter] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority body.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to cover three important topics this 
evening. One topic, of course, is health care, and this moving target 
that the Democrat leadership is putting together on the House side in 
concert with President Clinton.
  The second issue, of course, is the crime bill that will be coming 
back from the conference that Members will be asked to vote on and that 
the American people are very interested in.
  The last issue is military readiness, perhaps an issue that is being 
drawn more tightly in focus over the past several hours because of the 
increased activity in Bosnia, and to talk about military readiness, a 
colleague of mine is with us today who is well known to the American 
people. His name is ``Duke'' Cunningham. He is my seatmate from San 
Diego, CA, and he lived in the military those years in the late 1970's 
when President Carter's massive defense cuts brought our military into 
what I call a hollow status.
  Those were the days of the hollow military when over 50 percent of 
our naval aircraft were not fully mission-capable because we were 
having to cannibalize them for spare parts to keep others going. Those 
were the years when a thousand chief petty officers a month were 
getting out of the Navy because they were not being paid enough money; 
thousands of our kids in uniform were on food stamps. And those were 
days that the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham], who has one 
of the most exemplary records for air combat that no member of the 
present military nor recent military nor active military has 
accomplished, is with us today as a Member of Congress from San Diego, 
CA.
  I would just like to ask the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Cunningham], my colleague, to talk a little bit about what is happening 
with respect to the hollowing of American forces in present world 
situations.
  I yield to my distinguished friend, the gentleman from San Diego, CA 
[Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman from California for yielding to 
me.
  First, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that the President, in one of 
his addresses, said that he wanted a strong military. He wanted a 
strong national defense of a well-trained and high-tech capability.
  Candidate Clinton, when he was running for President, said that it 
would be a maximum of a $50 billion cut, $50 billion cut, because to go 
beyond that would put us into a hollow force; we would not be into the 
bone, but we would be into the bone marrow of our military.
  Not only a $50 billion cut from the 102d Congress, but an additional, 
under the Clinton budget, $129 billion cut out of defense, bringing the 
total to $179 billion out of just the defense budget.
  We keep getting involved in events overseas, in some cases that have 
no direct bearing on the national defense or security of this country.
  Today, as I speak, we are bombing Bosnia. That, in my own personal 
opinion, is wrong, and we will get to that a little bit later.
  But we cannot keep expecting our military men and women to operate 
overseas and not supply them, not only with the manpower but with the 
military equipment, with the technology, and then the abuse of our men 
and women by the administration. How can we expect them to go forward?

  We have a strange dichotomy in this country, Mr. Speaker, that we 
laud those people that fight our wars and fight our battles in this 
country and overseas, but traditionally, we scale down those militaries 
as those wars end. There is nothing wrong with that except that today 
our scaling back is the lowest that it has ever been in the history of 
the United States.
  Let me tell you a little bit about some of the things that are going 
on. Remember, this is a President that wants our people to be trained.
  I was a top gun instructor at one time. At the Navy Fighter Weapons 
School at NAS Miramar, there is an air show this month. They are not 
flying in it, because they do not have the fuel to operate. You say, 
well, flying in an air show is not really important. It may not be.
  But the same Navy Fighter Weapons School, the top gun, the school 
that the movie was made after, is not flying in the month of August 
because they do not have enough fuel to fly against their class. Let me 
repeat that: Navy Fighter Weapons School, top gun, does not have enough 
fuel to operate against their class, so they are having not to fly the 
month of August.
  The F-14's, the F-18's, the fighter squadrons, about 80 percent of 
them are sitting idle for a lack of parts and a lack of fuel so that 
they can fly.
  I coined a phrase: ``You fight like you train.'' It takes a fighter 
pilot about 20 to 30 hours a month to stay on the tip, Mr. Speaker. 
Some of these squadrons are flying, and these pilots are flying, as 
little as 5 hours a month, and it is proven that if you do not exercise 
the airplane, they leak hydraulic fluid, the maintenance becomes 
extreme on them, and you actually save lives the more you fly. Look at 
statistics in the safety center. You fly more, the pilots are safer. We 
are going to lose pilots. We are going to lose air crew, men and women, 
in our armed services.
  The President wants well-trained and better equipped military, but 
yet this House, this administration is selectively killing defense 
industry and the military through several different ways. It cost us 
alone over 1 million jobs in the State of California. California is one 
of those States in the recession hit most hard or hit the hardest, not 
only by unfunded mandates, illegal immigration, and a host of others, 
but the 1 million jobs that California has lost has devastated the 
State.
  We have major industries like General Dynamics, Rohr, McDonnell 
Douglas, Martin Marietta, all going out of the State and folding up 
their tents because of the defense cuts.

