[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 44 (Thursday, March 9, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2977-H2984]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE RESCISSION PACKAGE OF THE REPUBLICAN MAJORITY
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra] is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to come
tonight and speak to my colleagues about something that will be coming
before us next week. That is the Republican majority's rescission
package, which, in essence, is the cuts that were made in the Committee
on Appropriations in the last week or two to the tune of about $18
billion, cuts that are going to be used, we first were told, for
purposes of trying to finance the disaster relief efforts in places
like California, as a result of the Northridge earthquake; in
[[Page H2978]] places like Florida, that still have some final tasks to
be done to take care of the hurricane disasters they suffered from;
northern California, earthquake; the Midwest, floods; a number of
different disasters that this country has experienced over the last
couple of years.
Unfortunately, if you take a closer look at this rescission package,
you see something very, very disturbing. I would like to go into that a
bit.
Again, the rescission package, what it really means in plain English
is that we have wiped out funding for certain programs which have
already been approved for such funding. In other words, Mr. Chairman,
last year's budget, which may have allocated $1 for a program, this
past week the Committee on Appropriations went in and decided to make
cuts in particular programs under which it has discretion to do so.
It cannot touch things like Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,
because those are entitlement programs, and they are not discretionary.
The discretionary programs include things like the Department of
Defense, Department of Education, job training, veterans' benefits, and
so forth.
If you are concerned about the quality of public education in this
country, teen drug use, the increasing potential of today's youth being
involved in gang violence, in crime, if you are concerned about
veterans, if you are concerned about housing for seniors that are on a
limited budget, then you have good reason to be very concerned, if not
outraged, about what the majority party has done with regard to this
rescission package.
The majority party's main target, as it turns out, happens to be kids
and senior citizens. The GOP's main beneficiaries in this rescission
package happen to be the very wealthy. Let us take a look at a few
things done through this rescission package.
I have put together a chart here to give us an idea of what happened
with all the cuts that came out of the Committee on Appropriations
recently. Who takes the hit? Of all the cuts, the close to $18 billion
in cuts, 63 percent of those cuts will hit low-income individuals.
Close to two-thirds of all the moneys cut come from programs that help
veterans who are low-income, the elderly who are low-income, children,
$17 billion. It will be interesting, because we will talk about where
that money goes, and it is going to be interesting to find out why we
had to cut $17.5 or so billion.
Mr. Speaker, let me focus a little bit more on where those cuts are
that we see here listed as having hit mostly the low income. Where did
the money come from? For the most part you can see the biggest hit was
taken by housing, housing for seniors, housing for low-income
individuals, housing to help supplement those who are having a tough
time making a living, that are working poor; job training, job
experience. Of all the cuts 14 percent come from job training programs
to help young people and those who are trying to get off of welfare,
and those who are trying to get back on a job because the recession has
caused them to lose their job as a result of downsizing in areas like
the aerospace industry.
{time} 2200
Health care, health cuts, 10 percent. Education, 9 percent. Within
the other 25 percent, I should mention that we list veterans benefits
programs. Let me give some quick details on some of those areas in
cuts.
Housing, $7.2 billion comes from housing; $2.7 billion comes in
rental assistance for low-income families. That is about 62,000
vouchers down the drain, 62,000 families that will not be able to
qualify for some assistance to try to make sure they are able to rent a
place to stay; $186 million comes from housing for persons with AIDS.
In Los Angeles, I can tell you that thousands of people with AIDS will
now probably find as a result that they will be denied certain housing
because that assistance that was being provided for this population of
needy individuals is now being cut.
Job training cuts, $2.35 billion. Included in that is the complete
elimination, not a cut, complete elimination of summer youth employment
programs, $1.7 billion. That is money that has been used in a lot of
different areas, including places like New York, in rural States, in
places like Los Angeles, to try to help youth who otherwise might just
hang around the street corner at night.
The impact on Los Angeles of that cut, well, we can expect about
23,000 kids to be denied job training and classroom instruction over
the next year.
Impact nationwide, probably about 600,000 children, not children,
young adults, will be deprived of a chance to do some good work and
learn something as they prepare themselves to become working adults.
Education, $1.7 billion in cuts. What do we do? Well, eliminate the
drug-free schools program. That is a program to try to make sure kids
don't start using drugs and as we know, most folks who are arrested
these days, it is as a result of using drugs, selling drugs or somehow
drugs are related. Yet we are eliminating the drug-free schools program
that tries to keep drugs out of the school and tries to make sure kids
don't start using or selling drugs.
What else? We eliminate also school construction programs. How many
of our neighborhood schools need some type of refurbishing, how many of
our neighborhoods just need schools? Well, we have eliminated a program
for that. We have got massive reductions in grants to reform schools,
so we finally get caught up in technology. We use money for homeless
youth, to educate homeless youth, that is eliminated.
We have a cut in national service. That is the program that ``Says
young man, young woman, you are interested in going to college, you
want to serve your community, we will give you a little money, pay you
low wage, minimum wage, at the same time we'll also tell you that after
a year you'll have a grant of about $4,700 that can be used for your
education, only for your education. If you go on to college, we'll give
you $4,700 to help offset some of the cost of that education.'' Huge
cut in national service.
Health cuts, $10 million cut in the Healthy Start Program. That is a
program to help working women, poor women who have very little access
to health care. It provides them with prenatal care so that they can
make sure that they do not end up costing the local government and the
community and its taxpayers additional dollars because they end up
having a child that is born with low birthweight or some abnormality
and has to go to the approximate intensive care units and costs us 10
times as much as it would have cost to have given decent prenatal care.
