[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 117 (Thursday, August 18, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                HEALTH CARE REFORM: THE IMPACT OF TAXES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Walker] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the 
minority leader.
  Mr. WALKER. Thank you very much, Madam Speaker.
  I am going to talk a little bit about health care myself this 
evening. I am going to talk, and hopefully be joined by some of my 
colleagues in this effort, about the taxes that are included in a 
variety of health care bills that are before this Congress, and try to 
put into perspective why some of us are concerned about how health care 
will be paid for, if in fact some of those particular measures pass.
  But what I really want to do is begin by putting this into a little 
larger context because I believe the debate about health care also 
characterizes the debate going on in the country and a number of other 
arenas.
  In Washington today the debate is often characterized as between 
conservatives and liberals or Republicans and Democrats or varieties of 
other kinds of groupings and that we have these battles that involve 
those kinds of political factions.
  In my belief, that is not the real battle that is going on here. The 
real battle in Washington today and in the Congress is between those 
who believe that Government is too big and spends too much and another 
faction that believes just as sincerely that bigger Government means a 
better America.
  Now, I number myself among those who believe that Government is too 
big and spends too much. Many of my Republican colleagues, I think, 
would probably be in that same category, although not all. Even some 
Republicans would agree that bigger Government means a better America.
  But the health plans that we are considering here are very much 
involved with those two kinds of philosophies. In one case you have 
some health plans that stem from the idea that Government is too big 
and spends too much, and they are plans oriented toward keeping the 
present system of private care, private choice, and having the free 
enterprise system have a chance to work in health care. That particular 
system has produced the best health care system in the world. Many of 
us think it ought to be kept.
  Those who believe that bigger Government means a better America have 
fashioned some new bills in Washington, some of which are coming before 
us in the form of the Clinton-Mitchell bill and the Clinton-Gephardt 
bill. In those cases they are also not only remaking the health system 
but they are figuring out ways to pay for it that involve new taxes, 
which is the subject of our special order this evening. This is 
happening in the context of an America where more and more people are 
coming to the conclusion that they need to take more responsibility for 
their own lives and that other people need to take more responsibility 
for their own lives. They also believe Government needs to have more 
accountability. It should not grow bigger; as a matter of fact, it 
ought to get smaller and be more accountable to the people.
  And they want some idea of a hopeful future. They want some hope 
about what future generations are going to have in this country. In 
fact, many Americans think that one of the goals that we should be 
pursuing is the renewal of the American dream.
  Now, I would contend that it is very, very difficult for more people 
to assume responsibility for their own lives if you raise their taxes, 
if you cut their wages and you take away their jobs.
  I would also contend that it is very difficult to hold people more 
accountable within their own communities and hold the Nation more 
accountable if what we are doing to Americans is raising their taxes, 
cutting their wages and taking away their jobs.
  And I would suggest there is very little hope involved in any kind of 
measures that pass the Congress that in fact raise the taxes of 
Americans, cut the wages of Americans, and take away the jobs of 
Americans.

