[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 81 (Tuesday, May 16, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H5066-H5070]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  2015
                           THE FEDERAL BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Camp). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to clarify a budget 
process that has been caught up in much controversy and debate. I heard 
a colleague today at an earlier presentation suggest that we might do 
well to engage in dialog and turn ourselves away from this whole idea 
of debate and speak to the issues that I believe the American people 
can understand. Coming from the 18th District in Texas, the fourth 
largest city in the Nation, Houston, I am going to use as a backdrop to 
this discussion this evening as a reminder where our State already 
finds itself under the present rescissions bill that is yet to come 
back to the House but already evidences that our State will lose some 
$1.1 billion in needs of family nutrition, aid to dependent children, 
school nutrition, and Medicaid, that takes care of the many needs of 
our children and our senior citizens.
  Interestingly, there is a sharp divide in the vision and the focus of 
this Nation. For in the debate and the discourse that we have heard, we 
have been told that the deficit will break the very backs of this 
country. Yet we find when we analyze the deficit and compare it to the 
GNP in this Nation compared with other western civilization nations, we 
have the smallest percentage of deficit of any other country.
  This does not mean that we do not face up to our responsibilities and 
begin to confront the hard issues of deficit reduction. As a new Member 
of Congress, I have made that commitment because I have come from that 
kind of history. For local governments do not carry deficits from one 
fiscal year to the next. We know the hard response of being able to pay 
as you go.
  I do want to clarify, however, that many of the local and State 
governments have a luxury that this country does not, and, that is, 
that they separate out their operating budget from the budget that 
deals with capital improvements, a consideration that I have raised as 
a possible direction for this Nation to take, ongoing debt versus 
immediate debt.
  In any event as we begin to dialog about this
   deficit reduction and this budget resolution, which has been 
characterized as a resolution to solve the budget deficit by the year 
2002. Juxtaposed to that representation is the inquiry of where the 
Democrats' budget proposal might be.

  To clarify, it is the responsibility of the majority party in this 
House, of course, to present a budget. Certainly that was to have been 
done by April 15 and, of course, we did not receive such a resolution 
until last week. Not only did we not receive it until last week, about 
the second week in May, but we now are to address this resolution and 
find a common bond and resolution in a matter of less than 48 hours. 
This will be debated on the House floor tomorrow, Wednesday, and voted 
on before the end of this week. There will be Democratic proposals. 
There will be amendments that will be offered. And so the 
responsibility that is charged to those of us who are Democrats is 
being upheld. It is unfortunate that the tone of the debate is 
suggesting that one's responsibility has not been taken care of.
  But the sharp divide over which direction this Nation should go 
causes me to rise this evening to say that clearly the Republican Party 
needed to take a couple of more months in order to strike a more 
effective chord of bipartisanship that would help to approach the 
deficit reduction that we all would like to have but, as well, create a 
vision of opportunity and challenge and success for this Nation.
  Interestingly enough as we were being cajoled into thinking that life 
was all right in the late 1920's and the early 1930's under the 
leadership of the Republican Party as we moved into the deep recesses 
of depression, many people would have thought of a variety of ways to 
increase productivity and to get this country out of the depths of 
depression. It, however, took a creative Government under the 
leadership of Franklin Delano Roosevelt to both answer the question of 
debt but as well answer the question of productivity.
  This country today is crying out for productivity. It is crying out 
for a need of jobs, for the engine to run corporate America to produce 
jobs, for the domestic energy industry to be refueled and retooled. It 
is crying out for those who would seek to bridge themselves out of 
dependence into independence an opportunity to do so. This budget does 
not speak to that. In fact, it undermines that.
  While their proposal would provide for a balanced budget by the year 
2002, it would abolish several vital Cabinet departments. Low and 
moderate income Americans and particularly children would be impacted. 
According to the new Washington Post/ABC News poll, if we are to be 
pundits of polls, my opinions are apparently shared by a majority of 
Americans. Sixty percent of poll respondents oppose abolishing the 
Education and Energy Departments and 56 percent oppose shutting down 
the Commerce Department, which, by the way, has been a most 
[[Page H5067]] productive department that we have seen over the last 
couple of years creating billions of dollars in business opportunities 
for America's business, both small and large. And, of course, they 
oppose the cutting of the needs of those who rely upon Medicare and 
Medicaid.