A $25 million hit on the WIC Program, Women, Infants, and Children
Program; 100,000 women and kids are going to probably be denied proper
nutrition.
What else? Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program. That is the
program that helps low-income seniors, others who have a very difficult
time during winter months in places where it is cold, to survive those
chilling winter months. We are cutting $1.3 billion from that program.
Other cuts, I will mention veterans' benefits, take a hit of about
$206 million. That is a real slap in the face of our veterans who
certainly do not believe they get enough as it is in the types of
programs available under the Veterans' Administration. Yet they are
going to take another hit.
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, $47 million hit, a $94 million
hit is projected for the next fiscal year. What we are doing with the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting in Congress is the Republican
majority is trying to get us to a glide path in about 3 or 4 years
where we actually eliminate all funding for public broadcasting.
The EPA--That is the Environmental Protection Agency, lots of
cleanups to do, all the toxic dumps we
know that are in our communities. Well, $1.3 billion mostly for Clean
Water Infrastructure Program is being gutted.
Where does all of this money go from this $17.5 billion or so bill
that cuts from these programs? Let's take a look.
We were told first that since the President sent a bill over
requesting that we provide some additional moneys to help provide for
disaster relief, as I mentioned earlier, that was one of the reasons
the Committee on Appropriations had to find some way to fund it. We
have never done it before where
[[Page H2979]] in a disaster we have taken money from other programs to
pay for a disaster, we have always said this is a disaster, we have
always said this is a disaster, we have to pull together as Americans
and find a way to help people. But this time we did it differently. But
not only did we do it differently, let's take a look at what happened.
The committee, the Republican majority, decided to give about $5.3
billion for disaster relief. Yet they cut about $17.5 billion in
programs. So where did the other two-thirds of the money go if only
$5.3 billion went to disaster relief?
Well, you see, the Republicans ran a campaign last year saying in
their Contract on America that they were going to provide tax relief.
The problem is the tax relief they are providing goes to the wealthy.
So two-thirds of all the moneys cut, from veterans, from our schools,
from programs that help children stay away from drugs and out of gangs
and away from crime, from health care programs, from housing programs
for seniors, for moneys that go to help AIDS victims, all of that is
being packaged in the $17, $18 billion package. Less than one-third is
going to go for actual disaster relief to help people who are still
suffering from natural disasters, and two-thirds is going to go to tax
cuts. I know I have a colleague who is going to join me in a few
moments, I want to talk soon about to join me in few moments, I want to
talk soon about what those tax cuts are going to do. But let me just
make a couple of quick comments more.
Why tax cuts now? But more importantly, when we looked at the
programs that were being cut, why did we not see anything that hit the
military? Are we so convinced that there is no fat in the Department of
Defense? Is this not the same department that gave us $500 toilet seats
and that gave us billion dollar cost overruns on military projects in
the last few years? But why is it that we do not see a single cut
there? But more importantly, why is it that about 2 weeks ago, this
same House with majority Republican support passed out a bill that
increased spending for the military, including moneys for star wars?
Increasing money for the military spending, giving tax cuts to the
wealthy, paying for it through cuts to low income and middle income
people. That is what we see.
If you do not believe it, let's take a look at one last chart.
That tax cut that is in that Contract on America, where does it go?
Part of it is for a a capital gains tax cut. It is important to
understand that when you give a capital gains tax cut, that does not go
to every American, and especially not to most working Americans who
earn a wage. Most of that goes to people who are fairly wealthy, who
have a lot of assets and who get to deduct some of the profits on those
assets when they sell them. So much so that let's take a look at who
benefits from that capital gains tax cult that the Republican majority
is proposing in the House of Representatives. That tax cut, by the way,
will cost over the next 10 years when it is implemented, should it ever
get implemented, about $208 billion. That is $208 billion to our
deficit over the next 10 years. Who gets the majority of the benefits
of that? As you can see in this chart, and if it may be kind of small
for people to see some of the type, this is broken down into different
income levels.
Less than $10,000 incomes, well, you're going to get about half of a
percent of the benefits. If you earn between $10,000 and $20,000, well,
your benefits will be about 0.8 percent of the entire cut. Well, 20 to
$30,000, you get about 1.7 percent. So all the families in America that
earn $20,000 to $30,000 can expect to get as a group 1.7 percent of the
tax cuts under the capital gains tax cut; $30,000 to $40,000 income
range, you'll get, as a group, about 2.6 percent of all that; $40,000
to $50,000, you'll get about 3.2 percent of the benefits of that. If
you make between $50,000 to $75,000, that whole group of Americans
within the $50,000 to $75,000 income range will get about 9 percent of
all the $208 billion in benefits. If you make between $75,000 and
$100,000, you are going to get about 9.4 percent of that $208 billion
in capital gains tax cut benefits. And If you happen to make more than
$100,000, which represents about 9 percent of all taxes-filing, tax-
paying Americans, you get about 72.6
percent of all the benefits. These are the folks that are going to
make out like bandits from the capital gains tax cut. And who is
getting cut to finance this capital gains tax cut? As I said in that
rescission package, if only 5.3 billion is being used for disaster
relief, the other $12 billion or so, which is coming out of low-income
and middle-income individuals, families and children and seniors, is
being used to finance this.