                              {time}  1540

  That means jobs. We have an administration that is saying jobs are 
being created. These are high-level, white-collar, scientists, and a 
lot of blue-collar jobs going out the window. A lot of the 1994 budget 
is funded at a bare-bones minimum.
  1995 and out is largely funded by the closings of the bases under the 
Base Realignment and Closure Commission of 1993. But guess what the 
administration and this House are not doing? They are not funding BRCC 
fully. And every Member in this House, generally every Member, has 
bases that are closed. When this Government gives the military a 
mandate, it tries to adhere to it, but it is an unfunded mandate. Let 
me give you classic example.
  The Naval Training Center, NTC in San Diego, does not have the money 
that was promised to close that base in the last base closure. Jack 
Inch, the commanding officer of that, just spend $30,000 out of their 
training money because they had to buy plywood to close up the 
buildings that has been ordered to close.
  The military is eating itself up from within inside because again 
this House and the commission forced the military to close those bases 
for savings. Now, if we do not fund BRCC-93, then they know that the 
military will eat itself from the inside and slowly dissolve itself, 
besides the $179 billion cut as well.
  Bases and units are out of dollars.
  Another way that they are selectively killing defense: They ordered 
the rapid demise of F-14 fighters, F-15, F-16, F-18's, they are even 
doing away with the A-6 Intruder.
  Guess what, the procurement and development of the brand new joint 
airplane for the Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps is being pushed out 
well beyond the year 2000. There is no way we can replace those 
retiring airplanes to keep our forces up to speed even at the Bottom-Up 
Review level. So it is another way of selecting them.
  The Bottom-Up Review was a study. Then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin 
headed up a task force to see what we needed to fight two conflicts or 
wars simultaneously at the same time with a minimum of forces. Even 
during the presentation before the Committee on Armed Services, the 
drafters of the Bottom-Up Review testified we were $40 billion, not 
thousand, not millions, but $40 billion short of the Bottom-Up figures, 
which was in itself a bare-bone minimum for our Armed Services.
  Just last week, the GAO, Government reporting agency, shared with us 
that it is now $150 billion short of the Bottom-Up Review, which is a 
bare-bone minimum to fund our military. That is why we have top gun 
flying against its class, that is why we have squadrons sitting idle 
and not training, that is why we do not have enough parts for our Armed 
Forces, and that is why, Mr. Speaker, we are going to end up with dead 
men and women because they cannot train.
  Right now we are over the skies of Bosnia, we have a President who 
wants to take us into Haiti, and you do not have the equipment, the 
military and the training, to do it.
  We are going to bring back our kids in body bags. That is the reason 
I am standing up here today, because I was shot down myself over North 
Vietnam on my 300th mission. But we had the equipment, we had the 
training, and we had minimum casualties even though we lost a lot of 
people in Vietnam.
  But even today those casualties would be higher because we are not 
ready. Our readiness is low, our forces are low, our equipment is low, 
and our training is low.
  The committee chairman on the Democratic mark was below, if you can 
believe it or not, the Bottom-Up Review mark by $1 billion.
  Now, how can we operate and ask the support of our men and women in 
the Armed Forces if this House cannot even support them?
  I take a look at the cuts that we have had here on the House floor. 
People show they want to be fiscally conservative, so where do they 
cut? They cut law enforcement with the CIA and the FBI. The Black 
Caucus wanted to double the amount of defense cuts, to double it.
  Let me remind you Mr. Speaker, the armed services is one of the 
primary areas for minorities to get jobs on an entry level and then go 
on to secondary jobs either in the military or after they retire.
  So we are killing jobs in that way as well.
  My friend from California and I testified that the environmental 
cleanup costs for these bases was going to be much higher than it is--
than it was estimated. But our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle said, ``No, we figured this out.'' Guess what, Mr. Speaker, today 
those costs are running from 10 to 20 times as much and in some cases 
there is no savings from closing the bases. That was the main point of 
the bottom-up review--I mean the BRCC--to see if it was beneficial to 
close a base to save the Government money.
  That is why they were closed.
  Now we are finding it is not beneficial in most cases because it is 
just environmental cleanup. Again those savings were going to go 
through 1995 and out and supply the defense dollars for us to operate 
our military forces.
  We have certain items in which our military forces look at us and 
say, ``Are you supporting us?'' When in a President's tax package cuts 
the military COLA, that hurts a lot of people, especially when you have 
got E-4's who qualify for food stamps, In many cases you have kids, 
young men and young women--and I say kids because these kids are 
between 17 and 35 years of age--who can qualify for food stamps. We 
take them away from their families for 6 or 7 months on every cruise, 
they come back and even on home port issues, we do not allow them to 
stay with their families even at those times. Yet we keep hacking at 
them. And then we cut their COLA's. How do you think it makes then 
feel, Mr. Speaker?
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank my friend, who has so much expertise in the armed 
services for his tesimony today. The last figures I saw with respect to 
our young families, our lower-ranking families, with respect to food 
stamps was that today, this year, 27 million dollars' worth of food 
stamps were utilized by service families, by uniformed families. That 
reminded me of the days of the late 1970's under Jimmy Carter when we 
had a tremendous number of our young people, uniformed people, on food 
stamps.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. It is. Just take a look at any base.
  Mr. Speaker, you probably have military bases in your district. Take 
a look at these kids and what we ask of them. Yet we are cutting their 
pay, their COLA's, and we do not support them and we let them sit on 
the bases without the equipment, without the funding to train in the 
job they are supposed to do to prepare themselves on how to survive in 
conflict.
  Then we plan to send them to Haiti, Bosnia, God knows what else. Then 
we are going to put them under U.N. control, not United States control. 
Mr. Speaker, that is wrong also.
  Right now, today, just taking the Navy alone, we are over 700 
lieutenant commanders in the Navy, and those are the billets, the 
officers who fill your department head jobs, like the head of your 
operations department, the head of your maintenance department in a 
squadron, administration department. And we do not have those 
personnel.
  Admiral Boarder and the commanders have asked if they could upgrade 
lieutenants to fill those positions, lieutenants without the experience 
required to keep that unit safe.
  Mr. Speaker, that alone will cause loss of aircraft and loss of 
lives.
  The defense bill, we look at the defense bill itself and what meager 
funds we have. We have what I call the left-wing members on the 
committee who want to provide social programs out of the defense 
budget. Much of the defense budget in the mark, even today, has social 
programs in it which have no place in the defense budget, eating up 
those same training dollars and the existence of military equipment.