  I am further concerned about the budget resolution for several 
reasons. One reason is because it would negatively impact the Social 
Security System and the 43 million Social Security recipients 
nationwide.
  The Republican leadership has pledged that Social Security would not 
be hurt by their budget, but we now know that they want to change the 
rules. They want to reduce annual cost-of-living increases that would 
in effect cut Social Security benefits by $24 billion between 1999 and 
2002.
  Let's put some faces to that, because obviously these are just 
numbers. But what happens to those citizens who totally rely upon their 
income and their support from Social Security? It is all right to say 
that in the years past, you would match pension benefits with Social 
Security benefits. Those were the good old days. It comes now full 
circle that many of our working citizens, who for many reasons believed 
that Social Security was a trust fund, although we recognize that it is 
one where you are now paying into it to pay for those who are on it at 
this point, still the concept is, I paid into Social Security with the 
belief that it would be there for me upon retirement. The tragedy of 
that, however, is that many of those individuals, and particularly 
those who are on SSI, the physically challenged, our children, have 
come to have that as the only source of support that they might need to 
carry on their life and to survive. That is the face of Social 
Security. So we can fix something without eliminating it.
  Second, the budget resolution does not represent an adequate 
investment in human capital. We have
 spent an exercise over the last couple of weeks talking about welfare 
reform. I clearly challenged that, for I am committed to welfare reform 
and challenged the proposal that passed this House as welfare 
punishment, for it was inconsistent with the so-called results that 
were looked to. That is, by terminating people a certain period of 
time, there was some reason to that debate, that citizens should not be 
on welfare for their entire life, to break the cycle, but how much of a 
response do you get by terminating someone off a benefit that they may 
need? Not the able-bodied citizen or someone who can go out the next 
day and get a job but the person who truly has dependent children, did 
not finish their education, and has no skills.

  If you are serious about welfare reform, then you would have several 
elements: Job training, child care, and some sort of incentive to your 
businesses to provide jobs for those individuals. None of that was 
included in the welfare proposal that was passed out of this House. Yet 
now we come full scale with a budget that would include several points 
that cut into my sense that there is any seriousness with the 
Republican Party on, one, their commitment to true welfare reform, and 
then to a realistic budget that responds to the deep diversity of this 
Nation; not necessarily poor to rich but all of those in between who 
may at some time in their life fall upon hard times, those individuals 
who may need Medicaid at some point, those individuals who may need a 
school lunch program or a school breakfast program at some point in 
their life, those who may need aid to dependent children at some time 
in their life. Much of this now in the rescissions package, which is 
rescinding back what was already authorized, is further being cut 
through the budget.
  Let me just cite what is being cut out of the Republican budget as I 
talk about the human capital impact, putting faces to the impact of 
this budget resolution. Again, moving us far away from striking a 
bipartisan chord to move us toward deficit reduction and as well strike 
a positive vision for this Nation, one that captures the spirit of 
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, creating the productivity of this Nation to 
create jobs and opportunity.
  First of all we cut Medicare under this budget by $283 billion over 7 
years from 1996 to 2002. Falsely we are hearing that in fact Medicare 
will be increased
 to about $1.4 trillion approximately. This cut, however, which is a 
realistic aspect, and I would welcome a dialogue and a rebuttal of this 
particular point, it will add $1,060 to the out-of-pocket costs of 
seniors by the year 2002. It will cut Medicaid by $184 billion over the 
7 years. Many of our indigent seniors rely upon that kind of health 
dollars to provide their health care for them. Clearly there is a 
singular voice saying, ``Why do we not have health reform?'' Of course, 
we have attempted that on many occasions. That might be the appropriate 
answer than rushing to judgment and making cuts that would burden those 
already burdened.

  I have mentioned Social Security cuts and that would cut the average 
benefit over 1999 to 2002, this would bring the benefits cut to about 
$240 by the year 2002.
