[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 73 (Thursday, May 4, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S6141]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           EXPOSING THE FRAUD

  Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, before I have to leave to attend a 
budget meeting, I would like to try and expose the fraud in statements 
from Members on the other side of the aisle claiming that the President 
is unwilling to lead and that, much to their surprise, they just 
discovered that the Medicare trust fund is going broke.
  The truth of the matter is that they have been telling us for a while 
now that action by the President was not even necessary. I wish I could 
take us back to December 18 after the glorious Republican victory in 
November when Mr. Kasich and others were on the TV saying,

       We're not going to wait on any budgets. We have three 
     budgets. In fact, we are going to take one of them and have 
     them first and we're going to have the budget cuts before we 
     get to tax cuts.

  I want the people to go back. For months they totally ignored the 
President and saying that his proposals were irrelevant, that they had 
their own plan, their own revolution, and were going to present their 
own budget. Having been a former chairman of the Budget Committee, that 
excited me. In January, I submitted a plan for the Record that showed 
how to put our Government back in the black by 2002.
  But then having gone back on their promise to give us a budget in 
January, they said, ``We're going to put the spending cuts in the bank 
before giving any tax cuts.'' Then, we had the circus out on the lawn, 
as the House passed the tax cuts. We are back to the days of Rome under 
Kasich, Gingrich, and that crowd. They went back home, had 
celebrations, waved flags, and everything else of that sort.
  But then, they came back to Washington and said, ``Whoops, we just 
found out that Medicare's going broke.'' As a result, we have Medicare 
hearings coming out of our ears.
  The Budget Committee has not given us the budget. They will not mark 
one up even though by law they are required to report out a budget by 
April 1. While we wait for the markup, they are having Medicare 
hearings all over the Hill. Mr. President, let me get right to the 
point and refer to the report of the board of trustees of the Federal 
Hospital Insurance Trust Fund last year, dated April 11, 1994, and 
addressed to Speaker Foley and Vice President Gore:

       Gentlemen: We have the honor of transmitting to you the 
     1994 annual report of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust 
     Fund.

  On page 2, it says:

       The trust fund ratio defined as a ratio of assets at the 
     beginning of the year to disbursements during the year was 
     131 percent in 1993, and then under the intermediate 
     assumptions is projected to decline steadily until the fund 
     is completely exhausted in 2001. Under the low-cost 
     assumptions, the trust fund ratio is projected to decline 
     until the fund is completely exhausted in 2004. Under the 
     high-cost assumptions, the trust fund ratio is projected to 
     decrease rapidly until the fund is exhausted in the year 
     2000. These projections clearly demonstrate that the hospital 
     insurance program is severely out of financial balance, using 
     a range of plausible economic and demographic assumptions.

  Now, that makes it pretty clear. Why didn't the Contract With America 
face up to that point? They knew about it, but did not want to face up 
to it. Moreover, they rebuffed the President's attempts to address the 
problem. Let us remember that the President of the United States did 
not cause any kind of deficit in Medicare. He was down in Little Rock; 
if it was caused, it was caused by me and other Members of Congress, 
but certainly you cannot attribute it to him. Still, when he offered 
his proposal, we could not get any cooperation whatsoever from 
Republicans. I can say that categorically because when we finally got a 
$56 billion Medicare cut adopted, it was without a single Republican 
vote in the House of Representatives or in the U.S. Senate. In 
addition, we took $25 billion from the wealthiest Social Security 
recipients, and put the money into the HI trust fund. What does the 
Contract With America call for? It says repeal the Social Security tax 
increase of last year and thus hasten the insolvency of the HI trust 
fund.
  We ought to cut out this nonsense and tell them to give us a budget. 
I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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