                              {time}  1550

  We take a look at the House floor, and in every committee you take a 
look, again those that support socialized spending and a socialized 
Government want to cut the defense budget. We had an education and 
labor. The gentlewoman from Hawaii wanted to take $1 billion out of the 
defense, and every committee--look on the House floor--that those who 
will come forward and want to cut defense--cut defense is the big 
answer.
  Well, what are you going to do, Mr. Speaker? What are you going to do 
after the defense dollars are gone and the spending still stays higher, 
even in the crime bill, which the gentleman from California is going to 
talk about, and you got $9 billion in socialized programs there that 
duplicate existing programs we have?
  Another factor that this gentleman disagrees with in the 
administration: Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense under George 
Bush. I guarantee you that Dick Cheney and President Bush would have 
known, prior to our airplanes going to war over Bosnia, that they were 
going to be involved in a war. In the first strike that our aircraft 
went over Bosnia and intercepted Bosnian Serb airplanes our President 
and our Secretary of Defense were not aware of it until after the fact. 
To me that is ludicrous.
  We cannot accept, nor tolerate, our Armed Forces falling first 
priority under U.N. control. Even in Desert Storm where we had--the 
President put together a coalition of forces from many other countries, 
our forces were under U.S. commanders, directed by U.S. commanders, 
that spoke English, that knew the equipment, that knew the tactics, 
that knew their limitations and knew their strengths, and we came our 
ahead on that, and, Mr. Speaker, if this same type of thing continues 
when our troops are under U.N. control, we are going to lose lives.
  It all boils down to readiness, Mr. Speaker. Are we ready to fight? 
Our troops will fight and do well in anywhere they go. They have 
historically. But we have got to give them a fighting chance. We got to 
let them train. You do; you fight like you train. A football player is 
proficient because of the amount of time and energy he puts into 
training to his skill. The same is true with the military, Mr. Speaker, 
and we cannot tolerate.
  So, let us do not degrade our military officers. Let us do not have 
them carrying hors d'oeuvres at a Democratic fundraiser at the White 
House, military officers in uniform.