  Of course all of this points to the Republican tax cut which loses 
revenue for this Nation of $353 billion over the next 7 years and gives 
the wealthiest families a tax cut of about $20,000 while giving middle-
income families only about $555 in total tax relief.
  I said that this was an opportunity to clarify the Republican budget, 
not a time so much to cite those who would offer their views. But I 
will say that many, many of the economists around this Nation have all 
had one voice in saying that this is the inappropriate time, the worst 
time to offer unneeded tax cuts.
  We all wish to offer to the American people their fair share back 
from the Government. There is no doubt on that. But when you ask them a 
pointed question as to their desire for effective Federal services, 
efficient, downsized, responsible Federal services, they will answer 
you yes every time as opposed to a one-time tax cut that does nothing 
but add a burden to the Federal Government and reduce the revenue for 
much needed desires of reducing the deficit.
                              {time}  2030

  Of course ultimately this budget proposal will raise taxes on 
families by $17 billion between 1999 and 2002 by reducing the indexing 
of tax breaks, et cetera, and the personal exemption by 0.6 percent 
each year.
  Let me add what else it will do. I supported the unfunded-mandates 
legislation, which means that you do not burden your States and local 
government with legislation of which they cannot pay for.
  What happens, however, when the myriad of programs that have been 
effective and effectively utilized by State and local governments are 
no more and thereby they have to fill in the gap and pay for these with 
moneys that they do not have? That is, in fact, an unfunded mandate. 
There you have a budget resolution that has no vision and needs to be 
clarified and does not seek, if you will, or does not provide the 
results of which the proponents argue that it does.
  Student loans. I received a very personal and very moving letter from 
a student from the University of Houston asking why would we in a time 
when we are encouraging our young people to be prepared for the 
technology of the 21st century, when today we find that most college 
students will come out of college with 70-percent loans and 30-percent 
scholarships or grants, contrary to some 10 or 15 years ago when it was 
quite the opposite, it was 70-percent scholarship and grants and 
possibly 30-percent loans, they come out already with a burden of some 
70 percent in loans, looking for employment. We now have before us a 
proposal by the Republican Budget Committee, presented to the House, to 
cut student loans by $18.7 billion by charging students interest on 
their loans while they are still in school. This is a $5,000-per-
student increase in the interest costs of the average loan.
  What that simply means is for many students that will simply, and I 
can underline that word even more, deny them an opportunity for higher 
education.
  We will also find that a great deal of the focus will be on domestic 
spending, they will cut a lot of our domestic spending as opposed to 
spreading the burden of these cuts around a whole source of 
individuals.
  Defense spending increases by $69 billion above what has been asked 
for by the President's budget, thereby cutting 
[[Page H5068]] domestic spending and adding to the defense budget 
without the full hearing as to whether or not that is truly needed.
  I cannot imagine how in this high-tech economy moving into the 21st 
Century we would pull away from investing in human capital. I cannot 
imagine how we would present to the world economy ill-prepared students 
and ill-prepared citizens because of a lack of opportunities for 
education.
  The GOP budget would make inexcusable cuts in educational and 
training programs over the next 7 years. The Goals 2000 program 
designed to assist local school districts, parents and students, and by 
the way have been touted by school districts around this Nation, will 
experience a $2.8 billion cut over this period. Again let me remind you 
we are talking again now about unfunded mandates because those programs 
have been effective in providing the even playing field in education 
for many of our primary and secondary students.
  Title I grants which currently aid more than 700,000 disadvantaged 
school children would suffer cuts of $5.1 billion; in essence what 
happened is they take the programs that have the least number of 
individuals who can walk the halls and lobby Congresspersons, because 
either they are unable, they are disabled, or they are too young to 
speak and, so here we are, here we are looking at the budget cuts that 
are supposed to be reasonable and are supposed to put us moving forward 
in to the year 2000, and I can point to you time after time after time 
the cuts for children.