Let me at this stage ask my colleague from Vermont to join me. I want
to first thank him for taking the time at this late hour to come and
chat with me a bit about this.
Maybe he has a few comments he would like to make as well about what
I have just had a chance to discuss.
Mr. SANDERS. First I want to thank the gentleman from California for
his wonderful presentation, because I think he hit the nail right on
the head.
Essentially what we are talking about tonight are priorities. That is
what a government does, like every family in America. It has to make
choices as to how it allocates money and where it saves money.
What the gentleman said in terms of the rescission package is
basically consistent with the whole thrust of the Contract With
America. What that is about, as his charts have amply demonstrated, is
that on one hand, despite all of the loud rhetoric about the terrible
deficit and the $4.5 trillion national debt, the first point is our
Republican friends are proposing massive tax breaks for the wealthiest
people in America. Here we have a situation today where the gap between
the rich and the poor in America has never been wider, the wealthiest 1
percent of the population own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.
We have a terrible deficit. All kinds of very serious social needs in
America. And our Republican colleagues are proposing massive tax breaks
for the wealthiest people in America.
Now, that may make sense to somebody, but not to the many people in
the State of Vermont and around this country that I talk to who work
for a living. That is point number one.
The second point that the gentleman from California made, which is
also absolutely appropriate, is that today at a time when the cold war
has finally ended, when the Soviet Union is no longer our enemy, Russia
wants to join in NATO, many of the Communist bloc, former Communist
bloc companies want to join in NATO, at a time when we have the ability
to significantly lower military spending, to help us deal with the
deficit, to help us pump money into all kinds of enormous needs that
this country faces, our Republican friends, if you can believe it, and
I know that many people may have a hard time actually believing it, are
proposing tens of billions of dollars more for the star wars program.
So tax breaks for the rich, more money for star wars, and for other
military programs.
If you are going to do those things, which will cost us tens of tens
of billions of dollars and if you want to move toward a balanced budget
in 7 years, something has got to give. That is the equation. Tax breaks
for the rich, more money for star wars. Well, what has got to give?
And the gentleman from California mentioned a number of the areas
that have been affected by rescissions, that is, cutbacks in money that
has already been appropriated.
Let me reiterate some of them as they apply to the State of Vermont.
I was particularly outraged that one of the areas where we saw the most
savage cutbacks, $1.3 billion, was for the Low Income Heating
Assistance Program, also referred to as LIHEAP. The LIHEAP program
provides heating assistance to low-income people, many of them elderly
people who live in cold climates. In my State of Vermont, the weather
gets down to 20 below zero to 30 below zero. We have many elderly
people who are living on very fixed incomes. These are people who often
have to choose between heating their homes or buying the prescription
drugs they need to ease their pain.
{time} 2215
The LIHEAP program impacts upon 24,000 households in the State of
Vermont. The Republican rescission package would cut back 100 percent,
would eliminate the LIHEAP program.
One of two things will happen as a result. Either elderly people will
go cold
[[Page H2980]] in Vermont and in Maine and throughout northern America,
or they will take the little money they have to put into heating and
not have the food that they need or the medicine that they need.
I do not know about other people's priorities, but it does not make a
whole lot of sense to me to talk about spending billions of dollars
more for Star Wars to cut taxes for the rich by tens of billions of
dollars and then force tens and tens of thousands of elderly people in
America to go cold in the wintertime.
Every politician who gets up here talks about the serious drug
problems that we have. It is a problem in Vermont, it is a problem in
California, it is a problem in Virginia, it is a problem all over
America.
In my State of Vermont I was recently at a town meeting in Bennington
and teachers there talked about how important the drug education money
that comes into that community is in keeping kids away from drugs.
Every sensible human being understands that an ounce of prevention is
worth a lot more than spending billions of dollars throwing people into
jail. People in Vermont and all over this country are working day and
night to keep kids away from drugs, away from gangs.
This rescission program cuts back significantly on money that goes to
help teachers and educators keep kids away from drugs. And on and on it
goes, cutbacks for education, for people who are homeless.
I think what the rescission package talks about is the priorities
that some of our Republican friends have, and I think that they are not
the priorities that the ordinary American people have. And I hope that
out of this discussion tonight people all over this country will stand
up and say, now wait a second, that is not what the United States of
America is supposed to be, it is not supposed to be making the elderly
go cold in the wintertime, it is not supposed to be taking away
educational opportunity from homeless people.
I would simply conclude my remarks by thanking the gentleman from
California very much for this extremely important discussion.
Mr. BERCERRA. I thank the gentleman from Vermont [Mr. Sanders] for
participating and I hope he will have a chance to stay and we will have
a chance to indulge in further colloquy.
I would like to recognize my other colleagues in a second. But I
would like to make one quick point. The gentleman from Vermont left off
on a very important note and I would like to follow up on that and
return to this chart which shows where the money goes. As I said, only
less than a third of the money is actually going to disaster relief.
But let me talk a little bit about this disaster relief.
Something very interesting was done here. It was a play with hands,
you know it is a shuffle game. Part of that money that was cut in that
$17.5 billion in cuts included the following: $350 million of unused
funds from the Federal Highway Administration. That is money that was
allocated for the Federal Highway Administration to help in the
earthquake relief efforts to get roads and bridges back up to working
condition. It has not yet been expended
because we have not finished the fiscal year.