                              {time}  1940

  And yet, and yet, the proposals that have been brought to us in the 
form of the Clinton-Mitchell health care plan and the Clinton-Gephardt 
health care plan would have exactly that impact on the country.
  I am not going to discuss the problems that it would create for 
health care. I believe that these are plans that would create massive 
problems in the delivering of health care in the country, but I am not 
going to talk about those this evening. I am going to talk about the 
economics of the plans, and in those plans I am going to suggest that 
those plans have the potential for raising taxes, cutting wages, and 
taking away American jobs, and that is, in fact, a major concern, I 
think, for all of us if that is, in fact, what this Congress is going 
to do. I believe it is, and that will be a part of our discussion this 
evening.
  What I would like to do is yield, first of all, to my colleague from 
Colorado [Mr. Allard] who is working with me on a task force looking 
into this whole problem of the tax problem within the health care plans 
and how those taxes can lead to cutting wages, increasing the tax 
burden on Americans, and taking away their jobs, and I yield to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. ALLARD. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Walker]. I would also like to compliment you, Mr. Walker, on your 
fine work on the floor and your fine work on this issue because 
unfortunately there are too many Members of Congress that do not want 
to talk about the cost of health care, who want to continually talk 
about the benefits, but somehow or the other this is going to end up in 
a free ride. Nobody is going to have to pay for it, and every American 
knows that you are not going to get something for nothing, that the 
costs have to come from somewhere, and that is why this discussion is 
so very critical.
  The focus that I would like bring to this discussion is as somebody 
who has been in business for himself. I came to the Congress as a small 
business man. I was a veterinarian, started my own business, and I 
understand how sensitive small businesses are to just small changes in 
tax rates, and here we are, for example, with the Mitchell-Gephardt 
plans that are talking about tax increases that are going----
  Mr. WALKER. That is Clinton-Mitchell and Clinton-Gephardt.
  Mr. ALLARD. That is right. We got the Clinton-Mitchell and the 
Clinton-Gephardt plans that have been put out before us.
  We are talking about increases of revenue. Most of them are tax 
increases that are going to be applied to the insurance policy, going 
to amount somewhere to a hundred billion dollars. That is a 20-percent 
increase in the income tax. Now----
  Mr. WALKER. Now wait. Let us clarify that. You are suggesting that 
the tax increases involved in these two health care plans could amount 
to as much as a hundred billion dollars a year, which is the equivalent 
of a 20-percent increase in income taxes in the country.
  Mr. ALLARD. A 20-percent increase in personal income taxes in this 
country, and what that does is that takes away from the spendable 
resources that individuals have.
  Many small business people are individuals because they do not have a 
large enough company or large enough business to incorporate or to get 
organized, so they fall under this individual, and this is money that 
is going to be taken from their net profit and sent to Washington----
  Mr. WALKER. But you are not suggesting that any of these plans 
actually come right out and include a 20-percent increase in the income 
taxes for Americans; are you?
  Mr. ALLARD. Well, the effect----
  Mr. WALKER. Effect is that, but in actuality what they have done is 
they have nicely hidden down in a lot of these bills a lot of taxes 
that they then do not want to discuss; is that not the case?
  Mr. ALLARD. There is a lot of little taxes hidden in all these 
proposals. One of them has 12 taxes, and another one has somewhere 
around 17 taxes. But the biggest composite of all this is what we call 
premium taxes.
  Now I had a proposal in the Committee on the Budget that said that 
any mandated revenues and mandated expenditures had to be on budget. 
Now the reason that is so very important to this discussion and so very 
important to the American people is that, when we talk about premiums, 
people get the impression that we are talking about premiums, people 
get the impression that we are talking about something that is 
voluntary, you go down and decide you need your insurance, you pay for 
this voluntary assessment so you can get your coverage, but in this 
case it is a mandated revenue. In other words, you are going to be 
required to pay it by the Federal Government, and, if you do not pay 
it, there is going to be some kind of dire consequences.
  That in my mind is a tax. That is so important to why we framed this 
discussion about what is going to have an actual impact on budget and 
not off budget. If it is off budget, there is no accountability on 
expenditures, no accountability on revenues, and the American people, I 
believe, want accountability on the health care system. That is part of 
their concern today.
  Mr. WALKER. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] would like to 
join us here, and I would be happy to recognize him at this point.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Walker] for yielding to me.
  The question that I had when you were talking about this, you are 
basically talking about the old payroll tax concept, but has a few 
fancy slick titles, but it is still the payroll tax; is that correct?
  Mr. ALLARD. In my view it is going to have an impact on the bottom 
line on what the employee is going to take home. It is going to have an 
impact on the bottom line, what the employer has available to create 
new jobs and to buy new equipment----
  Mr. WALKER. The gentleman from Georgia makes an interesting point 
here, and it is an important point. Every time you hear someone talk 
about an employer mandate, that is a fancy word. What it means is 
payroll tax because when you say employer mandate, a lot of people say, 
``Well, that's not me. I'm not an employer. I work for an employer. 
Sounds to me as though my employer is going to get stuck for more 
money. Maybe that is a bad thing or good thing, but it really doesn't 
affect me.''
  What they have not heard is that employer mandate is an 80-20 split, 
which means that 20 percent of the cost of this they are going to pay. 
Employer mandate is really an employer-employee mandate with employees 
picking up 20 percent of the costs of all of these programs----
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, now I understand a lot of 
unions have 100 percent of it paid by their employer, so what you are 
saying, if I have constituents who are members of a union, they are 
actually going to lose 20 percent.
  Mr. WALKER. Right. At the present time anybody that has 100-percent 
health coverage at their place of work will now be required to pay 20 
percent under the plan that has been put fourth here called the 
Clinton-Gephardt plan because they have an 80-20 split, and so it 
becomes a 20-percent payroll tax or--or 20 percent of the overall 
payroll is going to be paid by those union workers in your district. 
That is absolutely correct.
  Mr. KINGSTON. So a rank and file union member working in a papermill 
in south Georgia who is maybe making $20,000 to $25,000 a year better 
be aware that he is about to lose a substantial portion of his payroll 
if this socialized medicine plan ever passes.
  Mr. WALKER. If Clinton-Gephardt passes, there is absolutely no doubt 
that that employer is going--employee is going to end up with an 
additional payroll tax, and most employees now have awakened to the 
fact that that is real money. For most employees out there at the 
present time, for most middle class employees, for most average 
families in this country, they pay more in Social Security payroll 
taxes than they pay in income taxes, and so this is a very, very real 
expense in the pocketball when you start talking about that level of 
payroll tax.
    
    
  But let me tell the gentleman the gentleman from Colorado was 
mentioning another thing. There is a premium tax. If you go over to the 
Clinton-Mitchell bill, there they do not have the payroll tax in it as 
such. Over there what they have done is they have put in place a 1.75, 
1\3/4\-percent tax on all private and self-insured health care plans, a 
premium tax on your actual health insurance. So, get this:
  If you are buying health insurance, what they are now going to do is 
tax the health insurance that you are buying to take care of your 
health, and so what they are going to do is raise the price of all 
health insurance all across the country that not only then affects the 
employee and the employer, but it also has a massive inflationary 
impact on the society because all of a sudden you have raised the cost 
of health care all the way across the board by taxing the premiums on 
your health care policy.

                              {time}  1950

  To those union workers in your district that have particularly good 
health care plans, guess what? They are going to pay particularly more, 
because this is an 1.75-percent tax on the entire premium of the 
insurance.
  Mr. ALLARD. If the gentleman would yield, obviously you are not going 
to get something for nothing. We talk about the current payroll taxes 
for Medicare, and then we have Medicaid. We are talking about 60 
million people covered by both. We have now got a program that is going 
to bring in another 60 million people. And no matter whether you do 
something to try and keep yourself healthy, right now there are 
incentives in the system to be healthy. If a business sets up a health 
plan for regular checkups, exercise, and whatnot, they can do things to 
try and control their health care costs.
  This is an uncontrollable cost that is going to go to individuals. It 
is going to go to the business people. It is a payroll tax that hits 
both sides. It hits the employer and the employee, no matter what you 
do, and I think that is devastating.
  Mr. WALKER. You know, that is kind of interesting. We wanted to make 
certain we are bipartisan in some of this. I want to quote here from a 
Dear Colleague letter we recently got from one of our Democratic 
colleagues who tells us that when all these premium taxes are added up, 
it really is not going to pay for better health care. He makes the 
point, quoting from Congressman Tim Penny, ``Over half of the new taxes 
in the leadership bill,'' which is the Clinton-Gephardt bill, ``come 
from premium payments for non-enrolling employees.'' Listen to this. 
``These are fees the employers pay for employees covered somewhere 
else, through their spouse, et cetera. Until the year 2003, the 
Treasury keeps this money to finance the cost of the legislation, 
thereby helping the 10-year outlook tremendously. After 2003, this 
money would be returned to the employer who provides the insurance.''
  Why isn't this money given to the employer who provides the insurance 
immediately? Because the money is needed to cover the higher health 
costs in the first 10 years.
  So they are boosting the health care cost. They are charging the 
employees. We are going to collect the money here, use it to make the 
books look better, and everybody loses. The employee loses, the 
employer loses, everybody loses, and we get tremendously more expensive 
health care in the country.