  Bilingual education programs serving 650,000 children are 
particularly important to the State of Texas; that would be cut by $1.4 
billion. Vocational education programs, the programs business leaders 
tell us will become increasingly critical for the competitiveness of 
the American work force, programs that assist 1 million noncollege-
bound Americans gain skills they need to find good-paying jobs, would 
be cut by some $8.2 billion. That is very interesting, because what you 
find there is quite the contrary view being spoken by the CEO's of 
major corporations. They are concerned about the training of the work 
force for the 21st century. They are concerned that there will not be 
enough individuals well trained in technology to meet their employment 
needs.
  What does that say in cutting the kind of training that is job-
specific, which is vocational training, that many of our young people, 
sometimes returning adults, adults that are going back to school having
 been laid off through downsizing or the changing technology in their 
particular job or profession, to not have the opportunity to train in 
the best training for the jobs of the 21st century, so we will cut 
that.

  Some would say well, let the private sector do it. That has typically 
not been the case in these kinds of vocational training opportunities. 
We have certainly been able to partnership with the private sector, but 
the Government has been an effective partner in that to provide the 
training for these individuals then to go into the work force, to be 
productive to allow us to be competitive and then for them to be 
taxpayers. We have just cut that cycle off in the most ill-conceived 
manner that I could imagine.
  The safe and drug-free schools and communities program would be cut 
by $3.4 billion. Having met with two of my school districts, North 
Forest Independent School District and Houston Independent School 
District, I realize how important these programs can be to setting the 
tone and as well providing a violence-free atmosphere for our children 
to learn.
  Just today I announced two of our schools in Houston that were cited 
for their drug-free and violence-free atmosphere, Principal Alice 
Brimberry of Link Elementary School and Theodore Merrill of Tidwell 
Elementary School with efforts to keep their schools drug free and 
violence free, and I would think they would be shuddering that these 
programs would not have the support that they have had in the past to 
go forward more than simply saying to your youngster, ``Just say no,'' 
but actually allowing them to feel free. I wonder if you realize that 
in recent studies of elementary school students and middle-school 
students when questions were asked of them what did they view as their 
future or what did they hope for, some of them said merely to be alive 
or they wondered about whether they would grow up to be an adult.
  It is the kind of influence that many of us could not fathom, that 
children worry about violence and surviving past a certain age, whether 
or not they will get to be an adult, whether or not they will get to be 
married or have children or live in a society where they feel safe. 
These are frightening answers, but it means that it is important for us 
to invest in human capital.
  The Perkins student loan program which I mentioned earlier in the 
listing of the cuts, which makes low-interest loans to 700,000 
students--how about this--would be totally eliminated.
  Now I think we all can address the issue of ensuring that we pay for 
what we get. We want to ensure that students pay back their student 
loans, and every student I have seen on campus has those intentions. If 
we create a positive job market for that individual they will be glad 
to work and pay back their loans, but when you talk about eliminating 
the opportunity for these students coming from families who do not have 
the means for them to get a higher education, cutting off their very 
lifeline for being further productive citizens and taxpayers, and 
contributing to their desire to have a piece of the American dream, 
then you have no vision. And I would not remind many of you that where 
the people have no vision, they will perish.
  With respect to Medicare, the proposal favors a reduction, as I said, 
of $283 billion over the amount that has been projected as necessary 
over the next 7 years. This cut would result in an additional $1,060 in 
out-of-pocket costs to seniors in 2002. With these proposed reductions 
in projected costs or growth, the Medicare Program would be reduced by 
25 percent in 2002. Thus the annual growth in Medicare would go from 10 
percent down to 5.4 percent.
  However, the plan does not take into account the increase in the 
number of the elderly and the inflation in medical costs. During this 
period it is estimated that the State of Texas would lose $17.6 billion 
by the year 2002, and it is estimated that each beneficiary in Texas 
would be paying an additional $1,102 in costs.
  The Medicare debate is one that I think causes us a great deal of 
concern, because many people ask the question what are the facts about 
the Medicare debate. I would simply say that the Medicare Program is a 
critical safety net for millions of seniors and disabled Americans. For 
nearly 30 years this program has enjoyed a high level of support from 
Americans of all ages. While I support careful and equitable revisions 
in this program which are necessary to secure its long-term stability, 
I am strongly opposed to harsh budgetary restraints and spending growth 
caps that will adversely affect our elderly citizens, and which are 
used to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.
