[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 27, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9578-H9585]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF REPUBLICANS DURING THE LAST YEAR, AND THE 
                    REPUBLICAN PLAN TO SAVE MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Salmon). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Jones] 
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot] will be 
joining us, and also the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Tate], and we 
look forward to an hour of trying to give accurate information to those 
that might be viewing this 1 hour.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot].
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me, 
and we appreciate the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Jones] getting 
the time this evening so we could talk among ourselves and talk to the 
American public this evening, first of all about what we accomplished 
in the last year, and then we would also like to go into considerable 
detail about the Republican plan to save Medicare.
  Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing is it was 1 year ago today, as a 
matter of fact, that all three of us and many of our colleagues came to 
this city from communities all over the country. My district is the 
First District of Ohio, most of the city of Cincinnati, and many of the 
western suburban areas of Cincinnati, and I came from that area, and 
you gentlemen came from your districts. We came here to Washington to 
sign what I really believe was an historic document.
  I had talked to a lot of people in my community, and I asked them, 
``If you were Congress, what would you do? What do you think this 
Congress should be about? What kind of changes would you like to see 
made?'' I heard the same types of things, it turns out, that you 
gentlemen were hearing in your districts: that people thought taxes 
were way too high, they were sick and tired of money being spent up 
here in Washington so excessively that we had such a huge debt, they 
wanted 

[[Page H 9579]]
us to balance the budget, they wanted us to reform welfare, they wanted 
regulatory reform, they wanted tort reform, and so many things.
  So we signed a document, we put our name on the line, and we told the 
people of this Nation that if we had a Republican majority here in the 
House of Representatives, where we are tonight, if we had a majority of 
Republicans in the House within the first 100 days, the first 100 days 
of us being here, we would have an open debate on the floor of this 
room we are in right now and a vote on 10 specific items.
  The interesting thing is a lot of people thought, ``Maybe that is 
just politicians' talk, and they never really carry out their 
promises,'' but we kept our promises. We did what we said we were going 
to do, we had an open debate and a vote on the floor of this House on 
all those items within the first 100 days. In fact, we did it within 93 
days.