  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, the thing that I have been 
told about Medicare during its first 5 years is that it was 70 percent 
over projection. So the cost of that, and when we are talking bills and 
billions of dollars, it is so important to remember, 70 percent over 
projection, when as the gentleman from Colorado says, we are talking 
about a $100 billion cost, we have absolutely no idea what we are 
talking about in truth, because we cannot predict over-utilization.
  Another thing, my office is getting bombarded by provider groups 
saying ``I want to be in on the standard benefit package.'' The history 
of these State-run programs in places like Hawaii is that new provider 
groups every year have come in and said include this, include that. And 
as they do, that $100 billion that the gentleman talked about goes 
through the roof. Then the payroll tax will not be just the end of it. 
There will be more and more taxes.
  Mr. WALKER. The history of payroll taxes is every time you have one, 
it keeps increasing. It is always for things that look like they are 
good reasons. But the bottom line is that they have a tremendous impact 
on the pocketbook of the average American family, and it keeps that 
American family from being able to be responsible for itself. It keeps 
that family from being able to pursue the things that it regards as 
most important, because too much of its money is headed back to 
Washington or someplace else in payroll taxes, that they end up not 
being able to afford.
  Mr. ALLARD. On this discussion on the cost to the employer and the 
cost to the employee, I am looking at a study here put out by the 
Heritage Foundation. They are talking about the impact on both the 
employer and the employee. Here is a chart that talks about the wage 
effects of the Gephardt bill, for example. It applies to my State of 
Colorado.
  It states here the net change in wages per employee is $705. In other 
words, that employee is going to take home that year $705 less than 
what he has been all along, without a salary increase.
  Then let us look at the other side and how that is going to impact 
the small businessman or the employer. It says here that we are looking 
at a cost per employee to the business person of $802. So we have the 
employer facing a cost of $802, additional cost per year per employee, 
and then we are looking at each employee is going to be looking at 
taking home $705 less. That is just in the State of Colorado.
  It is going to have an impact on all employers and employees.
  Mr. WALKER. The gentleman raises an interesting point. Recently I was 
contacted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the 
small business organization in Washington, who has done some studies of 
their own. I was shocked to find out that if the Clinton-Gephardt 
health reform bill were to pass, 66,120 Pennsylvanians would end up 
losing their jobs.
  Now, I looked at that figure, and it stunned me. And then all of a 
sudden I realized if you divide that out, that is on an average 3,150 
people in my congressional district that are going to lose their jobs 
as a result of this. It is not just the wages are going to go down, it 
is the fact that actual people are going to lose their jobs, 3,150 
people in my district.
  Then to go along with what the gentleman just said, NFIB looked and 
figured out how many jobs were going to get wage cuts if we passed the 
Gephardt bill. This is a pretty stunning figure. In my State, 539,754 
people are going to end up having their wages cut as a result of this 
bill. That is almost an entire congressional district in my State that 
is going to have their wages cut under this bill.

  In my district, if you average it out, in my district under this, 
25,700 people in my congressional district are going to have their 
wages cut if this bill passes and becomes law.
  Now, I do not know a lot of people in my district that can afford to 
take wage cuts at this point. I sure do not know people who can afford 
to lose their jobs.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Especially after the tax increase they were hit with 
last year.
  Mr. WALKER. They are already paying increased taxes.
  Mr. BECERRA. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. BECERRA. I am interested in the discussion. I had spoken a little 
earlier on some of the issues on health care. I do not know if the 
gentleman from Colorado's figures are accurate or not. We always hear 
figures. Assuming there might be some accuracy in the figures of $705 
less in take-home pay, it seems to me those Coloradans who will now be 
given full coverage at an expensive $705, which is probably 2 month's 
worth of premiums in this day and age, might be benefited by having the 
Gephardt plan if that is the case.
  In terms of the gentleman from Pennsylvania's point that there might 
be 3,000 or so people who might lose their jobs in his congressional 
district, which is again, of course, about the same size as my 
congressional district, I know that the Department of the Treasury has 
told me according to their surveys and studies, and again we can 
question whether they are accurate or not, but that there are 179,000 
people in my congressional district who are not insured. A third of 
those are children. Eighty-five percent of those 179,000 people are 
working, but they do not have insurance.
  Mr. WALKER. Let me tell you how phony those figures are. One of the 
things the figures included in my districts are the Amish. They do not 
have insurance because they do not believe in insurance. Yet they are 
carried as part of the figure here that is told to us about uninsured 
Americans. So I have real questions about whether or not those figures 
reflect much beyond a decision that we ought to have a bigger 
government that provides health care for everyone.
  I do not believe, to begin with, that that is possible to happen. But 
second, I also question whether or not the cost is too enormous. For 
many of those people that the gentleman from Colorado was talking 
about, their employers cover them pretty fully with health care 
insurance right now. What you are saying to them is you ought to give 
up $705 so that other people who are not covered can get health care 
coverage.
  Mr. BECERRA. I think the gentleman has misconstrued the plan that Mr. 
Gephardt has presented. The majority leader's plan does not say that an 
employer cannot continue to fund 100 percent of a plan. It says the 
employer is only required to fund 80 percent of a plan. If we have 
generous employers who wish to fund 100 percent, that is great. I think 
employees would rather have an employer that would like to fund 100 
percent of a plan. We have too many employers who cannot afford to fund 
80 percent.
  Mr. COX. I assume that the gentleman is aware that the Clinton-
Gephardt bill proposes $7 billion in new taxes on health care premiums 
themselves, a direct tax on individuals who buy health insurance, if 
they happen to be self-employed, and obviously a pass-through tax for 
anyone who gets insurance through their employer.