  As we look to tighten our Federal financial belts during this budget 
process, let me remind my
 colleagues of Speaker Gingrich's words, every penny saved in Medicare 
should go to Medicare.

  Well, I wonder if that is actually the truth. And I would simply 
raise the question that I would hope that would be, in fact, where it 
would go. But everyone knows that each penny saved in Medicare will be 
used for a variety of other reasons. One, for the tax cuts that 
economists have said across this Nation we do not need.
  This is an assault on the livelihood of this country's most 
vulnerable and its least able to support themselves, and I believe this 
is absolutely unacceptable.
  If my Republican colleagues are calling for a 5-percent growth cap 
for this program, which translates into a program cut by $283 billion, 
the result will be an increase of out-of-pocket costs of $1,000 yearly 
for Medicare beneficiaries by 2002. What we have to recognize is that 
those who are the beneficiaries of Medicare are basically on 
retirement; their income levels are low. I am sure many of us have 
heard the stories about making decisions to buy prescription drugs 
verses nutritious food. For many of our seniors this is reality. This 
is something I face in my community on a regular basis. I try to put 
faces to statistics, and clearly there 
[[Page H5069]] are seniors concerned about how they will survive.
  This does not mean that they are selfish, that they are not concerned 
with, as I said earlier, about being more efficient on Medicare. But 
they wonder simply the basic question of how they will survive.
  Such increases are virtually equal to cutting their Social Security 
benefits by the same amount. They will have to take that money to pay 
for the increase they need in their health care. As most Medicare 
beneficiaries must use their Social Security to pay for their out-of-
pocket costs and expenses, and to aggravate the situation further the 
Republicans are proposing a 0.6 percent consumer price index reduction 
for 1999, which will reduce the average Social Security benefit by $240 
per month below current law projections.
  I thought they said Social Security was off the table. That was 
mentioned in a debate that we had. Clearly, it seems that it is not off 
the table. What it is, it is off and out of the pockets of senior 
citizens who will have to take money and use it elsewhere.
  I refuse to pick up the newspaper and read of another senior citizen 
who has to make that choice between buying food and buying medicine. 
The GAO has recently reported that the Medicare Program could save over 
$3 billion during a 5-year period if their computer systems were 
upgraded to detect billing fraud. I ask the question if we are 
dialoging about a reasonable budget, and a reasonable method to reduce 
the deficit, where is the plan to provide a computer system that can 
detect fraud? There is not a senior who would not agree with you that 
we support getting rid of abuse, getting rid of fraud, and getting rid 
of the misuse of Medicare dollars.
  Another option to consider is means testing for beneficiaries, and 
that is, as Senator Simon has indicated, those individuals earning 
amounts $100,000 and above.
                              {time}  2045

  I would just simply ask the reasonable question: Could there not be 
some manner in which part of their health costs they could pay for? 
Again, a hard question. Sometimes hard answers. I would imagine you 
would get some individual who would say, ``I should not pay for any of 
my cost,'' but reasonable men and women could agree that if your income 
reached a certain amount and you had the ability that you did not have 
catastrophic illness that took away all of your income, then we should 
look at ways of improving the medical care system so that individuals 
with a certain high income bracket might be able to provide for their 
own costs by paying for some of their own insurance.
  We have not exhausted all options, nor have we properly opened this 
issue up for public debate. Savings of any kind add up and allow us 
more flexibility when dealing with a program that is facing insolvency.
  The other point is that we are doing this in a vacuum. Where is the 
debate on health reform that would take into consideration improving 
Medicare and taking some of these efficiencies so that we would not 
talk about burdening seniors with the high cost of Medicare by the cuts 
that have been proposed by this budget resolution? Medicaid would 
experience a reduction of $184 billion.
  You can see under the rescissions, and I am jumping back to the 
rescissions of which we have already gone through the House now and 
gone through the Senate now, in conference; we will be seeing it again. 