                              {time}  2130

  Most of those items, all but one, passed in the House. I think it was 
one of the most proud times I have had in my whole life, was actually 
carrying out the promises that we made to the people back home. I think 
probably what would be a good thing for us to do is to discuss 
specifically what those items were we did, first of all, since it was 
exactly 1 year ago today that we made that promise, and how in the 
first 100 days we kept those promises. So perhaps the gentleman from 
North Carolina [Mr. Jones] might want to take over from there and 
discuss those promises that we kept.
  Mr. JONES. I appreciate that, Mr. Chabot, and I am delighted to take 
just a couple of minutes to add to what the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. 
Chabot, said, and I am sure that the gentleman from the State of 
Washington, Mr. Tate, will also join in.
  I think the Contract With America set a new direction for campaigns 
in this country, because for the first time in memory we had a 
political party that said, we will put into writing what we are willing 
to do if you give us the privilege and the honor to become the majority 
in the U.S. House of Representatives.
  As the gentleman said, we promised the American people that we would 
get 10 major items to the floor of the House for debate and a vote. I 
want to remind those that are watching tonight that the 10 items came 
from extensive polling nationally by the Republican party to find out 
what issues were at the foremost on the American citizen's minds, and 
certainly there are more concerns than just these 10. The majority felt 
that these 10 items must be addressed, and I will just touch on 2 or 3 
and let the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Tate] touch on a few others, 
and then the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot].
  Mr. Speaker, obviously, balancing the budget and a line-item veto for 
the President were two of the issues that the majority of the people 
said we must deal with; especially balancing the budget. The budget 
today is about $4.9 trillion in debt. That is growing by the moment. We 
are talking about a child born this year in our country, the first 
breath he or she takes as a newborn, they owe $187,000 in taxes, and 
that is because the Congress has not been responsible in trying to 
balance the budget.
  So the Republican Party, the new majority promised in the Contract 
With America that, if elected, the majority would, by the year 2002, 
have a balanced budget. That means we would be the first Congress in 
about 23 or 24 years that would balance the budget. That does not mean 
we get to a zero debt. We need to balance the budget every year for the 
next 25 years after 2002 to get a zero debt, but that is the importance 
of having a balanced budget amendment.
  We passed a balanced budget amendment on the floor of the House, and 
we did have help from conservative Democrats that joined us, meaning 
the Republican majority, to pass the balanced budget amendment. Mr. 
Speaker, as you know, it is still over on the Senate side. They seem to 
be one vote short, and we certainly hope that they will come up with 
that one vote, because I think it is absolutely necessary, as do the 
American people, that we have a balanced budget amendment.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. JONES. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, if I could just mention one thing in follow 
up on that, even though they still need one more vote over in the 
Senate to actually pass a balanced budget amendment to put it into the 
Constitution, nonetheless, we in this House passed the first balanced 
budget resolution in about 30 years. So the budget that we are acting 
on right now, the spending up here in Washington that goes all over the 
country and is spent for services here in Washington, this is a 
balanced budget resolution, and it will put us in balance over the next 
7 years. Some of us voted to do that even quicker. I voted to do it in 
5 years.
  The President has come around to some degree. He is now talking at 
least about 10 years. So we are heading in the right direction, but 
even though the balanced budget amendment did not pass, unfortunately, 
we are still pushing to balance this budget and we are dedicated to 
doing that.
  I would like at this time to yield to the gentleman from the State of 
Washington [Mr. Tate].
  Mr. TATE. I would like to thank the gentleman from Ohio and the 
gentleman from North Carolina. It has been a privilege to serve with 
both of the gentleman, and when we were all back here together, as you 
stated, on September 27, 1994, when we all came back here and signed 
the Contract With America, we did not sign it with any particular 
leader. When I signed it, I signed it for the people back in my 
district.
  These are the issues that I heard about over and over and over again, 
as I went door to door through my district. In Burien, which is the 
northern part of my district, down through Tacoma and down into 
Thurston County, I heard people talk over and over again about how 
politicians keep making promises and then something changes the day 
after election. They always change. That is why I thought the contract 
was so important, because we said, if we do not do what we say, kick us 
out.
  Mr. Speaker, we did exactly what we said, starting on day one. We 
spent 14 hours, 14 hours on January 4, that seems like years ago now, 
because of the many issues that we have worked on, but 14 hours on the 
House floor in passing the kind of reforms that have reformed our own 
house.
  I believe very strongly that if you are going to tell other people 
what to do, you better get your own house in order first, and we passed 
the law that Congress follow the same laws that apply to every other 
American, retroactively. That is so important. There are so many 
reforms that Congress passes and then says, sorry, I do not want to 
live by those laws. Well, no longer. We are changing that. I am hoping 
we can review some of those laws and maybe Congress will not be so 
quick to pass laws that we now have to live under.

  We also passed the committee structure, eliminating some of the staff 
in this place, learning to do more with less. We also made changes, for 
example, requiring hearings now to be in public. Now, there is a novel 
concept. If you are going to have a hearing and you are going to raise 
taxes, it should be in public. It is called the sunshine law and I have 
been told many times that the best disinfectant is a little bit of 
sunshine.
  I think we are getting our own house in order here in Congress, 
actually requiring Members to be in committee to vote, because for 
years, Congressmen did not have to be in committee to vote, and they 
did not have to live by the same laws as every other American. So those 
are the kinds of reforms that require us to get our own House in order.
  I think we have to lead by example. There are many changes that need 
to occur. The thing that is exciting to me is we brought up every one 
of these items for a vote. Some, like term limits which were never 
allowed, ever, in the history of the United States on this floor to 
even to voted on. We can argue for and against the merits of term 
limits, but by gosh, they should at least have an opportunity to have a 
vote on the floor. That is what we did on three or four different 
versions, if my memory serves me well.
  So we have kept our contract; promises made, promises kept, the ones 
we made 1 year ago on the Capitol steps, 