So, what did the Republican majority do in the Committee on
Appropriations? They cut that remaining $351 million, but interestingly
enough we see we are getting $5.3 billion for disaster relief, so what
they did was say we are taking $351 million, putting it in our pocket,
pulling it out and saying now we are giving, about to give $5.3 billion
for disaster relief. They do not tell you they really cut $351 million
from disaster relief, they are just saying that they have made cuts and
they are trying to say that they are mostly cuts in waste, fraud and
abuse, but quite honestly we know it is much more than that.
It is really discouraging to see how this is being done.
Let me now take a moment to recognize a good friend and colleague
from the State of Virginia [Mr. Scott], who is here I hope to join us
and discuss some of these things as well.
Mr. SCOTT. I thank the gentleman. It is a pleasure to join him and
the gentleman from Vermont and the gentleman from New Jersey to discuss
these rescissions. As the gentleman has indicated, the rescissions are
going to pay mostly tax cuts.
Comment was made earlier about school children and lunches and
whether we are spending more money or less money. You can call it
whatever you want, but if we adopt the Republican budget many school
children who are eligible for school lunches today will not be eligible
if that budget is adopted.
Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield back the time
for just a moment, we should give some detail because the gentleman who
spoke earlier about this and said we are actually increasing the
budgets over the next several years for those school, those child
nutrition programs wants to leave the impression that actually we are
giving more under this Republican proposal than was allocated under
current law.
Mr. SCOTT. Well, no, it is not more than current law; it is less than
current law.
If we continue going as we had planned, to cover the school children
that need to be covered, more would be covered. They are going to cover
less school children, and some eligible today will not be eligible with
inflation; costs go up, more children show up in school, and if we
continue at the rate they want to go, some children that are eligible
today just simply will not be eligible if this budget is adopted,
period.
Mr. BECERRA. So in other words, the Republican proposals do increase
from this current fiscal year what will be allotted next year, but they
do not cover the true costs because they do not take into account the
growth in the number of kids in the schools or the inflation rate.
Mr. SCOTT. This is exactly right.
Mr. BECERRA. So the schools will have to do with a little bit more
money, but with more kids and inflation on top of that.
Mr. SCOTT. And more costs and some children will not be able to get
fed as a direct result of that budget.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to again thank the gentleman from
California for having this special order. The 1995 rescissions touch
many programs, but frankly the ones I want to talk about just very
briefly are the targeted prevention-oriented programs.
I am particularly concerned about the mean-spirited cuts in the Safe
and Drug Free Schools and Communities Program and the Summer Jobs
Program.
These programs will not just suffer a reduction in funds, but are at
risk of being completely eliminated. The Drug Free Schools Program and
the Summer Jobs Program are not frivolous programs, they are designed
with specific intentions. Drug Free Schools was authorized as a means
to repeal the onslaught of drugs and violence in the schools. The most
significant changes in 1994 included an emphasis on violence
prevention.
In the city of Richmond in my State of Virginia, we have a program
called Richmond Youth Against Violence. Recognizing the overlap and
risk factors for violence and substance abuse, the school system
decided to focus on violence prevention as an effective means to reduce
or eliminate drugs used by our young people.
Richmond Youth Against Violence is operating in all eight middle
schools. It teaches mediation, how to avoid violence and the
circumstances of violence and provides counseling for students
suspended for violence. Funds from the Drug Free Schools and
Communities Act provided the startup money for Richmond Youth Against
Violence, and it works. Through various evaluations, research on this
program has shown that boys in the program do not display an increase
in violence, violent behavior and they are less likely to initiate
substance abuse activities.
Mr. Speaker, the Summer Youth Program is another successful program.
The GOP, however, has decided the program that gives over 1.2 million
low-income youth their first opportunity at work and their first step
toward learning work ethics has no place in the Republican Contract
With America.
[[Page H2981]] {time} 2230
Summer youth jobs has a long history. It started in 1964 and has been
enjoyed by youth in inner cities and rural areas. Kids 14 to 21 are
eligible for the program and they flock to it. Last year there were two
applicants for every job in the summer program.
For those who say that the program is ineffective, I say look at the
research. The Department of Labor's inspector general says that the
program is run very tightly and is well administered, and unlike the
stereotypical welfare programs, the summer youth jobs program involves
real jobs. It is not uncommon to see youth performing clerical work for
city offices, supervising and tutoring children in day-care centers,
serving as a nurse's assistant in a hospital.
Work and study done by Westat, Incorporated on the 1993 summer job
program gave high marks for the program. The supervisors who were
surveyed reported that there are no serious problems related to kid's
behavior, attendance or turnover, and, Mr. Speaker, we know the
importance about feeling good about your job and feeling that what you
are doing is worthwhile. The young people in the summer youth jobs
program feel the same way, they work hard and feel good about their
summer jobs.
These two programs, like many others, like the education for homeless
children and youth, the training for careers and early childhood
development and training for careers, and counseling young children
affected by violence, the literacy programs for prisoners, all have
merit and need to be continued.
Some may oppose the short-term costs, but I remind them of the long-
term risks. We cannot continue to undermine the programs which have
been proven to deter violence and crime. We must also provide an
environment for young people to gain the experience necessary for them
to function as adults. Drug-free schools and communities program and
the summer youth and jobs program accomplish these goals.
In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, the prevention programs work. We can pay
for them now or we can pay a lot more for prisons later. We need to
defeat these mean-spirited, short-sighted rescissions.