The State of Texas presently under the Republican rescissions package 
would lose some $753 million in Medicaid, mostly on the backs of our 
children and elderly.
  Now. In this new budget proposal, $184 billion projected growth over 
the next 7 years, and to be converted into a block grant which would be 
a reduction of about 30 percent of this program which would add, if 
this stays as it is, to the burden of the State. Here we go again with 
an unfunded mandate.
  Annual growth will be 4 percent instead of the current 10 percent. 
However, the proposal does not take into account the increase in the 
number of beneficiaries, and the projected increase in nursing home 
costs and prescription drugs.
  Block grants have been touted as an attractive means of cutting 
costs. What block grants do not necessarily account for and creates a 
crisis, and again an unfunded mandate, is increased need. What happens 
with a block grant when a community has a downfall in the economy, a 
recession, a loss of an immense number of jobs, when individuals have 
to fall back on their family members for support and then the block 
granting for either Medicaid or, in this instance, school lunches or 
school breakfasts, run out and you have a community with express need 
and no money to pay for it? As plain as day, as clear as it is in front 
of you, it is an unfunded mandate, and clearly it is a burden on local 
government, but more importantly, it is people going without in a 
country that has been touted again as a country that cares, but more 
importantly, as one of the greatest nations in Western civilization.
  Taxes would be raised on families by $17 billion between 1999 and 
2002, as we have noted already, and again, that means that the least of 
those, when we are telling people we are giving them a tax cut, by this 
very budgeting process, we would wind up raising taxes ultimately on 
individuals, and so this would be more
 or less getting it in the back, if you will, because it would not 
provide any opportunities for these working people to find any kind of 
real benefit.

  As we begin to look at how the burden will fall, let me clarify so 
that we do not get a sense that these programs I am talking about are 
programs that help those who will not help themselves, and for lack of 
a better term, one that emphasizes these are the deadbeats of our 
society, and so we do not want to particularly involve ourselves with 
those people, because they do not deserve us to be supportive. If we 
want to see who is being helped, let us look at the percentage of the 
elderly that rely on Social Security. Those who rely on it for 80 
percent of their income, that is about 32 percent, so Social Security 
represents 80 percent of their income. Fifty-nine percent of them, it 
represents 50 percent of their income, a real hold, if you will, on 
many of our senior citizens in our Nation. Social Security is the 
backbone of their survival. Then if we want to look at what will happen 
under the Republican proposal for seniors and for individuals paying 
Medicare expenses, by the time we get to 2002, we would wind up with 
having to pay benefits or having to pay out of their pocket $3,075 to 
ensure that they get the coverage that they need.
  Let us find out who uses Medicare. These individuals who are on 
Medicare, 51 percent of them are between the ages of 65 and 74 years. 
We are recognizing more of our citizens are living longer, and so their 
needs are there. You have got 29 percent who are between 75 to 84 
years, then you have got a good 10 percent that are disabled, and you 
have got 10 percent who are 85 years and over. Share program 
expenditures by income of Medicare individuals or couples; I think this 
is very important. For some reason, as I indicated, we need to look at 
means testing for Medicare, and we can see that there are about 3 
percent of the population that has Medicare that is making $50,000 and 
over. So we see that that is not a real large problem. The key comes 
in; the people who utilize Medicare we can see where their need is. 
Sixty-two percent of those make $15,000 or under. That is their income. 
And then some 21 percent make $15,000 to $25,000 a year. This is not a 
program that is going to people who can afford to throw away money.
  I think that it would be extremely detrimental if we followed the 
Republican plan and cut into the vision of this country, which is to 
reward people who have worked hard and to reward people who have made a 
commitment by their tenacity and perseverance and their love of this 
country and then to undermine them in their later years.
  In the State of Texas, we would find that we would lose a great deal 
of money, some $17 billion if this particular program was to go 
forward. I think that the vision is foggy, and it is particularly 
foggy, because I am in shock that a Republican majority would now want 
to posture themselves to cut into human capital in terms of education, 
in terms of Medicare and Medicaid and then to cut us off in terms of 
technology and the ability to advance and compete in a world market.