                              {time}  2000

  That explicit $7 billion tax is just the base of what Martin 
Feldstein has determined is a $100 billion annual tax increase. You 
cannot have a tax increase of this magnitude on the American economy 
without destroying jobs.
  So the real question is not how many people right now are without 
health insurance and how many people right now are at the margin. The 
question is, after this enormous new tax plan passes, $100 billion a 
year, according to the former chairman of the Council of Economic 
Advisors, how many more people will be without jobs and how many more 
people will be on the margin and what overall for America will be the 
reduction in the quality of care and the availability of care?
  If fewer people are working, if we destroy as many jobs as it is 
estimated we shall with this magnitude of tax increase, what will be 
the availability to the Government of revenues necessary to run what is 
obviously the largest expansion of entitlements in American history?
  Mr. WALKER. Just to emphasize the gentleman's point, the total job 
loss under the Gephardt plan, Clinton-Gephardt plan, is 1,323,961 jobs, 
according to NFIB. The numbers of people who will have their wages cut 
under the Clinton-Gephardt plan is 10,986,106 people. Those are 
enormous figures. Imagine, 10 million Americans are going to have their 
wages cut as a result of this plan.
  Mr. BECERRA. The gentleman is being very gracious with the time.
  We do not know if the numbers that we are all talking about are 
accurate or not.
  Mr. WALKER. These are NFIB numbers.
  Mr. BECERRA. Whatever the source might be, we all have to just assume 
that what we are saying is somewhat accurate. But if in fact 10 million 
Americans will now see their wages decrease as the gentleman has 
explained it, is that not as a result of trying to provide these 
Americans who do not have health insurance coverage with coverage?
  I would ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania, how much is he paying a 
month right now for his health insurance?
  Mr. WALKER. I personally pay, I think, about $100 a month.
  Mr. BECERRA. So in 7 months, you would recoup the $705 that you are 
saying the people in your State or the State of Colorado will pay?
  Mr. WALKER. I personally pay that. I do not think anybody, I do not 
think anybody is going to reduce that for me. It is not going to be 
reduced. I still have to pay it right now. Right now I pay 25 percent. 
My guess is that that is exactly what I will end up paying in the end. 
I am not going to have that reduced and no one else is either.
  What the gentleman from California is making the point, and he is 
absolutely right, in addition to that, you are now going to put a 
premium tax on that insurance that is going to cost me more. The cost 
of my insurance is now going to go up because of the premium tax that 
is included in these bills. So you are going to charge me more for my 
insurance now. I am not going to get any break. Maybe some additional 
people are going to get covered, but it is not going to help me.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say this, if you lose your job, even for a good 
intention, like to get health care, you still lose your job. I do not 
think it is the Government's right.
  I want to back up a little bit, because in some way we are talking 
about the paint of a car, the color of a car that we are going to buy, 
but we do not have the money to buy the car. We have all somewhat 
agreed, and if I could paraphrase the gentleman from the other side of 
the aisle, you said we are not sure about these figures, which I agree 
with. We are not sure about these figures at all.
  The reason why we are here, the reason why we were all sent from 435 
congressional districts is to know the figures, know the facts.
  If you all remember political science 101, whatever your background 
is, you know that when a bill is introduced, how a bill become law. It 
is read on the floor of the House. It is referred to a committee. The 
committee assigns it to a subcommittee and sometimes three or four 
subcommittees, sometimes it goes to two or three major committees. Then 
it is reported out of it. It goes to the House floor, comes back for a 
vote.
  During that period of time there are countless hearings, countless 
letters, countless studies done to find out, are we talking 600,000 
jobs or 11 million jobs. How many jobs are we talking about? How much 
money. This is how a bill becomes law.
  If you took it in political science 101 in college, you learned you 
did not need to buy Sominex ever again because this gave you all the 
facts.
  Now, what we are doing with one-seventh of the economy is a little 
bit different. We are talking about the Clinton-Gephardt bill, which we 
do not have, unless any of my colleagues have got the bill. Is there 
anybody here that has a bill?
  Mr. BECERRA. It was printed up as of last week in the Congressional 
Record, every single word.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Has that been distributed to all the Members?
  Mr. BECERRA. It is available now.
  Mr. WALKER. Let me just say, it is available. The problem is, the 
cost estimates are not. A lot of what we are talking about here is cost 
estimates. The cost estimates are not, because it has not been through 
the process. We do not have any idea what some of these provisions 
cost.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And remember, Mr. Gephardt has already said he is going 
to rewrite Clinton's bill. So if you have one right there, that is not 
the bill that your leader has said he is going to rewrite. So here is 
where we are. We are in a position that a bill has been introduced, 
read into the Record, and that is supposed to be it. I do not know any 
other bill that has gone through a process like that. We are voting on 
it because we have been held hostage in Washington, DC.
  The President is going to sign it and, presto, rather than this going 
through a deliberative process and knowing the real numbers on the 
taxes, how we will pay for it and all of that, we are going to have 
this. As a result, the American people are going to have this.
  Mr. COX. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I think we have to 
focus on the numbers we do have. The gentleman is right. We are 
operating in an environment of uncertainty.
  Over in the Senate I understand Senator Mitchell went down to the 
White House tonight to say that his Clinton-Mitchell bill is in 
trouble. We are obviously spinning our wheels here waiting for the 
majority leader to try and put together enough votes on the Democratic 
side so he might be able to bring his bill here to the floor. That is 
why the bill is constantly changing. Because in order to get the votes, 
it has to change.
  But notwithstanding that there is no health care bill that has a rule 
to come to the floor, the Clinton-Gephardt bill that was submitted to 
CBO, that was printed in the Congressional Record that our colleague is 
holding up in the air, has been scored by CBO in such a fashion that 
there are $63 billion per annum, per year, in new taxes on top of 
current levels in addition to the stated taxes in the Clinton-Gephardt 
bill. Those $63 billion have been understated, according to Professor 
Feldstein of Harvard and the National Bureau of Economic Research, by 
yet another $40 billion, getting us to $100 billion.
  Let me illustrate where some of these billions and billions in annual 
new taxes on American working families are coming from.
  Medicaid is nearly abolished by the Gephardt-Clinton bill, a fact of 
which the majority leader is quite proud. We are going to save, he 
believes, all sorts of money by requiring private insurance companies 
to provide Medicaid benefits. But here is the rub, the standard benefit 
plan in the Gephardt bill is much less generous than Medicaid. So what 
poor Americans are now being guaranteed by Medicaid is better than what 
all Americans will get out of the standard benefit package.
  And under the Clinton-Gephardt bill, the Government is going to 
guarantee to the private insurance companies that are now responsible 
for Medicaid only the same subsidy that they are going to pay to all 
Americans for the Government standard benefit plan, even though the 
private companies are going to continue, under the Gephardt-Clinton 
bill, to have to provide the higher level of care that is currently 
guaranteed to Medicaid recipients.
  That is $29 billion of difference outlined in this piece by Professor 
Feldstein and the National Bureau of Economic Research.
  What do you think happens to that $29 billion that insurance 
companies have to pay out but that they do not get from the Government 
for Medicaid recipients? They shift that entire $29 billion cost onto 
the premium payers that are private.
  Mr. WALKER. Over and above the premium tax.
  Mr. COX. This is $29 billion that gets sucked out of working 
Americans' pockets because private insurance companies are mandated by 
law to provide the Medicaid benefits that the subsidies do not 
cover. The money has to come from someplace. That is $29 billion of it 
right there in an annual new tax that is quite nicely hidden inside the 
Clinton-Gephardt bill.

  Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentleman for yielding. You are right, it is 
difficult to read through this. I would not encourage anyone to have to 
read such small print. That is the case with just about any bill you 
pass, because are you dealing with so much language. One thing I did 
not learn in poli sci 101 is politics. For anyone to come to the floor 
of this House and say that we have not had a chance to discuss the guts 
of what is health care reform, I think it is unfair.
  Because my predecessor, I just came in, this is my first year in 
Congress, my first session in Congress, my predecessor, who was here 
for about 30 years, constantly, for years, tried to push through health 
care reform, major health care reform. He was not able to do it.
  We can go back to the early 1970's when President Nixon tried to push 
through similar health care reform as we see on the floor being debated 
today. It is there. Clearly a lot of the components of the Gephardt 
bill were not in language that was seen 4 months ago, 3 months ago. But 
we have debated just about every component of it. Now it is a matter of 
ways to get it scored to see how much it costs so we can have an honest 
debate. But to say that we have not had a chance to discuss 
meaningfully just about every component, I think is an unfair statement 
for the American people to hear.

                              {time}  2010

  Mr. KINGSTON. If I may respond, I find it appalling that you are 
suggesting that cost is not a major component. Listen, we are not 
talking about letting the Government run it. We already know that the 
purpose of the Clinton-Gephardt-Mitchell approach is to let the 
Government run health care. That is not right. We are talking about the 
cost of it, and what you have just said, if I heard you correctly, is 
we have talked about all the major components.
  We believe on this side of the aisle, and I believe most of our 
constituents do, too, that a major component of health care is cost. 
That is what we are talking about here tonight, and we all know we do 
not have any idea what it is truly going to cost. That is why we have 
not even had a bill.
  Mr. WALKER. The gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Allard] has been very 
patient, and I will yield to him.
  Mr. ALLARD. We are throwing billions of dollars here and a billion 
dollars there, Madam Speaker, and I think back to my small business 
background, every $10 made a big difference. I was in the State senate 
and we ran things off to the closest thousand. Here we are talking 
about billions and billions of dollars.
  The bottom line is, is this going to cost us more? It is going to 
cost us jobs and it is going to be reflected in tax rates, the amount 
of taxes people have to deal with.
  Mr. WALKER. All of these billions we are talking about is 3,150 jobs 
in my district that are going to be lost. The people of Lancaster and 
Chester Counties in Pennsylvania are going to lose 3,150 jobs that we 
cannot afford to lose. That is what the billions of dollars mean. That 
means that practically every community in my district will lose at 
least one job, and maybe several. We can talk about the billions, but 
those kinds of specifics do need to be debated here.
  Mr. BECERRA. Are not the four gentlemen on the floor here debating 
one major piece of legislation?
  Mr. ALLARD. We have a lot of people working part time who are going 
to be impacted. They may hold down two or three or four part-time jobs. 
Those are part of the loss that we are going to--that is going to make 
it more difficult for these hard-working Americans on the lower end of 
the pay scale to keep a job, and then to have the revenue that they 
need to support their families.
  Mr. WALKER. I do not think it is going to be the chairman of the 
board of one of my major industries that is going to lose his job. My 
guess is it is going to be people who can ill afford to lose their 
jobs, who are going to be those who are out jobs as a result of this.
  Mr. BECERRA. If the gentleman will continue to yield, and I thank the 
gentleman for yielding again, it seems to me that one of the important 
things that the four gentlemen here are excluding or omitting from 
their discussion in talking only about the Government taxes that may be 
increased, is what I would call private taxes that are already 
increasing upon all Americans, either insured or uninsured.
  We have a system where close to $1 trillion right now is being spent 
on health care, yet we have about 39 million Americans who are not yet 
covered. If we let things continue the way they are going, in the next 
6 years, by the time we hit the next century, we are going to see that 
the cost will have increased dramatically on Americans.
  So whether we call it a tax from the Government or a tax from private 
industry which has not been able to corral its costs, there is still a 
tax. Whether it is paid out to the Government or paid out to an 
insurance company in a premium or a copayment or a deductible, it is 
still coming out of the pocket of the American people. We have to take 
the whole picture into account.