[[Page H 9580]]
we have kept the faith with the American people.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, relative to term limits, a couple of things 
I would like to point out, as the gentleman mentioned, in reforming 
Congress itself.
  On the very first day of Congress, we passed term limits for 
committee chairmen, and the reason that is important, one of the main 
problems up here in Washington and in the Congress is we have some of 
these old bulls, these committee chairmen that have been in power for 
decades, sometimes, and their power was sometimes corrupting, and 
oftentimes just not healthy for the system. So we passed term limits 
for committee chairmen of 6 years, and after 6 years they can no longer 
be chairman of that committee.
  Relative to term limits for all of Congress, the reason that it did 
not pass in the House is because it was a constitutional amendment, and 
therefore, we needed two-thirds, not just 50 percent of this body to 
vote for it, but two-thirds of this House to vote for term limits.
  Now, we got 85 percent of the Republican Members of Congress to vote 
for term limits, 85 percent of us did. Unfortunately, 82 percent of our 
democratic colleagues in Congress voted against term limits, and that 
is why that failed in the House. The Speaker, Newt Gingrich, has 
indicated the very first bill that will be introduced in the House, 
assuming we have a Republican majority next time and therefore we have 
a Republican speaker, will be term limits, once again, and if we have 
more folks that support term limits, hopefully we will be able to pass 
it next time.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I would like to add to something that the 
gentleman from Washington said about the first day that I think is 
unique, and really I think said to the American people, we did hear 
you, we heard you clearly.
  In addition to what the gentleman from Washington said, that very 
first day, the first 12 hours, in addition to the reforms that the 
gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Tate] 
mentioned, we saved the taxpayers $72 million in the very first 12 
hours. We did it, as the gentleman from Washington said, by reducing 
the committee staffs by one-third, saving roughly $67 million. A lot of 
people did not know this, but in the past, the caucuses that we have 
within the House of Representatives, those caucuses were being paid for 
by the taxpayers to the tune of about $5 million. So the first 12 hours 
of the first day of the new Republican Congress, we saved the taxpayers 
$72 million in addition to the reforms that Mr. Tate and Mr. Chabot 
mentioned.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think that 
is an excellent point. Another thing we did, and I am sure that the 
gentlemen remember this very well. I remember I had my little son, who 
is 6 years old now, he was 5 years old at the time, sitting in a chair 
right over there, the day we got sworn in, and that was around noon, 
and we were here until 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, because we had 
promised that we would take action on all of these items the very first 
day.
  To give credit where it is due, many of our colleagues, many of the 
Democrats on the other side of the aisle, joined us in these reforms 
the very first day. One of the most important reforms we made the first 
day, I think, is the fact that we made it tougher than ever for 
Congress again to raise taxes on the American public, because as the 
gentleman from Washington mentioned, when he was going around his 
district, he kept hearing people saying the same thing: balance the 
budget and cut taxes. It has been too easy to raise taxes on people, so 
from now on, rather than a simple majority, 50 percent plus one to 
raise taxes, we have to have 60 percent of this body to ever raise 
taxes again. That will make it tougher to raise taxes, and that is the 
way it ought to be.
  Mr. TATE. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from North Carolina will 
yield, a couple of points I would like to make. One of the things that 
I was involved with is the Barton-Hyde-Tate constitutional amendment. 
We changed on day one in our own rules that we wanted to live by, 
regardless if we had a constitutional amendment, but we had a vote, and 
it came close, we still had a vast majority of the Republicans voting 
in favor, making it more difficult, a 60-percent majority, required to 
raise taxes. It should not be easy for the government to take my money. 
And that one failed, but it was close.
  The Speaker has promised that next year on April 15, or 16, I think 
April 15 falls on a Sunday, but around tax day, we are going to bring 
that up for a vote again, and one more opportunity for that commitment, 
promises made, promises kept.
  Another important part of the contract is we reduced the tax burden. 
In 1993 the Clinton administration raised taxes. We cut taxes. I guess 
I am not apologetic for giving people back their own money. What we are 
saying is, we are not going to take as much so you can spend it on your 
family to pay for your health care, for your clothes, for your trip to 
Disney Land, whatever your family needs, and that is a huge change, 
letting people control their own money, even before it gets to 
Washington, DC, and that is what excites me about the Contract With 
America.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman from Washington makes 
some excellent points, and relative to balancing the budget and taxes, 
there were many of our critics whom we remember when we were running 
last year, and I kept saying, I want to balance the budget, I do not 
want to raise taxes. I had some of the folks in the press, and my 
opponent, over and over again, and many of our critics said, you cannot 
possibly balance the budget without raising taxes. Well, we proved them 
wrong.