  I did get a nice letter from General Shalikashvili and said that that 
will not be the policy. But we need to tell the staffers that they 
cannot order our military to carry hors d'oeuvres for Democratic 
events. I am disappointed that some of the Democrats there did not do 
the same thing on the spot. We cannot expect them to risk their lives 
and not support them, and I would like to thank the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Hunter] because, my colleagues and Mr. Speaker, our 
military forces today are at a bottom level that I have never seen 
them, and I spent 20 years of my life in the military, and I did not 
want to fight in the war, but, when I was there, I wanted the right 
equipment, and I wanted the support of my Congress and the American 
people behind me. That is not true today, Mr. Speaker, and we have got 
to change that.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Cunningham] for his remarks, and I just want to say, as he goes out, I 
know he needs to pick up his family at the airport, that the gentleman 
from San Diego [Mr. Cunningham] is a very valuable Member of this body 
because, in becoming the only Navy ace in Vietnam, shooting down five 
MiG aircraft, and not only that, but training in the top gun school in 
San Diego, training pilots, he has an insight into readiness and the 
combat needs of both equipment-wise and personnel-wise of our armed 
services, and there is nobody who is better able to speak about it, and 
I think also more independent than the gentleman from San Diego who has 
one interest here, and that is to preserve the chances for our men and 
women who have to go into combat, have to go into warfare, and their 
chances for survival are paramount in his mind, and I want to thank him 
for his work.
  I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, as my comments are directed toward those 
that would cut defense, both of us have friends that are on the other 
side of the aisle: the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Skelton], the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Murtha], the gentleman from 
Mississippi [Mr. Montgomery], and we can go on and name half of the 
Members on the other side that feel the same way that we do, that our 
defense is being cut too much, and we work with those Democrats every 
single day.
  But when the administration pushes this, when the leadership on the 
other side, which to my opinion is left of liberal, keeps pushing the 
cut of defense, it is going to cost the lives of men and women, and I 
want to thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that support 
the same issues and help us on a day-to-day basis, and I thank the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter].
  Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman from California, and, Mr. Speaker, 
my friend, Duke Cunningham, has been talking about deficiencies that we 
have with respect to the U.S. Navy. Let me just add a couple to that 
that come from the Army side of the uniformed services.
  I sent a letter to the Army recently. I asked them to answer certain 
questions with respect to readiness and equipment: Are we ready to 
fight?
  And Gordon Sullivan, General Sullivan, Chief of Staff of the U.S. 
Army, replied in a recent letter that was a fairly in-depth explanation 
of our current capability with respect to readiness, and let me go over 
some of the categories that he covered.
  He said this about modernization, and I quote:

       Modernization accounts are minimally funded in FY 1995 and 
     must be increased in subsequent budgets to allow for 
     recapitalization of equipment. The outyear requirements; that 
     means in the coming years, will be addressed during 
     development of the Army's FY 1996 POM.

  Now what General Sullivan is saying there is that we are right on the 
razor's edge of losing modernization. Those smart weapons that we all 
watched in Desert Storm that were able to go in and zero in on a 
bridge, or another vital military facility or strategic facility in 
Iraq, were developed because we spent research and development dollars 
in a very adequate way, in a very responsible way.

       ``We aren't modernizing like we should be modernizing.'' He 
     said this about equipment readiness, and this is a very 
     important factor because, when the balloon goes up, when the 
     American Forces have to go to project American military 
     power, they do not have the option of saying, ``Put that 
     emergency on hold until we repair these tanks, until we 
     repair these ships, or these aircraft, or these artillery 
     pieces.''

  Here is what General Sullivan said about equipment readiness:

       Depot maintenance is funded at 62 percent of requirements 
     for fiscal year 1995. Congressional decrements to OMA could 
     aggravate the situation. Operations other than war, costs of 
     contingency operations without timely reimbursements or 
     supplemental funding cause execution year turbulence and can 
     cause a drain on the readiness accounts.