  Mr. WALKER. I say to the gentleman, before yielding to the gentleman 
from California, private industries pay taxes, they do not create 
taxes. Taxes are that which is coerced out of people's pockets by 
government. That is what is happening here. I will tell the gentleman, 
that is very specifically what this special order is all about.
  We are talking here tonight about what is going to end up being 
coerced out of the pocketbooks of working Americans as a result of the 
passage of the Clinton-Gephardt plan. In our view, that is a legitimate 
subject, because the Clinton-Gephardt plan is in fact a big-Government 
plan that relies on big-Government taxes.
  We want the American people to understand that those big taxes are 
going to impact on them; that when many people on your side of the 
aisle talk about employer mandates, the American people need to really 
know that is a payroll tax. We are talking about a payroll tax, a 
payroll tax that is not only going to take more money out of their 
pockets but is going to cost some of them their jobs.
  I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. COX. I think the gentleman is quite right to focus on this very 
euphemistic term, ``employer mandate.'' It is a payroll tax, and it is 
a substantial one. Of course, a payroll tax is a tax on jobs. It is not 
only a tax on people who currently work, but it is the worst of all, a 
prohibitive penalty tax on people who do not yet have jobs, because it 
raises the cost of creating that new job.
  If you are trying to get your first job, if you are unemployed and 
you are looking for work, would it not be a shame if that job that you 
might have gotten is destroyed because a new tax was placed on that job 
that made the cost of hiring you prohibitive, and the employer could 
not hire the margin worker?
  What we are looking at with $100 billion in annual new taxes, 
according to professor Martin Feldstein, again, at Harvard, the former 
chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and the 
National Bureau of Economic Research, is the equivalent of raising 
personal income taxes 20 percent across the board.
  Mr. WALKER. Can you imagine the outcry that would happen if they 
actually put that in the bill, that they were going to raise personal 
income taxes 20 percent to pay for all of the things they want to do?
  Mr. COX. If the gentleman will yield, of course that is exactly what 
is in the bill. The fact that we have not had time to read it in 
committee, as has been pointed out so eloquently, is the only reason 
that more people are not aware of the fact that we do in fact have such 
an enormous increase in taxes in this bill.
  Let me just explain where $13 billion of that new annual tax burden 
comes from. It comes from Medicare cuts. Again, the majority leader is 
proud of the fact that his bill cuts Medicare. The bill actually 
requires that hospitals and other providers continue to provide the 
same level of Medicare services, no reduction in the services that they 
are required to provide, but it cuts billions of dollars, $13 billion a 
year, out of what they can get for it.
  Naturally, the hospitals and the providers are going to have to shfit 
that cost onto their paying patients and onto people who are privately 
insured, so that those people, working Americans who are not getting 
the Government subsidies, are going to pay 100 percent of this new $13 
billion annual tax.

  That, taken together with the $29 billion annual tax from the 
Medicaid shift to private insurance without an accompanying sufficient 
subsidy, and the $7 billion in explicit new taxes on health care 
premiums, of all things--obviously we were supposed to be reducing the 
cost of health care in this exercise, and now we are levying a tax 
directly on the health care insurance itself, and that is on all health 
insurance, I should add, in the Gephardt bill. Over in the other body 
the Mitchell bill has a 25-percent tax, a huge tax on any insurance 
plan that does not fit the prescribed form of the national benefit 
plan.
  Mr. WALKER. So in other words, if you get one of these good plans 
that some people around here call the Cadillac plan, the Mitchell-
Clinton bill would actually tax those plans?
  Mr. COX. That is exactly right. But here the Gephardt plan is going 
to tax you even if you do conform with the standard benefit plan, the 
one-size-fits-all plan for America. When you add all these taxes 
together, that is where $7 billion, the premium tax, $20 billion, the 
Medicaid tax, $13 billion, the Medicare annual tax that I explained, 
$27 billion in additional tax burden on the American people that 
Professor Feldstein explains will be caused by people changing their 
behavior to, in essence, game the system, so they qualify for more 
subsidies, all that adds up to $100 billion a year in new taxes, or the 
equivalent of a 20-percent income tax increase across the board for all 
Americans. It is just extraordinary to think of the economic impact 
this will have on America. It will destroy jobs.
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Eddie Bernice 
Johnson].
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Could I just get a clarification, 
Madam Speaker?
  Are you speaking about the working people that have no opportunity to 
be covered on their jobs by private insurance, those people that other 
working people have to take care of, simply because they have no 
mechanism by which to pay their insurance? Is that the population you 
are speaking about?
  Mr. WALKER. What I'm talking about is the fact that the increased 
taxes that are in the Clinton-Gephardt bill are going to, in fact, cost 
a lot of those people their jobs. In fact, I gave a figure earlier, 
before you came here: 3,150 people in my area, according to the 
National Federation of Independent Businesses, are going to actually 
lose their jobs; 25,700 people in Lancaster and Chester Counties, PA, 
are going to have their wages cut as a result of this bill. A lot of 
those are people who can ill afford to have their wages cut.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Are you telling me that 
businesses would rather lay people off than share the cost of their 
insurance?
  Mr. WALKER. What I am telling you is that the cost of the taxes that 
are included in this bill are in fact going to have impact. I realize 
there are a lot of people in the Congress who think we can pass taxes 
and they have no economic impact. The fact is they do have economic 
impact, and it causes people to lose jobs.
  In this particular case the enormity of the taxes is going to cause 
literally, according to NFIB, 10,968,106 million Americans to have 
their wages cut, and over 1 million Americans will lose their jobs.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. What is this going to cost the 
working people, unless they have the opportunity to pay for their own 
insurance? A lot of working people do not have the opportunity to pay 
for their own insurance.

                              {time}  2020

  Mr. WALKER. Our point has been the working people are going to pay a 
terrible price here.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. They already are, paying for 
those people who have no opportunity to pay for their own private 
insurance because their companies will not offer them a plan. These are 
the companies that are pulling out of the taxpayers' pockets because 
they will not offer an opportunity to people to pay for their own 
insurance.
  Mr. WALKER. The gentlewoman has a rather strange view of the American 
economy, but I would say that I thoroughly agree--as I said to begin my 
remarks, I thoroughly believe that there are many people on your side 
who believe that bigger Government leads to a better America. That is 
exactly what I am hearing.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. We are not talking about a bigger 
Government. We are talking about an opportunity to stop paying so many 
taxes for working people. We want them to have the opportunity to pay 
the taxes for themselves by having an opportunity to have their own 
insurance.
  Mr. WALKER. Your opportunity is more taxes on both employees and 
employers.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. You like saying that. But that is 
not the truth.
  Mr. WALKER. It is.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not true that the Michel and Rowland-Bilirakis 
plan does address the working poor, that $5-an-hour brick mason who may 
work 8 months a year, he is serviced by the Rowland-Bilirakis plan 
without a tax increase? He gets to keep his job and his insurance.
  Mr. WALKER. There are a number of options around here other than the 
Clinton-Gephardt big Government plan.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. You want to protect those 
businesses who do not want to protect their employees.
  Mr. WALKER. Madam Speaker, I think I have been very generous in terms 
of yielding time here on both sides, and I am willing to do that, but I 
think that we ought to be given the courtesy of pursuing the issue that 
we brought to the floor. I will be very happy to yield to the 
gentlewoman and allow her to have some time, too, but I wish she would 
allow my colleagues to make their points without trying to outshout 
them. It seems to me we ought to have a dialogue here that is helpful 
and does not become a shouting match. I will be very happy to yield in 
a way that makes that happen.