  We absolutely have to balance this budget. It is immoral to continue 
to spend and spend and spend the people of America's money up here in 
Washington and turn that debt over to our children. It is immoral to 
continue to do that. So we are going to balance the budget, but we are 
not going to balance the budget by raising taxes. We are going to 
balance this budget by cutting spending. That was our commitment, that 
is what we are going to do.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I represent the third district in North 
Carolina, which is the coastal area of the eastern part of the State. 
During the campaign for Congress, and again as the gentleman from Ohio 
and the gentleman from Washington said, I used the contract with every 
civic club I had a chance to speak to. Every time I had a chance to 
meet with any group or any individual, I talked about the Contract With 
America.
  So many times I would hear from working men and women, we cannot 
afford more taxes. We cannot afford this government to continue to grow 
on our backs as we are working two jobs, in many cases. This came to me 
in conversation with an individual: I am working two jobs, my wife is 
working two jobs, we are doing the best we can, but we see that the 
harder we work, the further we get behind.
  The reason for that, and I appreciate the gentleman from Ohio talking 
about the fact of balancing the budget without raising taxes. In this 
country today, the average working family would spend more on paying 
taxes than that same average working family would spend on clothing, 
housing or food. How can they ever realize the American dream when they 
work more and longer hours, they pay more in taxes? That is not what 
this country should be about, and again, I think that is another reason 
why we have the opportunity and the privilege that we have to make the 
changes in this country that the American people would like to see 
made.

                              {time}  2145

  Mr. TATE. I think the gentleman from North Carolina hits a salient 
point by talking about the tax burden. Because as we finished the 
Contract With America, May 6 was Tax Freedom Day. If you add up all the 
State and local and Federal taxes, you have to work now until April 6 
before you start earning your own money.
  If you add in all the Federal regulations and State regulations and 
county regulations and city regulations and all the taxes, you have to 
work until the middle of July before you start earning your own money. 
You have to work almost half a year before you get to keep some of your 
own money to spend on your family, to pay for your education, as I 
stated before.

[[Page H 9581]]