Mr. BECERRA. I want to thank the gentleman from Virginia for taking
the time to come here and present a cappella testimony about why we
should fear these cuts that are being proposed at this particular time.
Let me at this time recognize another distinguished colleague and
friend, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Andrews], and ask him if he
has a few things would he like to say. And I thank my friend from
California for giving me this time and organizing this discussion.
Mr. Becerra in particular is to be commended for leading on this
floor tonight a discussion of priorities in our country and where the
taxpayer's money ought to go. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Becerra deserves
particular praise because this may be the only discussion we have an
opportunity to have about priorities under the way this bill is going
to be brought to the floor, and I want to speak for just a few minutes
about what is wrong with that and how that cuts off a real debate about
where the public's money ought to go and what the Federal Government's
priorities ought to be.
Myself and Mr. Scott and Mr. Sanders and Mr. Becerra may have
different priorities as to how this bill ought to come down. Frankly, I
think it is an urgent priority to cut the size of the Federal budget
and to make this government leaner and smaller and more efficient.
I think it is a demanding priority that we find a way to lessen the
burden of taxes on the American people, and perhaps there would be some
agreement or disagreement among the four of us as Democrats on that
point. The point is, this is the place where we are supposed to thrash
out those differences over priorities and have our say.
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, when a bill is brought to this floor, it
is brought to the floor under something called a rule and the rule sets
forth which amendments may be debated and voted upon and which
amendments may not be debated and voted upon.
This afternoon, March 9, the chairman of the Rules Committee, the
distinguished Gerald Solomon of the State of New York circulated a
letter, which I will make part of the record at the appropriate time,
which outlines his proposals to what the rules should be under which
this bill is brought to the floor, in other words, the rules of debate,
what we can vote on and what we can't vote on.
The rules of debate are totally closed, totally unfair, and will
totally shut off the kind of priorities debate, Mr. Speaker, that Mr.
Becerra has launched tonight. Let me give you some examples.
The Republican bill that will be before us will cut a net $12 billion
from this year's budget. Now, one could take one of three different
positions on that--four, I guess. You could say that we should cut $12
billion and these are the right $12 billion to cut, and you will have
that chance because you will have a chance to vote for this bill. You
can say that we shouldn't cut any of it, that we should add to the
budget. You won't have that chance because you won't be permitted to
add to the budget under this bill. You will only be permitted to
subtract from it.
Frankly, I find that OK but I don't think that others that don't find
it OK should be denied the chance to add if they so desire.
You might say we should cut less than $12 billion from the budget.
You won't have that chance because the number that is fixed in this
bill must be going forward and you may say, as I would, we should cut
$12 billion but we should cut a different $12 billion than the
Republican have proposed. I will not get that chance. Mr. Sanders will
not get that chance. Mr. Becerra will not get that chance. Mr. Scott
will not get that chance, nor will any of our colleagues under the
rules being brought to the floor.
Let me tell you what I want to do. I am working on and tomorrow will
complete a proposal as a substitute for this rescission bill that
doesn't cut the budget by $12 billion as our Republican friends would,
but cuts it by $13 billion, but cuts it in different places.
The Republican proposal says to an 82-year-old woman who has a fixed
income of $9,000 a year and heating bills of $1,500 a year, that the
little bit of help that she gets right now, the little bit of help, the
couple hundred dollars she gets to pay her electric bill, her heating
bill, will be eliminated next winter.
I say instead we should cut research contracts that benefit Exxon and
Mobil and Fortune 500 corporations that sell her the energy for that
heat. Let's give this House a choice between cutting her heating
subsidy and the research subsidy of the Fortune 500 energy companies
that brought her her energy. We won't have that choice under this rule.
I would say this, to a 17-year-old who is trying to work a summer job
from a low-income family so he or she can earn money to get a college
education. The Republican bill would say there will be no federally
sponsored summer jobs anywhere in America starting this summer.
So, Mr. Speaker, a young person who is listening to us tonight, 16
years old, planned on getting a job this summer, maybe saving $500 or
$600 or $1,000 toward their school tuition, no job, nothing this
summer. I say, why don't we cut out some of the bureaucratic jobs in
the Department of Agriculture, the press secretaries, the statistics
gatherers, the people who compile information about the American
agriculture system.
I would say give us a choice between cutting summer jobs for young
people around this country and bureaucratic jobs in the Department of
Agriculture. we will not have that choice under this bill, and I will
yield to Mr. Sanders for a moment.
Mr. SANDERS. I thank my friend from New Jersey, as he opens up a
whole area of discussion that I was intending to get to in a moment and
I thank him for getting there earlier, and that is the whole issue of
what some of us call corporate welfare.
Now, at the same time as we are seeing massive cutbacks in heating
programs for low-income senior citizens, cutbacks in drug prevention
programs, cutbacks in programs for the homeless, does my friend from
New Jersey or California or Virginia happen to notice
[[Page H2982]] if there are any cutbacks in the corporate welfare
programs that are providing tens and tens of billions of dollars of
Federal subsidies and Federal aid and tax breaks for some of the
largest corporations in the United States of America?
Now, maybe they are there. I happen not to have seen them. I have a
list of all of the programs. I did not see them.
If I might for one moment, and there is a long list, the Progressive
Policy Institute, I might say a conservative Democratic organization,
suggested that there were tens and tens of billions of dollars of
savings if the Congress had the guts to call for welfare reform on
large corporations and wealthy people. we all know that.