  Mr. COX. I think I can answer the gentlewoman's question directly 
from the Congressional Budget Office report that we have seen on the 
bill that we are discussing. The CBO's report, and I am reading from 
it, and this is a quote, acknowledges that the effective marginal levy 
on labor compensation, and now we are talking about, in other words, 
the effective marginal tax on labor compensation could increase by as 
much as 30 to 45 percent for workers in families eligible for low-
income subsidies, the very people we are supposedly trying to help, so 
that ``some low-wage workers would keep as little as 10 cents of every 
additional dollar earned.'' This is a quote from the Congressional 
Budget Office report on the bill. This is how steep the effective 
marginal taxes are on low-wage workers. Of course the ultimate tax is 
losing your job.
  Virtually all economists agree that if there is a new payroll tax, it 
is going to have to come out of either employee wages or other fringe 
benefits or it will result in reduced employment. All of the studies 
presented to the Joint Economic Committee, whether it is from the Rand 
Corporation, the State of California or what have you all show that 
that is where the money comes from. That is how the cost is paid. And 
the only tradeoff is some people say that you lose a few more jobs and 
you do not reduce wages quite as much. Other studies say, no, you 
reduce wages a lot and you do not lose quite as many jobs. Everybody 
agrees that you lose jobs and you cut wages. Of course if the magnitude 
of the tax is $100 billion a year, it is just absolutely mind-boggling 
to contemplate what an enormous tax increase this is. It makes last 
year's largest tax increase in history pale by comparison. It is 
absolutely certain that we are hurting low-wage working Americans. The 
Joint Economic Committee found in a report by our staff economists that 
the people bearing the greatest burden from this so-called employer 
mandate, the new health care payroll tax, are people with annual 
incomes of $14,000 to $24,000. Those are the people that are bearing 
the burden.
  Mr. ALLARD. The bottomline is we are pulling in 60 million Americans 
over and beyond the 60 million that are covered by Medicare and 
Medicaid. We have to pay for this additional coverage some way. The 
only way we are going to do that is we are going to have to apply a 
tax. I was looking at some figures here that is looking at somewhere 
around $100 billion.

  Mr. WALKER. That is $100 billion a year.
  Mr. ALLARD. One hundred billion dollars a year. We are talking about 
part-time employees. I am trying to think here. Who are part-time 
employees? It might be the neighborhood fellow over here that cuts your 
lawn. It may be someone you hire to come in and clean your house. It 
might be someone you are paying to baby-sit your pet or even baby-sit 
your child. So when you stop to think about the myriad of part-time 
jobs that we have in this economy, it is not hard to understand how you 
lose jobs when you have these expenses that go over--we are not talking 
about large corporations, these are individuals who hire people to come 
in and do work for them on a part-time basis. When both parties get hit 
with these types of tax increases, it reduces productivity, it has an 
adverse impact on revenue to the Federal Government, to everybody. And 
there is a limit there on how high we can go on taxing people, and I 
think that is a lot of what this discussion is about.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. I just want to clarify with my 
colleagues. When working poor, marginal workers, whatever way you want 
to define them, have no opportunity to pay for their own insurance, are 
you not keenly aware that taxpayers pay that bill? Are we not going to 
look for an opportunity for them to have a way to pay their own way 
with it being shared by the employer? Or do you expect that the working 
people are going to continue to pick up the tab for both the employer 
and the employee?
  Mr. WALKER. I would say to the gentlewoman, that is exactly what we 
attempt to do in both the Michel bill that is here and the Rowland-
Bilirakis bipartisan bill.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. That is what is being done in the 
Gephardt bill.
  Mr. WALKER. One of the provisions in there is aimed at providing the 
kinds of encouragement that employers need in order to provide that 
kind of broad-based insurance, and we believe that that will help in 
the situation. Does it solve the entire situation? No, it does not. But 
it provides coverage for millions more Americans than now have 
coverage. But it does so without raising taxes.
  What the gentlewoman is suggesting is, it seems to me, that the 
country is better off if we simply raise taxes, grow Government bigger, 
because that will help these people.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. You have grossly misunderstood 
me. May I clarify my point?
  Mr. WALKER. Sure. Go ahead. I yield to the gentlewoman.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. I know that it is important to 
you to label my side of the hall here as tax-and-spend. That seems to 
be quite important. But the truth of the matter is the Gephardt bill is 
attempting to take some of the burden off middle-class America so that 
persons who are working can have an avenue by which to help pay for 
their own insurance.
  Mr. WALKER. I would say that I think we are attempting that in the 
proposals that we will put forth as alternatives.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. We are talking about people 
taking on their own responsibilities. Not raising taxes.
  Mr. WALKER. Once again, I remind the gentlewoman that I control the 
time and I would like an opportunity to answer without her outshouting 
me.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. I am listening.
  Mr. WALKER. We think that we do provide the opportunity within the 
alternative bills that we have put forward for people to have those 
kinds of plans and that we do so without raising taxes, but I would 
simply say to the gentlewoman that the tax plans that are a part of the 
Gephardt-Clinton plan that you endorse in fact will lead most of those 
low- and middle-income Americans or for many of them to a situation 
that is going to raise their taxes, cut their wages, and take away 
their jobs. We simply say that that is unacceptable, that is 
unacceptable as national policy. You may think that there is a common 
good at the end of that process that justifies doing that, but I 
suggest to you, when you raise people's taxes, cut their wages, and 
take away their jobs, you have done something wrong.
  Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Are you assuming that employers 
are just that unscrupulous? It sounds to me that you are assuming that 
the employers are irresponsible, that they do not want to take on their 
proper share.
  Mr. WALKER. I am not assuming that at all. I am assuming that if you 
give them the kind of incentives that they have in the Rowland-
Bilirakis bill that they will be very happy to step forward and do this 
and in fact will do much more than the initial estimates suggested. But 
right now we have provided disincentives within our State for that. We 
want to reincentivize the economy to allow employers to step up to that 
plate and we think that is possible, and you can do so without raising 
taxes, without cutting jobs, and without cutting wages.