  I think that what we are doing is reducing that burden, allowing 
people to keep more of their own money, to make more of their own 
decisions at home instead of some bureaucrat that fills some building 
here on the Potomac telling the people in the towns in my district 
where these bureaucrats do not even know where they are, they cannot 
even pronounce it, yet they are taking their money and making their 
decisions for them.
  I would rather keep it at home and let them make their decisions. 
That is the difference in this freshman class and this new Congress, is 
we are allowing the people to make their own decisions, letting States 
make the decisions, not bureaucrats, empowering people.
  Mr. CHABOT. The problem and the reason that previous Congresses and 
the folks in control of this House for the past 40 years were unable to 
balance the budget is they really had it all wrong. The way they looked 
at things is not that the government overspent. They thought that the 
people of this country were just undertaxed. We think just the 
opposite. The problem is not that people pay too few taxes. It is just 
that they overspend up here in Washington.
  When we talk about the tax burden, I think it is important that we 
look at the trend that has happened in this country. I was born in 
1953. Right around that time, in the early 1950's, the average American 
family sent about 5 percent of what they earn up here to Washington in 
the form of taxes. That has increased over the past 40 years to about 
25 percent, from 5 percent to 25 percent of what the average American 
family earns comes up here to Washington in the form of taxes.
  If you add into that city taxes and county taxes and State taxes and 
Social Security taxes and real estate taxes and property taxes, and God 
knows what all the taxes we all pay every day, the average American 
family now pays 40 to 50 percent of what they earn in one form of taxes 
or another.
  The folks on the other side of the aisle, the liberals in this 
institution, keep attacking us on a daily basis, saying, oh, well, we 
are just trying to give tax cuts to the rich. That could not be further 
from the truth. Seventy-five percent of the tax cuts that we passed 
this year go to people who earn under $75,000. Things like a $500 tax 
credit per child for families. Those are the types of taxes that we 
really need to encourage. Capital gains taxes, so that businesses can 
create more jobs, so rather than people being on welfare, people are 
working. Those are the types of positive changes that this Republican 
majority who now controls the House has been trying to enact.
  Mr. JONES. I want to add to that list. The gentleman is absolutely 
right. When we can help working families with children, that is the 
right thing to do. The other side, I certainly do not criticize them, 
even though I do not agree with them, but certainly in my opinion, they 
are out of touch with the working man and woman in this country.

  You listed some of the changes that we want to see as it relates to 
taxes. I was pleased this past couple of weeks, the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Cox], a Republican, one of the young leaders in this 
House of Representatives, introduced a bill to repeal the inheritance 
tax. I do not know about your State and your district, but I can tell 
you that in my district, eastern North Carolina, the people of my 
district think one of the most unfair taxes, maybe the most unfair tax 
is the inheritance tax. When a man, a women has worked all their life, 
paid taxes all their life, to accumulate and hopefully leave something 
to their child or their children and then the children have to pay 
taxes on it. I want to commend the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox] 
and the new Republican leadership for being willing to at least get 
this debate started on repealing the inheritance tax. There are so many 
good things that we are doing.
  Mr. CHABOT. That is, I think, an excellent point. What we have seen 
across the country is, for example, when you have had a family who has 
owned a farm, and wants to pass that farm on to the next generation, 
either their sons or their daughters, to run that farm, they have 
oftentimes been unable to do so because of the exorbitant inheritance 
taxes. In essence they have had to sell the farm in order to pay their 
taxes. That is not fair to that family and it is certainly not healthy 
to our agricultural communities across this country.
  We have had the same problem with small business owners, somebody 
owns a business and they want to pass that business on to the next 
generation. Sometimes the businesses get sold down the river to pay the 
taxes. What happens to those people that worked there, the employees? 
Many, many people get hurt besides just the business owner and his 
family.
  I agree very much with the proposal of the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Cox] to try to reform the inheritance tax system in this country 
because it has been very, very unfortunate what it has done in many 
instances.
  Mr. TATE. I agree 100 percent in what you are doing on that 
particular issue. Another part of our tax proposal that helps people in 
their retirement years, some of the things we do for senior citizens. 
We have heard a lot about Medicare and the so-called tax cuts for the 
rich. I do not know what their definition happens to be, anybody who 
has a job, anybody who pays taxes must be considered the rich, because 
we are tying to provide as much tax relief as we possibly can for 
working Americans.
  One of the things I think gets overlooked, especially in the House 
proposal, is in 1993, Clinton raised taxes on senior citizens, 
especially under their Social Security benefits by 70 percent. Where I 
come from, 70 percent is a huge increase in your taxes. What we did is 
we are repealing that under the House proposal, allowing senior 
citizens under our House proposal to work longer, under our Contract 
With America.
  Right now if you make over $11,000 a year and you are on Social 
Security, you start losing your Social Security benefits. That does not 
make any sense. If people want to work, they should be able to. They 
should not be punished for working. We allow them to make up to $30,000 
a year. We allow them, one provision I have listed here is provides tax 
incentives to encourage individuals to purchase and employers to offer 
long-term care coverage.
  These are the kind of things that seniors are concerned about. We 
also provide incentives for working families if they want to purchase a 
home or post-secondary education or medical expenses. Those were all 
part of the Contract With America that the Members out here voted for. 
Those are those so-called tax cuts for the rich we always hear about 
are really the working Americans that live in all our districts that we 
go home and see every weekend, we have town halls with, we run into at 
the grocery store. Those are the people we are trying to help. I think 
we are straight forward. There are a lot of attacks. But I wanted to 
get the truth out on the tax cuts we have passed on the floor of the 
House.
  Mr. JONES. Just a couple of other points with the Contract With 
America. The American people want to see a real true welfare reform 
bill. They want to see the Congress strengthen our military defenses so 
that we are adequately prepared to protect this Nation. I want to touch 
on that just a moment because I am on National Security, and I also 
have 3 bases that are in my district.