  That means that when we go off to Somalia, or we go off to Haiti, or 
we go off to Bosnia, and we take money that should be used to train our 
troops to repair our equipment to keep our fighting forces ready, and 
we do not pay that money back, and most of the time this administration 
and this Congress does not pay all the money back, then the readiness 
requirements that the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] spoke 
about, that increased flying time, for example, for Navy pilots, is not 
funded. So pilots have to stay out of the air. And that equipment 
restoration, repairing the equipment that was used in the last 
operation, does not occur. So that means that the next operation that 
you go into, you go into with pilots who are less ready, less trained, 
with infantry- men who have not had the time with the equipment and 
with weaons that they should and with weapons that have not been 
refurbished and have not been fixed in many cases. We still have 
equipment from Desert Storm which has not been refurbished since that 
operation was concluded.
  So, Mr. Speaker, those are statements coming from General Sullivan 
who is the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army.
  So, my colleagues, against this background of massive defense cuts, 
and once again President Clinton has cut $129 billion out of the budget 
that was established by President George Bush, Secretary of Defense 
Dick Cheney, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell--he cut, 
President Clinton cut, $129 billion out of that budget, and he did so 
in a very uncertain world. He did so in a world which has a Bosnian 
situation, which is set to explode, which has North Korea acquiring 
nuclear weapons, which has Communist China claiming all of the 
territory in the South China Sea, and building warship bases in the 
South China Sea, and with four former Soviet States continuing to 
maintain nuclear weapons and continuing to experience a political 
situation which, I think, can still be described as unstable.

                              {time}  1600

  We still live in a very dangerous world. This Congress does not lead 
in foreign policy. I acknowledge that, as a Member of the minority 
party in the House, the Republican party. We do not run foreign policy. 
Under the Constitution, we are not supposed to run foreign policy or 
run our military operations. The Commander-in-Chief runs our military 
operations. He is the leader in foreign policy.
  But we do have an obligation, and that obligation is to keep our 
military strong. We, Mr. Speaker, have not been carrying out that 
obligation. We have not been keeping our military strong, and we are 
returning to the hollow forces of the 1970's. I think that has been 
stated as strongly as it possibly can be stated by members of the Joint 
Chiefs, who do not want to blatantly say our President is erring on a 
daily basis, he is cutting too much. They say it as diplomatically as 
they can say it, that readiness is suffering.
  We are at 62 percent of our requirements for equipment maintenance. 
We are cutting 1,700 young people a week out of the military. We are 
taking the Marines that came out of the Bosnian operation, after 6 
months, they were given I understand 12 days at home, and then they 
were sent to the Haitian theater, after 12 days with their families. 
That equates ultimately to a lot of people getting out of the service 
because they simply have to spend more time with their family and their 
quality of family life has been degraded to the point where they can no 
longer stay in the service.
  So, Mr. Speaker, we are creating under the leadership of President 
Clinton a hollow military. We have now some $27 million being taken in 
annually by uniformed families for food stamps. Does that sound like 
1979? It does to me. Statements from the Joint Chiefs about the 
unreadiness, that sounds like 1979.
  We are going to have to understand in this Congress that our first 
social duty to our constituents, to the citizens of the United States, 
is to keep them protected. That protection requires a strong American 
military. And if this President wants to go off and engage in every 
peacekeeping operation and every operation where he thinks the United 
States has an interest, and I think we do have an interest in many of 
these places, you have to be strong, because you do a disservice to 
your uniformed people if you throw them in a fight which you have not 
prepared them for. And that is what we are doing right now.
  Mr. Speaker, let me move on to another issue that is right at the top 
of the list for the American people right now. I think it is at the top 
of the list because the Democrat leadership has kept them in the dark 
and they are trying to figure out what the heck is going on, and that 
is with respect to the Clinton health care plan.
  Presient Clinton put together a health care plan, which I think can 
charitably be described as socialized medicine. It was based on these 
large collectives, or alliances, Government-run alliances, that would 
mete out contracts to insurance companies. You would have a national 
health care board that would put together packages. Every American 
would purchase a package, and if he did not purchase a package, if he 
was caught not buying the Government package, he would be assessed a 
big fine. If you went to a doctor who you thought was the best doctor 
to have an operation on one of your loved ones and you paid him more 
money than the schedule allows, that would be considered bribery. You 
and the doctor could go to jail.
  That was the Clinton health care package. And, you know, the best 
thing that could possibly happen to the Clinton health care package 
happened. We put sunlight on it. The American people got a chance to 
look at it. When they got a chance to look at it, let me tell you, 
Republicans did not kill this package. Republicans are outnumbered by 
almost 100 votes in the House of Representatives. We are outnumbered by 
a big majority in the U.S. Senate. Obviously, the President is a 
Democrat.
  The American people killed President Clinton's first package. That 
package was killed because hundreds of thousands of citizens, many of 
them Democrats, went to their Democrat Congressmen and Senators and 
said, ``Gentleman, I am a small businessman and this is going to 
bankrupt me.'' They said, ``We have seen eye to eye on a lot of issues 
before, but on this one, we don't see eye to eye. If you pass this 
socialized medicine plan, I am going to throw you out of office.''
  That is why Clinton I was killed. Many people, particularly 
Democrats, did not like it.
  It took time to show the American people his package. Unveiling this 
massive 1,300-page package, health care plan, which is your contract, 
the American people's contract, and their provision for medical care 
for the foreseeable future, it took months and months to show them the 
contract they were getting into. But doggone it, you better read this 
contract before you sign it. That was the message given strongly to me 
by my constituents from Imperial Valley and San Diego, CA.