                              {time}  2030

  It seems to me that is the right thing to do. Let me yield to the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston].
  Mr. KINGSTON. I think it is important for us to recognize that there 
are philosophical differences as to what the role of Government should 
be in private industry, in health care, in individual people's lives. I 
think that less Government is better Government. I think often the 
Government goes into this picture of the struggling middle class who 
wakes up in the morning and hopes Government will do something for him 
or her, and I find that kind of like getting fish out of the water to 
keep them from drowning when the Government gets involved. I do not 
think the middle class sits forlornly and says only the Government is 
going to get me out of this one.
  You know we have a good bill that does not turn health care over to 
the Government in the Michel bill.
  But there is also the bipartisan Rowland-Bilirakis bill with many of 
the same things like eliminating preexisting illness, doing away with 
some of the antitrust problems with the hospitals and health care 
providers, some tort reform and no tax increases.
  But there are philosophical differences here, and really what we are 
debating as much as anything is that there are good alternatives here. 
There are two fundamental questions to health care. First, who is going 
to run it? In the Gephardt bill it already says the Government is going 
to run it in its entirety because that is the bottom line of universal 
care. The second question is, Who is going to pay for it? The debate 
here tonight is really we are not willing to engage in the first 
question because we have already made up our mind and the other side of 
the aisle has made up their mind on that. But what we are talking about 
is who is going to pay for it, and that is why it is so important we 
talk.
  Mr. BECERRA. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I want to do a summation and I am told I am down to about 
my last 3 minutes.
  Mr. BECERRA. I will be brief.
  Mr. WALKER. I yield briefly to the gentleman.
  Mr. BECERRA. Madam Speaker, I think it is important to point out that 
the bills that the gentleman has referred to, all three gentlemen have 
referred to, the Republican proposals and the Rowland-Bilirakis bill do 
not cover anyone, in fact probably leave close to 25 million Americans 
without insurance, which means, as my colleague from Texas tried to 
point out, which means again middle-class taxpayers will again have the 
burden of the problem of paying for the health care costs for those 
uninsured.

  Mr. WALKER. Let me say to the gentleman if I can just take back my 
time, we simply do not agree with that. That is your analysis of the 
bill designed to try to say that these bills are going to fail. I agree 
with what the gentlewoman from Texas told us here a minute ago, that 
employers, given the right incentives, will step up to the plate, and 
if they do, we will cover far more than the numbers of people the 
gentleman suggests in some of these wild kinds of figures that he gives 
us.
  Mr. BECERRA. This is actual fact. If the gentleman will yield, there 
was a study done in New York based on incremental reform. This was done 
in New York which showed that very few people became insured. As a 
result, the middle-class taxpayer still held the burden of paying the 
bills for the uninsured, and that is what happens when you have 25 
million Americans who remain uninsured. The middle-class taxpayer 
always has the burden.
  Mr. WALKER. Let me say to the gentleman, there can be no study made 
of the Rowland-Bilirakis plan or the Michel plan because they simply 
were not introduced in this House until a couple of days ago. There is 
no way that there can be a study that covers all of the various 
component parts of those bills that we think add up to an incentive 
system. There is no plan across the country that does that. The 
gentleman simply does not have a study that is relevant to the plans 
that are before us.
  Mr. BECERRA. We have a case study of New York, if the gentleman will 
yield.
  Mr. WALKER. You have a case study of New York and a plan that is much 
different than anything that has been introduced in this House. So it 
seems to me it is not a relevant kind of program.
  The point of this special order tonight, let me just make the point 
again, the point of this special order tonight is to suggest that you 
never get something for nothing. If the American people want to assume 
responsibility for their own lives, they do not want the Clinton-
Gephardt plan because the Clinton-Gephardt plan is in fact more big 
Government interfering in their lives. The Clinton-Gephardt plan then 
not only interferes in their lives in terms of health care coverage, it 
takes money specifically away from them, and it does so in increased 
taxes that go across the board in many, many different ways. Those 
increased taxes will in fact not only come out of their pocketbook and 
reduce the amount of money that they have to spend on themselves, but 
it will in fact cut their jobs and cut their wages.

  For most middle class Americans that I am aware of, the thing that 
they can ill afford at the present time is to have their taxes raised, 
their job cut and their wages cut. Yet those are the impacts of the 
Clinton plan on America.
  We are simply suggesting that whatever good you hear about the things 
that you are going to get out of the plan, remember that there is a 
cost to the Clinton-Gephardt plan. The Clinton-Gephardt plan is aimed 
not at improving health care for most Americans, because most Americans 
are very satisfied with the health care that they now have. It is aimed 
at, as some people have mentioned here tonight, kind of spreading the 
cost, redistributing the money, and in the redistribution what they end 
up doing is raising taxes, cutting jobs and cutting wages.
  Now I think that America has to make a choice. Middle-class America 
cannot afford to have their job cut, cannot afford to have their wages 
cut, and cannot afford to have their taxes raised. That is what the 
Clinton plan promises, and it is something which we think America needs 
to fully understand.
  I yield briefly to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. All I want to say is I think one of the big differences 
tonight is the figures of 25 million jobs, or uninsured people, or 100 
million in costs, whatever. That is why I think it is in our own 
judicial interest to have a good process with a health care bill, with 
all of the facts and figures laid out on the table.
  I also want to thank our friends on the other side of the aisle for 
joining us tonight. As your favorite talk show host, Rush Limbaugh 
says, it is like hitting the ball over the net without an opponent when 
you do not have anyone to talk to.
  Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentleman for yielding me so much of his 
time.
  Mr. WALKER. I thank the gentleman.

                          ____________________