  For the past few years, the Congress in passing the Department of 
Defense budget, many times in that Department of Defense budget were 
allocations for nondefense items. I want to touch on that just a 
moment.
  Between 1990 and 1993, the GAO, the General Accounting Office, said 
that the Department of Defense budget between 1990 and 1993, $10.4 
billion in those 3 years went to nondefense spending. As the new 
Republican majority in our Contract With America, we have established a 
fire wall, so that no dollars under the Republican leadership that are 
going to the defenses of this Nation can be used for nondefense items. 
I think that is extremely important, because quite frankly over the 
past few years, our defenses have not gotten what they need to protect 
this Nation.
  I think that is just one of many items in our Contract With America, 
to help strengthen our defenses. I just wanted to mention that.

[[Page H 9582]]

  Mr. CHABOT. I believe the gentleman makes some very important points 
about our defense. Another item that you mentioned was welfare reform.
  This was one of the things that I saw up front and very close in my 
community in the city of Cincinnati. I was on the Cincinnati City 
Council for 5 years and I was a Hamilton County commissioner in 
Cincinnati for 5 years.
  One of the greatest problems, one of the most frustrating things that 
I saw was how destructive the welfare system was in Cincinnati. I am 
sure that was repeated all over this country. We passed, I believe, a 
very positive welfare reform package in the House earlier this year. I 
think, and I have heard again some of the folks on the other side 
attacked us as being mean-spirited, not caring about the poor, because 
we were trying to change welfare. But I would argue that there was 
nothing more mean-spirited, nothing more corrupting, nothing more 
damaging to children in this country than the present welfare system, 
which basically for many years has encouraged families to break up, has 
encouraged fathers not to live in the home but to go away from the 
home, not to support their own kids. Kids all over this country grow up 
in homes where they never see an adult go to work. They then fall into 
that same pattern of behavior.
  Our plan emphasizes work. It gives job training, it gives job 
opportunities and basically assists people into getting into work in 
the private sector, not some government make-work-type jobs but jobs in 
the private sector. We have got to get people working, supporting 
themselves and supporting their own families.
  I would argue it is really not fair to require other families that 
oftentimes both the mother and the father have to work, sometimes work 
two jobs to support their own kids, and then they get their money taken 
and sent here to Washington and sent to folks on welfare who for the 
most part ought to be supporting themselves and supporting their own 
children.
  I am all for helping the truly needy, but too often welfare in this 
country has become a permanent way of life, generation after generation 
after generation on welfare.
  I think our plan was a step in the right direction, requiring people 
to work, and support their own children, and emphasizing families 
staying together. That is direction we should be heading.
  Mr. JONES. Am I correct, and please correct me, the gentleman from 
Ohio as well as the gentleman from Washington, I believe I have seen or 
read that since the beginning of the Great Society in the mid 1960's, 
this Nation has spent over $5 trillion on welfare-type programs.
  Mr. CHABOT. That is exactly right. It is interesting that that $5 
trillion is almost the same amount as our national debt right now, of 
which 14 cents of every dollar that comes up here to Washington just 
goes to pay the interest on that debt. We have spent a tremendous 
amount of money on welfare. Most of that money I would argue has been 
counterproductive and just has not worked. Most of that money, the 
explosion in the spending started back in the 1960's during Lyndon 
Johnson's Great Society. I think the intentions were good but the 
results have been tragic for this country.