  I read that package, and that is why I came out against it. I read 
it, and I listened to my constituents who also read it.
  Hundreds of thousands of Americans acquainted themselves, millions of 
Americans, acquainted themselves with a lot of the provisions, and I 
would say hundreds of thousands of Americans read most of the Clinton I 
package. We put some sunlight on it. They understood what they were 
getting into it, and they backed off.
  They decided they did not want socialized medicine that would have 
the efficiency of the Social Security System and the compassion of the 
IRS. That is what a lot of them figured they were getting into.
  So President Clinton has admitted that his package cannot pass. But 
what has happened in the last week and a half is that the Democrat 
leadership in this House is putting together a package that is 
presently secret, that is essentially Clinton II. It is called the 
Gephardt plan, or the plan that is named after the wise majority 
leader, Mr. Gephardt, that he is putting together. And the problem with 
it is the American people have not had a chance to see it.
  Let me tell you how many Americans have read the Democrat leadership 
plan that we are supposed to vote on in a few days. Zero. Not a single 
one of the 250 million Americans have read the Democrat health care 
plan.
  We should be saying, my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, let the people see 
it, let the people read it. It is unfair for us to try to vote on a 
plan that our constituents have not had a chance to even look at, when 
it is their right to choose a doctor, their right to run a small 
business, their right to invent a new medicine.
  You know, we are one of the last nations in the world that does not 
have socialized medicine. Theoretically, having socialized medicine is 
a mark of civilization. For all the people who have stood up and said 
we are one of the few nations in the world that doesn't have socialized 
medicine, we ought to have it, I look at places like Cuba, with Mr. 
Castro, who has socialized medicine. China has socialized medicine. A 
lot of other third world nations have socialized medicine. That is not 
a sign of civilization, it is not a sign of sophistication.
  If you look at the other side of that debate, you will see a great 
nation, the United States of America. More than half of all of the 
cures for diseases that are invented annually in the world, are 
invented in the United States. Isn't that interesting?
  That means we invent more cures, more medicines that save lives, than 
all the rest of the nations in the world combined. And I would suggest, 
Mr. Speaker, that that is because we do not have socialized medicine.
  I would suggest that our freedom has been the driver for innovation; 
our freedom has built a health care system that draws Canadians down. 
You know, the Canadian system was health care nirvana, it was heaven on 
Earth, and we had a lot of well meaning groups who came in last year 
and told us how great the Canadian health care system was.
  Then around Christmastime the biggest hospital in Ontario shut down 
for a couple of weeks because they ran out of money. Funny, socialism 
always runs out of money, because governments never spend money in an 
efficient manner.
  So Canadians saw their biggest hospital close down for 2 weeks 
because they ran out of money. Then we discovered something else about 
Canadian health care. There are 177,000 Canadians who are waiting for 
operations. They are waiting in line for operations. Because you know 
what? Socialism causes lines. If you do not think so, go to the Kremlin 
sometime. Take a trip to some of those liberated countries in Eastern 
Europe. Socialism causes lines. And about 25 percent of the people who 
were surveyed in Canada, of those 177,000 waiting in line for an 
operation, 25 percent of them said they are in pain while they wait.

