[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 143 (Thursday, September 14, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S13575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the minority leader, Senator Daschle, and 
myself and some others held a press conference this morning to talk 
about Medicare and the plan that is to be unveiled by Speaker Gingrich, 
Senator Dole, and others to cut spending on Medicare. It was 
interesting, at the press conference the first question that was asked 
after a presentation was by a reporter, who said to Congressman 
Gephardt: ``Speaker Gingrich just indicated today in his remarks that 
you lied; he, on three occasions, said you, Congressman Gephardt, lied 
about a portion of the Medicare debate.''
  I thought to myself when the reporter asked that question, it is an 
interesting technique, again, to see if maybe the story for the next 
day will be about someone calling someone else a liar in their 
response, as opposed to the issue of what is going to happen with 
respect to Medicare. That is what most of us are concerned about. These 
debates should never be about the question of lying; the debate ought 
to be about truth. And the issue of truth and the question of Medicare 
is a very simple proposition.
  I am going to offer on the next bill that comes to the floor of the 
Senate, which will be the appropriations bill on Commerce, State, 
Justice, a sense-of-the-Senate resolution. It is going to be very 
simple. I do not happen to think, by the way, we ought to have a tax 
cut proposal on the floor of the Senate at this point because I think 
until we get the budget balanced in this country, we ought not to be 
talking about tax cuts. But it is going to say if the majority party 
brings a tax cut to the floor of the Senate, that they limit that tax 
cut to those earning $100,000 or less, and use the savings from that--
as opposed to the current proposal, which will give the bulk of the 
benefits to the most affluent in America--use the savings from that to 
reduce the proposed cuts in Medicare.
  I want to ask people to vote on that because I think the question is, 
is it not a fact, no matter how much you try to tiptoe, dance, dodge, 
or weave, that the $270 billion proposed cuts in Medicare are designed 
in order to try to accommodate and accomplish a $245 billion tax cut, 
the bulk of which will go to the wealthiest Americans? The answer to 
that is clearly yes.
  We were told earlier this year by the majority party, who advanced 
the $270 billion proposal to reduce Medicare funding, that they would 
provide details later. Today was the day to provide the details, and we 
have discovered that there really are not details that they want to 
disclose because those details will be enormously troublesome.
  I indicated this morning that it is very hard for elephants to walk 
on their tiptoes. It is very hard to tiptoe around the details of a 
Medicare reduction of $270 billion and what it means to senior 
citizens, many of whom live on very, very modest incomes and who will, 
as a result of this, receive less health care and pay more for it. Why? 
So that some of the wealthiest Americans can enjoy a tax cut.
  I think we ought to start over. I do not think we ought to have 
leadership calling anybody else liars. We ought to start over and talk 
about truth. The truth is this country is deep in debt. We ought to 
balance the budget before anybody talks about big tax cuts. It may well 
be very popular to be for tax cuts. But it seems to me that it is the 
right thing to be for balancing the budget. We had a debate about 
whether we should put that in the Constitution. We do not have to put 
that in the Constitution. All you have to do is balance the budget by 
changing revenue and expenditure approaches to provide a balance.
  So I hope we will start over and decide no tax cut until the budget 
is balanced. When we deal with Medicare, as we must in order to make 
the adjustments necessary to keep it solvent for the long term, let us 
do that outside of the issue of whether the savings from Medicare 
should finance tax cuts. The answer to that is obvious. Of course, it 
should not finance a tax cut. Whatever we do to Medicare ought to be 
done to make it financially solvent for the long term.

                          ____________________