[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 145 (Monday, September 18, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S13715-S13716]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  Mr. KERREY. Mr. President, I will test the patience of the Senator 
from Mississippi by talking on a subject that is very much related to 
this and that is the proposal that was made last Friday on Medicare by 
the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives.
  I read over the weekend the details that were available--not all 
details were available. I make the comments because I know on our side 
in the Senate Finance Committee they are deliberating, as well, trying 
to discover how to come up with $270 billion.
  Allow me to say two things about this. One, there are many on this 
side, many Democrats on this side, that would rush immediately to 
embrace a proposal to eliminate the deficit by the year 2002 if we 
could eliminate the enthusiasm for a tax cut that still is on the 
table.
  I understand that enthusiasm is there. I did not hear an awful lot of 
people in the Senate, at least when they were campaigning for 
reelection, campaign on a promise to put those portions of the Contract 
With America in our budget reconciliation.
  The choice is not between bigger Government and smaller Government. 
We would still have a balanced budget by the year 2002, all with cuts 
in spending. We would still have a proposal that would not have any tax 
increases in it.
  I think we could take an awful lot and we could get a bipartisan 
agreement and still have a very tough budget reconciliation if that 
were acceptable to my colleagues on the Republican side.
  Much more difficult, and it gets difficult on this side, is that we 
have in place, Mr. President, with our entitlement programs, growth in 
those programs that continue to erode our entire budget.
  Imagine a business out there that has $1,000 or $100,000 or $1 
million or $10 million or $100 million worth of sales with 67 percent 
of their sales being eaten up in costs related to mandated spending. 
That is, noncontrollable spending.
  In this case, most of the retirement and health care. Imagine, 67 
percent. Their capacity to invest in equipment, their capacity to 
invest in employees, their capacity to invest in things that maintain 
their base of sales is substantially reduced as a result.
  The same is true with the Federal Government. It would be bad enough, 
Mr. President, if we had 67 percent and it stayed there. Under both the 
President's proposal and the Republican budget resolution that 
percentage continues to grow so that in the year 2000 it is 75 percent, 
not 67 percent.
  Mr. President, that is 8 percentage points, approximately, additional 
growth in entitlements. On this year's spending that is nearly $140 
billion of additional money of our budget that is going to entitlement 
spending.
  I know the Senator from Mississippi understands this. If we had $400 
billion which is what 25 percent would be, if we had 25 percent of our 
budget allocated this year for defense and nondefense appropriations, 
we would have $400 billion, Mr. President.
  Our most dovish liberal member would probably spend $250 billion on 
defense, leaving $150 billion for nondefense spending.
  Mr. President, as I look at the Republican Medicare Preservation 
Act--whatever they call it; something to that effect--of 1995, they say 
the proposal preserves Medicare in the future. It does not. All it does 
is it picks as the problem the year 2002 but it does not alert 
Americans to the enormous demographic problem of baby boomers that come 
online and begin to retire in the year 2008.
  Mr. President, unless we take a longer view, we do not see the 
appropriated accounts begin to dip even lower than 25 percent, 
eventually becoming zero, unless we take action.
  There are two things that put pressure on the appropriations accounts 
that requires us to cut back in agriculture this year, as well as all 
other of our 13 appropriations bills. One is a tax cut that is insisted 
upon by the Republican majority.
  I do not believe--I am not sure even the majority is that 
enthusiastic on the Republican side. Bigger than that, Mr. President, 
by my calculation, is a factor of four--four times larger than that 
problem--is the problem of growth of entitlements.
  We Democrats will have to say to Republicans--indeed the proposal put 
out last Friday instead of saying it does too much, the biggest 
deficiency that I find with the proposal, Mr. President, is it does not 
do enough. My criticism of it, it is not big enough. It does not really 
fix the problem.
  I stand here as one Democrat who is concerned about what we are doing 
to these appropriated accounts. I see many areas where Republicans and 
Democrats, whether it is rural development or transportation or 
education, could agree that we are not spending enough, that we are 
decreasing our productive capacity in the future and denying ourself 
higher standards of living and more economic growth.
  As a result, where we have agreement we are simply unable to come up 
with 

[[Page S 13716]]
the resources, first, because of a tax cut that is still in here; but a 
far larger looming problem is the growth of entitlements.
  I see that the cosponsor of this bill, Senator Kohl, of Wisconsin, is 
on the floor. I yield the floor.
  Mr. KOHL. I thank my colleague from Nebraska.

                          ____________________