                              {time}  1610

  We looked at other places. We looked at Japan that theoretically 
spends less money on health care. It does spend less money. But do you 
know why they spend less money? Because the average Japanese doctor 
sees 49 patients a day. And I had this impression, I do not know if my 
colleagues, Mr. Speaker, or you have seen that, have read about those 
professional packers that they have in Japan on the subway trains where 
they get everybody they possible can into the train, right at rush 
hour. Then they have two professional packers. These packers are like 
sumo wrestler. They are big, healthy people. They do not hurt anybody, 
but their job is to pack the last possible person that they can get 
into that train. They want to get that guy packed right inside there so 
they can close the doors and go out with a full train.
  That is the impression I had when I read that their doctors see 49 
people a day. They do mass examinations. Americans do not want to walk 
in with 15 or 20 people and do an examination en masse.
  That is Japan. They are heavy on efficiency. They are a little bit 
short on privacy.
  Let us look at Great Britain, which has socialized medicine, that 
socialism that Winston Churchill described as ``shared misery.'' They 
have a system in which senior citizens, elderly people are not given 
lifesaving operations. That is because socialism never works very 
effectively and they ran out of money. So they tell senior citizens who 
are over a certain age, you cannot have this lifesaving operation 
because you have lived a long and full life and you have to fall off 
the tree like a leaf in the autumn and let a younger person have that 
lifesaving operation.

  That is great unless you happen to have fathers and mothers and 
grandfathers and grandmothers who mean something to you and you know 
American families have a lot of grandmothers and grandfathers who mean 
something to them. And so we do not want to have that brand of 
socialized medicine.
  To date this administration has not shown us one model country that 
has a medical system, a socialized medical system that we should 
follow.
  Last, Mr. Speaker, let me talk about something that is kind of near 
and dear to Americans hearts. That is a job. Remember that gentleman 
Herb Kane who stood with the President on a nationally televised 
program and he said, he is a guy who owns Godfather's Pizza. His father 
worked three jobs a day so he could go to college and become a success.
  And Herb Kane said, Mr. President, I have put a pencil to your 
numbers here, to your plan. I will have to fire a lot of people.
  I am paraphrasing him.
  He said, this is not going to work out. I am going to have to close 
down franchises and get rid of folks.
  The President said to him, I do not know why you just cannot raise 
the cost of your pizza.
  I could see a look of shock on Mr. Kane's face and when he addressed 
the Republicans recently, he said, to the effect, if I could get more 
money for my pizzas, I would be doing it. You cannot just raise the 
price of your product and expect to continue in business.
  He said, I am asked by people why I do not feel I have a duty to give 
every single person who works for me a health care plan. He says, that 
is because my first duty is to give them a job. And we are going to 
lose a lot of jobs under socialized medicine. The plan that the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt] is putting together with other 
Democrat leaders right now is socialized medicine. It is socialized 
medicine that is going to require employer mandates. That means 
employers are going to have to pay a big, new tax.
  We have a group that is a think tank, and there is plenty of think 
tanks around the country, but the CONSAD Study Group did an evaluation 
on how many American jobs will be lost under the Ways and Means 
Committee plan, that is the Democrat-controlled committee that 
developed the plan in this House that is being followed by the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt] by the Democrat leadership is 
putting together their socialized medicine plan.
  Let me tell you how many jobs they say will be lost and how many will 
be affected. What is an affected job? It is a job not lost. It is a job 
where you never get any raise. You do not get any raise because your 
employer is spending the money he would have used to give you a raise 
buying this health care plan that he is forced to buy by government.
  So let me tell you:
  Alabama, job loss of 13,000 under this Clinton II plan; jobs 
affected, no raises, 716,000.
  Alaska, 1,200 job losses; 74,000 jobs affected.
  Arizona, 11,000 jobs lost under the Clinton II plan; 640,000 jobs 
affected.
  Arkansas, they have had a lot of experience with this leadership, 
7,000 jobs lost; 398,000 jobs affected.
  California, my State, 108,000 jobs lost under Clinton II; 5,976,000 
affected.
  Colorado, 11,000 jobs lost; 600,000 affected.
  Connecticut, 15,000 lost; 800,000 affected.
  Delaware, 2,800 lost; 154,000 affected.
  District of Columbia, 4,900 lost; over 200,000 affected.
  Florida, 41,000 jobs lost under Clinton II, under the Democrat plan; 
2,300,000 affected.
  Georgia, 23,000 jobs lost; over a million jobs affected by the 
Democrat plan.
  Idaho, 2,700 jobs lost; 153,000 affected.
  Illinois, 47,000 jobs lost; over 2 million affected.
  Indiana, 22,000 jobs lost under the Clinton health care plan; that is 
the one that Democrat leadership are getting ready to ram through the 
House, 1,016,000 affected.
  Iowa, 9,000 jobs lost; 530,000 affected.
  Kansas, 8,000 jobs lost; 469,000 affected. That means no pay raises, 
because your employers have to pay for the health care plan.
  Kentucky, 11,000 jobs lost under the Clinton health care plan; 
610,000 affected.
  Louisiana, 11,000 jobs lost; over 600,000 affected by the Clinton 
health care plan.
  Maine, 4,000 jobs lost; 227,000 affected.
  Maryland, 16,000 jobs lost; 953,000 affected.
  Massachusetts, 29,000 jobs lost; almost a million and a half jobs 
affected.
  Michigan. 36,000 jobs lost under the Democrat health care plan; 
1,800,000 jobs affected. That means no raises.
  Minnesota, 18,000 jobs lost; 900,000 jobs affected.
  Mississippi, 7,000 jobs lost; 375,000 jobs affected.
  Missouri, 20,000 jobs lost; 1 million jobs affected by the Clinton 
health care plan that the Democrat leadership is putting into effect 
right now or putting into final form right now.
  Montana, 1,700 jobs lost; 105,000 affected.
  Nebraska, 5,000 jobs lost; 313,000 affected.
  Nevada, 6,000 jobs lost; 320,000 affected.
  New Hampshire, 4,000 jobs lost under the Democrat health care plan; 
223,000 affected.
  New Jersey, 29,000 jobs lost; 1,600,000 affected. That means no 
raises in wages, under the Clinton health care plan.
  New Mexico, 3,000 jobs lost; 205,000 affected.
  New York 75,000 jobs lost; 3,900,000 affected.
  North Carolina, 28,000 jobs lost; 1,400,000 affected.
  North Dakota, 1,600 jobs lost; 96,000 affected.
  Ohio, 44,000 jobs lost; 2,267,000 affected under the Clinton health 
care plan.
  Oklahoma, 8,000 jobs lost; 466,000 jobs affected.
  Oregon, 8,000 jobs lost; 499,000 affected.
  Pennsylvania, 47,000 jobs lost; 2,450,000 jobs affected.
  Rhode Island, 3 million jobs lost; 202,000 jobs affected.

