[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 98 (Thursday, June 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H6029]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          BUDGET NEGOTIATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Poshard] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POSHARD. Mr. Speaker, I rise to support and encourage the 
President for coming forward with his budget proposal. I have heard the 
comments flying around here the past couple of days, comments which are 
critical of his decision. Some from the Republican Party insist that he 
came into the debate late and, therefore, must be disingenuous in his 
motives. Some from the Democrat Party feel they have been betrayed 
because his budget embraces a slowdown in the growth of Medicare and 
other entitlements.
  Mr. Speaker, I think the President did exactly the right thing. Let 
me remind everyone in this House, this is not the first step the 
President has taken to balance the budget. He took the first step 2 
years ago when he submitted a budget that was filled with tough 
choices, a budget which has cut over $200 billion from the deficit in 2 
years and has contributed to outstanding economic growth in this 
country.
  About one-half of the Members of this body did not even come to the 
table on that budget, and now they want to criticize the President for 
coming to the table late on this budget.
  I am not worried about the President coming to the table late. There 
is not a Member of this House that could not be challenged on that 
point at some time or another. The point is, he did the right thing.
  There is not a Member of this House that in their heart of hearts 
believes that we can balance the budget and continue to let 
entitlements rise as rapidly as we have in the past.
  Entitlements are nearly 48 percent of this budget, and interest on 
the debt is another 20 percent. We are running this entire country, 
defense, transportation, environment, energy, education, justice and 
law enforcement, housing, commerce, agriculture, science, space and 
technology, the operation of government itself on barely 30 cents of 
every tax dollar that is sent to this Congress.
  I may not agree with the President's budget entirely. I do not agree 
with any budget entirely. I voted for the moderate Democrat budget 
which I think is still a reasonable alternative. It deals fairly with 
reducing the growth of entitlements and delays any tax cut 
considerations in favor of cutting spending first. This is the path I 
would take, but the important thing now is to encourage the President, 
to encourage the Speaker and the minority and the majority leaders to 
sit down and reason together.
  Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, I plead with you, do not let the Medicare 
debate kill our attempts to get to a balanced budget. Here is the 
truth. Democrats say Republicans are cutting Medicare. Republicans say 
we are only slowing down the rate of increase of growth. What is the 
truth?
  The truth is they are both right, but neither will tell the whole 
story. Under the Republican budget, Government spending on Medicare 
will increase from about $4,500 per individual to $6,400 per 
individual. That is an increase in real dollars. But right now that 
$4,500 represents, let us say, 75 percent of the health care cost of 
the individual, and the individual pays through premiums, deductibles, 
medigap insurance and other things about 25 percent of the cost.
  At the end of the Republican budget, we will have raised Government 
spending nearly $2,000 per individual, but at the present rate of 
increase of health care costs, that will only be enough to cover,
 let us say, 70 percent of the costs.

  So the percentage of costs, the percentage of costs to the individual 
will have risen from the present 25 percent to 30 percent of the cost.
  Are we going to spend more? Yes. But are seniors going to have to pay 
a larger percentage of the total cost? Yes.
  But is a slight increase in the percentage of cost accruing to the 
Medicare recipient reasonable to ask if it saves the Medicare system? I 
say yes. Do the seniors and others who depend upon Medicare have a 
right to ask us to keep these percentage increases as low as possible? 
Of course they do. If keeping those percentage cost increases as low as 
possible means foregoing some or all of the proposed tax breaks, should 
we not be willing, as both Democrats and Republicans, to do that? I 
think we should.
  But the important thing is this: Unless we want this country to 
wallow perpetually in debt and slowly watch that debt erode and then 
steal our children's future, we must do the right thing here in passing 
a balanced budget.
  I encourage the President and Speaker Gingrich to sit down with the 
majority leader and minority leader to develop a budget this country 
and this Congress can be proud of, a budget that reconciles our 
differences, a budget that allows us to go home and look our children 
in the eye and say that we did the right thing in the worst of times.

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