The savings can take place within the energy industry where there are
huge tax subsidies for companies who are extracting oil, gas and
minerals. There are special tax credits for producers of fuel from
nonconventional sources. There are depletion cost allowances for oil,
gas and nonfuel mineral firms. On and on it goes.
My friend from New Jersey makes exactly the right point: We should
have that debate right here on the floor in front of the American
people as to how we proceed to save money. And reclaiming my time, I
would say to my friend from Vermont, who truly is an Independent, not
only the way he thinks, I have read the bill. There were 228 cuts in
the bill. Virtually none of them cut out the kind of corporate welfare,
the Wall Street welfare that you make reference to.
So I would say to you that this bill, Mr. Speaker, demonstrates that
the majority party of the Republicans are not against the welfare state
at all. They are against the welfare state for those who tend to vote
for the Democrats, but not for those who tend to vote for the
Republicans. And this bill is ample evidence of that.
Let me give you other examples of things we will not get a chance to
vote on that some of us would prefer. This bill says that if you are a
senior citizen living in what we call section 8 subsidized housing,
what that means is you live in a senior citizens high-rise and your
rent is limited to 30 percent of your income and a subsidy pays less.
So let us say your income is $10,000 a year, you only pay $3,000 a year
toward rent and if your rent is really $5,000, the Federal Government
picks up the other $2,000 so you can rent a modest apartment in a
senior high-rise.
I have had senior citizens call me from around New Jersey scared to
death that they are going to lose their apartments because of what is
in this bill, because this bill eliminates $2.7 billion from that
subsidy. You know what answer I could give them, Mr. Speaker? You just
might lose your apartment, it is true.
Some of us, instead of denying housing to senior citizens under this
program, would like to stop building so many courthouses and Federal
buildings around America. We would like to substitute a provision that
says, Do not cut the housing for senior citizens to have an apartment.
Stop building a courthouse everywhere that a certain Member of Congress
who is well connected enough to get one built.
Yes, we need courthouses in America, but I will tell you what. If we
have to wait a few more years before we give a few more judges an
elaborate place to sit and hear cases and save the money there and put
it into keeping senior citizens in their homes and apartments, I think
we should do that. And at the very least, Mr. Speaker, we ought to have
that debate and we ought to have a choice, and this Republican rule
will not let us do that.
One more example. One more example. This Republican bill says we are
going to take $105 million from the program that hires remedial reading
teachers, speech therapists, child psychologists, and other educators
that help young people with a learning disability get through their
school years, and is going to take $38 million from a program that
helps young children who do not speak English learn how to. If they
come to this country from Vietnam or Cambodia or Mexico or Russia or
Poland or wherever, $38 million so those teachers can help our children
learn English first when they are in first grade. That is gone from
this bill.
Some of us would rather take the money from something called the
Export-Import Bank, which is a program paid for, Mr. Speaker, by the
people watching us tonight, that gives subsidies to major American
corporations to help them underwrite the sale of their goods around the
world.
Now, let me say this. I hope that American companies are able to sell
their goods around the world tenfold what they do right now because
that is good for the country, but the people who will profit from
selling those goods should underwrite the cost of selling those goods.
The shareholders and investors of those companies ought to pick up the
tab of this, not the American taxpayer.
So let me summarize. I would like to see us vote on an amendment to
substitute the cut that cuts heating assistance for senior citizens and
instead cuts energy research that benefits oil companies. We will not
get that chance.
I would like to see us get rid of the cut that abolishes the summer
job program for young people in urban and rural and suburban areas
around this country, including my hometown, and give us a chance to get
rid of some of the bureaucracy in the Department of Agriculture or the
Commerce Department or the Department of the Treasury or wherever. We
will not get that chance.
I would like to see us restore the cut that would say to senior
citizens, we are going to take away the subsidy that helps you get an
apartment and instead stop building so many courthouses for so many
judges
and so many Federal buildings around America. We will not get that
chance.
I would like to restore the cut that says no more remedial reading
teachers, no more education for children who cannot speak the English
language as their first language, no more assistance for those
children. I would like to get rid of some of the spending in the
Export-Import Bank that helps IBM and AT&T sell their products around
the world. We will not get that change.
Now, my friends as a Democrat, I have been wanting to sponsor an
initiative in the last Congress called the A-to-Z spending cuts plan.
Any Member can come to this floor during a special session and propose
his or her best idea to cut spending. There would then be a debate and
a vote.
When they were in the minority, my friends on the Republican side
thought that was a terrific idea. The Speaker, the majority leader, the
majority whip, all of them signed on to the bill and signed a petition
forcing the bill to the floor that almost made it but did not. They
thought it was a great idea that everybody's spending priorities could
be brought here in debate.
Now they are in charge. Now they have the majority. Now they can win
any vote because they have a certain number of more votes than we do.
Now they are not quite sure the idea is so good with the majority
change in this House, Mr. Speaker, because the people are fed up with a
system that is closed, that does not permit free and honest debate.
We are going to have an opportunity to make a decision on Tuesday
whether we have a free or honest debate about this rescissions bill. If
you vote for the rule that Chairman Solomon wants, we are not going to
have a free and honest debate. We are going to have a closed debate and
a lousy bill. If you defeat the rule, give us a chance to offer these
and other ideas and have the kind of discussion we are tonight, the
public will be well served.
I thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra] for this time.
