[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 109 (Tuesday, August 9, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 9, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       AVOID THE ENTITLEMENT TRAP

  (Mr. GOSS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GOSS. Mr. Speaker, it is no secret the health reform debate has 
become one huge political temptation. To create the momentum needed to 
move such a massive bill, President Clinton's spin doctors have made 
the glowing promise of new and cheaper benefits the mantra of every 
single stump speech. And now they are daily stump speeches. While these 
unfulfillable promises make good for election year sound bites, 
Americans wisely are not buying so say the polls. We on the hill cannot 
ignore fiscal reality.
  Yesterday, the bipartisan commission on entitlement reform released 
its interim report. It warns very bluntly of our ever-growing and very 
real impending budgetary crisis while certifying that our existing 
health entitlements have been prime engines in driving up entitlement 
costs.
  As we take up health care reform next week, we need to rethink our 
approach. One thing is very sure: We cannot afford to create and 
entrench another entitlement program such as the Clinton health reform 
plan is calling for. And we cannot afford to promise more than we can 
deliver. We already have a $4.5 trillion IOU out there that we call the 
national debt. Can we learn from our mistakes?
  Can we avoid the entitlement trap? Not if we keep telling the 
American people that the Clinton-Gephardt plan is the answer to health 
reform, because it is not.

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