  [[Page H5070]] For their programs will cut into the science programs 
and research development in a very large way. The majority's budget 
resolution ignores the reality of our global economy and makes short-
sighted cuts in critical areas.
  From fiscal years 1996 to 2002, the GOP would cut $5.5 billion from 
the human space flight program. In fact, as the budget resolution was 
unveiled last week,
 it would almost double the cut already proposed for NASA. It would 
take $4.9 billion from space and aeronautics and technology research, 
and more than $1 billion from academic research infrastructure, like 
computer networking. The GOP budget would also cut several items of 
medical research.

  Let me cite for you an interesting point that I have just learned, 
and I think it is an important point to acknowledge. As we provide 
health care dollars and we pay for our health needs, none of those 
dollars go for medical research. We see the tragedy that is going on 
with the virus in Zaire, and the inability to detect how to cure it. 
Medical research saves money. Medical research creates an opportunity 
to cure illnesses, and yet medical research is funded predominantly by 
Federal funds, and if we were to cut medical research, then we dictate 
for this Nation and for this world, and we submit them or submit all of 
us to the inability to find cures for illnesses or to improve the 
health condition of the Nation.
  Medical research is important. Part of the budget cut and the budget 
resolution will negatively impact on medical research. And so it 
confuses me that this budget resolution seems to strike a chord of 
disharmony.
  It pitches itself to a small 3 percent or more of the Nation, and it 
does not set a vision for moving us into the 21st century. That is why 
without consultation with local government, you can find some $6.5 
billion being cut from the Community Development Block Grant, some $868 
million being cut from the community development financial 
institutions, employment training, employment and training and social 
services. You are cutting Goals 2000 $2.8 billion, title I $5.1 
billion. You are cutting safe and drug free schools $3.4 billion. You 
are cutting all of the housing programs that would include 
modernization of our public housing units. You are cutting the new 
construction of public housing units some $4 billion, eliminating 
construction of new public housing units, $13.4 billion, Legal Services 
Corporation, you are cutting $2.5 billion, and with a great emphasis on 
vocational training.
  And so there is a mixed message here. There is a message that we have 
instructed and we have called upon America to stand up on our feet, to 
stop being dependent, to get off welfare, to stop the cycle of poverty, 
and yet we do great damage to our science and research. We do great 
damage to our vocational training, our secondary and primary education. 
We do great damage to our opportunities for local communities to go 
into their neighborhoods and provide economic and social advancement 
through the Community Development Block Grants. We take away the 
incentive for drug free and violence free schools. We intrude into the 
lives and the needs of our senior citizens and the physically 
challenged and the disabled by cutting Medicaid and Medicare, and then 
we want to carry on the debate to suggest that it is the other party 
that does not have a budget proposal and an answer.
  Well, my cry and my call today is that reasonably we must come 
together looking for a bipartisan approach to what is a bipartisan 
problem. It is America's problem, and that is to acknowledge that we 
have a deficit.
  Yet I would say in acknowledging that we have a deficit, truly we 
should acknowledge that we cannot break that deficit on the backs of 
those who are trying to stand up, and clearly I think the point should 
be made that if this budget is to represent a vision of a people, then 
in a bipartisan way those cuts must be spread evenly to provide the 
incentives for young people to go to college, to provide the incentive 
for businesses to grow and develop and certainly to be able to provide 
for those in their older years. The opposite of that is to ensure that 
working families will be able to face every day the question of how I 
will take care of my elderly parent. They will have to face every day 
the idea that their young person in their home, although they may have 
had a job during the summer, while they were in high school, they may 
have the potential for going to college, but with no work study, no 
grants, no loans, they just might not get there. I would like you to 
think what we would face if that was the case.
  There is a time now for this to end, not so much in the resounding 
debate, but in solution, and that solution has to be do not hurt the 
State of Texas. It has to be do not hurt the many cities and towns and 
rural communities around this Nation. Let us put forth the budget 
resolution that clearly answers the needs of all people, answers the 
vision of this country, and that is that we can make a difference, cut 
the deficit, but be proud of the asset that we have in this Nation, and 
that asset is an investment in human capital.


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