Mr. BECERRA. I thank the gentleman for his eloquent words to make it
clear it is not just an issue of substance when it comes to this issue
of cuts and our priorities, but it is also an issue of mechanics, how
we actually get to the point in the House of the people of making
decisions for the people of America. And when it becomes clear to the
people of America that their voice, through their Representatives, is
not allowed to express itself because we cannot offer amendments,
because we cannot try to sell the idea of where our priorities should
be and instead must accept what is force fed to us, then clearly we are
not doing the jobs as Representatives and clearly that frustrates the
American people even more, as the gentleman so eloquently said with
regard to why we had a change in November 1994. Clearly the
[[Page H2983]] people are frustrated and we must do some things to
change that.
Let me point out a couple of things that disturb me most about this
direction that we are heading, the fact that we have closed debates,
the fact that we have these cuts that go after middle-income and lower-
income people, but yet will benefit the wealthy.
I cannot understand why we are seeing proposals for a capital gains
tax cut that, as you can see, will benefit the most wealthy. But when
you take a look at how much the average annual tax cut will be received
by the income groups, it is astonishing.
If you earn $20,000 or below, you know how much you are going to get
in tax cut relief over the year? About $7.63. That is what a family
that earns $20,000 or below can expect to get from the capital gains
tax cut proposal that the Republican majority in the House has
proposed.
How much tax relief will you get if you have earned between $20,000
and $50,000 for the vast majority of American families? About $33 in
the entire year. That is what a family will receive in tax relief from
this Republican proposal.
Now, if you are $50,000 to $100,000, what will you get back in extra
income? About $124.
Now, what happens if you earn between $100,000 and $200,000? Well,
now you are going to get about 100 times what a person or a family
earning $20,000 gets. You are going to get about $636 in that year.
But what will 2 percent of America's tax filers get? The 2 percent
wealthiest filers of tax forms in this country, the 2 percent
wealthiest Americans, what will they get, those earning $200,000 and
above? Four-thousand-three-hundred and fifty-seven dollars in a year.
The folks that need it least get the most, and that, I think tells us
a bit about the priorities of
this new Congress, where we are heading. It seems anomalous to think
that we are going to head in that direction but that is what it looks
like.
Mr. SANDERS. If the gentleman would yield.
Mr. BECERRA. Of course.
Mr. SANDERS. Let us reiterate what all four of us have been talking
about. No. 1, with a huge deficit, huge national debt, and terrible
social needs in America, there are significant increase tax breaks for
the rich, at the same time as the gap between the rich and the poor has
never been wider.
{time} 2245
No. 2, despite the end of the cold war, increased military spending
at a time, in my view, when we should be cutting back on the military.
And then in order to move toward a balanced budget, savage cutbacks
which go against low-income elderly people, including people in the
northern part of America who will be cold this winter if our heat
program is cut.
Programs for homeless people; programs for children; cutbacks in the
WIC Program. There is one program that Mr. Becerra touched upon earlier
that I think we have not perhaps discussed enough and that is a $200
million cutback for the veterans of America.
I do not apologize to anybody for being an antiwar Congressman. Yes,
I voted against the Persian Gulf war. I think very often we can resolve
international conflict without wars.
But it seems to me that if the Government of the United States of
America sends people off to war and asks them to put their lives on the
line, and they do that, and then they come back to America and 40 or 50
years goes by, as in the case of World War II veterans and these
veterans are sleeping down in VA hospitals throughout this country, it
seems to me to be very, very wrong to say to those men and women who
put their lives on the line, were wounded in body and wounded in
spirit, that you say to them now, Hey, guess what? We have got a
cutback on the VA hospitals. Thank you very much for putting your life
on the line. Thank you for getting wounded, but now we have got a
budget problem and we have to give tax breaks to the wealthiest people.
We have to build the star wars. We have got to cutback for you.
I think that this particular cut of $200 million is absolutely
upcalled for. I fear very much that as the Contract With America
progresses, and I had the opportunity of meeting with Jesse Brown, the
very fine and excellent Secretary for Veterans Affairs, and he shares
this fear, that in the months and months to come there will be
increased cutbacks on the needs of our veterans.
So, I think the bottom line is that we have got to get our priorities
right and that is we respect those people who put their lives on the
line and we will not go forward with those cuts.
Mr. ANDREWS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. SANDERS. I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey.
Mr. ANDREWS. The gentleman from Vermont makes an outstanding point
about the veterans issue, and Mr. Sanders and I have our differences on
defense policy and our voting records will reflect that, but let me
chime in to support a point he just made and going back to the point I
made about the choices that we are not going to be given a chance to
make.
This bill cuts $200 million out of this year's expenditures for the
veterans' hospital system across the country and it forgives a $50
million loan to the Government of Jordan.
I am going to repeat that. This bill says to the Government of
Jordan, You do not have to pay us the $50 million you owe us. We
forgive you. Then it says to the veterans across this country, Oh, by
the way, we are taking $200 million, four times that amount, out of
your VA hospital system.
Now, some of us would like to offer an amendment that would at least
reduce that cut of the $200 million by not forgiving the $50 million
loan to
Jordan. A lot of us would like to be able to say maybe the Jordanians
should find the $50 million and pay us back.
I find it ironic that in the Persian Gulf war, which was the first
vote that Mr. Sanders and I cast as Members of this House, at the time
of that war the Jordanians chose to remain neutral. They chose not to
take the side of the United States for their own reasons.