                              {time}  1620

  That means reduced wages, no wages.
  South Carolina, 12,000 jobs lost; 681,000 affected; South Dakota, 
1,750 jobs lost; 103,000 affected; Tennessee, 19,000 jobs lost, 987,000 
affected; Texas, 55,000 jobs lost, over 3 million affected; Utah, 5,000 
jobs lost, 309,000 affected; Vermont, 1,800 jobs lost, 102,000 
affected; Virginia, 21,000 jobs lost, 1,200,000 affected; Washington, 
16,000 jobs lost, 936,000 affected; West Virginia, 4,000 jobs lost, 
238,000 jobs affected; Wisconsin, 19,000 jobs lost, 1.1 million 
affected; Wyoming, the last one, 930 jobs lost, 60,000 affected.
   Mr. Speaker, the American people are going to be affected for 
decades by any health care plan that we put into effect. We owe them 
what just about any company that wants to sign a contract with you owes 
you, and that is to show you the doggoned contract.
  The Democrat leadership has not shown a single American this health 
care plan that they expect us as Congressmen to sign up to in about 10 
days. They have not let a single American read this contract that is 
over 1,000 pages in length. The American people read the last contract 
and they did not like it. That is why Democrat Congressmen refuse to 
pass it, and Democrat Members of the Senate refuse to pass it.
  Mr. Speaker, let us show this contract to the people, show President 
Clinton II, which is the health care plan that the Democrat leadership 
is putting together in secret right now, to the American people. Let 
the people see it, Mr. Speaker. Let the people read it. I think they 
will do the same thing to this plan that they did to the first plan 
after they got a chance to read it.

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