The men and women who served in our Armed Forces did not choose to
remain neutral. They swore allegiance to our country and served us. We
are taking money away from them, who put their lives on the line, and
then we are forgiving a loan to the Government of Jordan.
Mr. SANDERS. To the best of my knowledge, King Hussein is not exactly
on the welfare rolls as well.
Mr. ANDREWS. I would assume King Hussein will not be receiving home
heating assistance this winter.
I yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. Becerra].
Mr. BECERRA. I know that we are running short of time. I want to make
sure that any of my colleagues have a chance to express themselves.
I want to quote something that was said by the new chairman of the
Committee on the Budget, Mr. John Kasich, who said this about deficit
reduction. ``I do not think that Republican special interest programs
ought to be spared. I think we ought to look at corporate welfare
before this process is over.'' That is a quote in the Washington Post
of yesterday.
Well, I think those of us who are here, the four of us who are here,
along with a number of my colleagues, I suspect both Democrat and
Republican, are going to keep the chairman of the Budget Committee to
his word. We want to see those cuts, because quite honestly, we have
not seen them in this particular $15.5 billion recision package, but
certainly we must see those.
So I would say that in this new ``Newt'' world that we face, that the
needs of hard-working, middle-class families should not take a back
seat to the needs of the very affluent. But quite honestly, I cannot
see anything that says that we are not going in that direction, when
everything points to capital gains tax cuts. Cuts to the poor, cuts to
the middle income in their programs. Not tax cuts, but spending cuts
that would help them. Child Nutrition Program cuts, all of this, yet we
are going to increase spending for the military.
And somehow we get into this whole idea about a balanced budget
amendment that was up here a couple of weeks ago for debater where we
had the Republican majority saying we are going to balance the budget.
And they are talking about balancing the budget, which is going to cost
us over the
[[Page H2984]] next 5 to 7 years, about $1.2 trillion and if you add
the tax cuts that the Republicans are proposing, that adds another $200
billion or so. And if you add the defense billions of dollars in
military increases, that adds another $100 billion.
You end up with $1.5 trillion deficit that you have to make up in
about 7 years. And I take a look at that and find that they are saying
they want to balance the budget and I take a look at where they are
cutting now. It makes it clear to me what they are going to do to try
to balance this budget, on whose backs they are going to do it, and it
scares me.
And I offer my colleagues the final chance to speak.
Mr. SANDERS. I just want to thank the gentleman from California [Mr.
Becerra]. I think this is an enormously important discussion dealing
with what the priorities of America should be. And I thank you very
much for leading this discussion.
Mr. BECERRA. The gentleman from Virginia.
Mr. SCOTT. I want to thank the gentleman from California. This is an
excellent presentation. We have choices to make and we have to look at
our priorities and the quality of life and what we are doing here as
legislators. And I thank you for giving us the opportunity to bring
these facts forward.
Mr. ANDREWS. I join in thanking my friend from California. We are all
equal Members of the People's House. We may disagree over what our
priorities shall be, but we should never disagree over our right to
debate those priorities.
The majority is about to deny us that right unless we defeat the rule
that comes before us on Tuesday night.
Mr. BECERRA. I would say that the majority is not just denying the
four of us, the majority of this House is now denying the American
people the chance to express itself and that must change.
I thank all of my colleagues for being here
Mr. MONTGOMERY. Mr. Speaker, as the ranking member of the Committee
on Veterans Affairs, I rise to urge all my colleagues to support an
amendment to the rescission bill reported last Thursday by the
Appropriations Committee. The amendment is modest in scope but vital to
VA health care. It would restore the $206 million for veterans programs
which the Committee on Appropriations proposes to rescind.
These rescissions don't make good sense. These funds were
appropriated by Congress only a few months ago, primarily to help meet
a critical need to improve veterans' access to outpatient care. The six
VA projects which the committee now proposes to cancel would serve
areas where more than 1.2 million veterans reside.
The budget for construction of veterans medical facilities has been
pretty lean for the past 5 or 6 years. As a result, the VA says it now
has almost 60 projects to improve outpatient services waiting to be
funded. The VA could award construction contracts on these six projects
in the next several months. We shouldn't put these projects off 1 day.
These are projects that can make VA health care delivery more cost-
effective. This rescission bill would slam the door on veterans across
this country. In some parts of the country, the VA doesn't have health
facilities that meet veterans needs. In other places, the clinics are
just too small. At one clinic, space is so tight that doctors are
forced to perform eye examinations in the hallways. Veterans deserve
better than this.
An increasing number of veterans are women; over 1.2 million. Many VA
outpatient clinics still lack privacy for women veterans. In the face
of such conditions, the rescission bill is a giant step backward.
Likewise, cutting funds for replacement equipment--as proposed by the
rescission measure--forces VA to choose between obtaining a needed
service at increased cost through contracting or continuing to use
inefficient or even obsolete equipment. The VA's medical equipment
backlog is more than $800 million. We must assure that VA care is care
of high quality. Cutting back on VA funds to replace old equipment is
putting our veterans at risk.
I want to commend all of the Members who are working hard to restore
these funds--the gentlewomen from Florida, Ms. Brown and Mrs. Thurman,
the gentlewoman from Connecticut, Ms. DeLauro, Mr. Volkmer, Mr. Scott,
Mr. Romero-Barcelo and the other Members who are gathered here tonight.
They are all doing a good job looking out for our Nation's veterans.
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