  Mr. TATE. I would agree that we have spent over $5 trillion, that is 
with a T, trillion since the 1960's. But even more important than the 
money, more than the $5 trillion, if you added up the human toll that 
these problems have really caused for many Americans. It has spread the 
wrong kind of dependence.
  It is a system that to me you subsidize, I have heard many times, 
subsidize what you want more of and tax what you want less of. What we 
have done is subsidize irresponsible behavior. If you have more and 
more children and you are not responsible, we are going to give you 
more and more money under the current plan.
  We are trying to encourage people to be more responsible, requiring 
people to work. I can tell you there is no better self-esteem or social 
program than someone having a job, someone feeling the pride in getting 
up every day and going to work. If we want to help people, let us teach 
them to work, not just teach them, ``If I stay home, I'll get a 
check.'' That does not teach people the right kind of thing. Let us get 
them a job. It helps them to be accountable to the taxpayer as well and 
to themselves. So we break that cycle of dependence, we give them the 
self-esteem that a job brings, we hold them to be responsible for their 
action because we are not going to subsidize irresponsible behavior and 
we give States the flexibility to come up with plans that work.
  Because I can tell you, south Tacoma is a lot different than the 
south Bronx or South Dakota. We need plans that fit those local 
neighborhoods.
  Mr. JONES. Is it true that the President, President Clinton as a 
candidate for the presidency campaigned and said he is going to insist 
that we have welfare reform, he is going to see that welfare reform 
takes place, and I sincerely believe, I do not know if you would agree 
or not, that had it not been for the American people electing a 
Republican majority in the House and the Senate, I doubt we would have 
welfare reform which today we have on the House and Senate side, we are 
passing a major welfare reform bill.
  Mr. TATE. The gentleman is exactly right. The President actually 
campaigned, and I hope I got the quote exactly right, to end welfare as 
we know it. Basically the plans that we have seen from the 
administration have been to tinker with welfare as we know it. Window 
dressing, maybe a fresh coat of paint, call it Workfare, but it is 
basically the same old packaged plan. We are trying to come up with a 
plan that transforms, gets people out of that cycle of dependency, out 
of the system that really brings them down and trying to change the 
system.

                              {time}  2200

  I believe the Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate, and 
the House of Representatives for 2 years, and I do not remember any 
welfare proposals passing. But we have been able, and some people can 
agree or disagree with the proposal or the fine print, we have come up 
with a plan that I think transforms the welfare system and really gives 
people the hand up they really need instead of just a handout that 
traps them there.
  Mr. CHABOT. Moving along with the items in the Contract With America 
that we passed in the House this year, another item that I think was 
very important was we rewrote the so-called crime bill that was passed 
in this House last year. I think we would all agree that crime in this 
country is far too high, the fact that people, oftentimes many of our 
senior citizens, are prisoners in their own homes, cannot take a walk 
on the street because they are worried about being mugged or being 
raped or something just awful happening; I mean, it is a crime itself 
that that level of crime has been able to go on all of these days, and 
much of it is linked to the drug problems that we have, much of it is 
linked to the fact that kids do not have appropriate parental 
supervision at home. They hang out on the street corners. They get 
involved in crack dealing and shoot each other, and it is just a mess.
  So, unfortunately, the crime bill that was passed last time I do not 
think did much good. There were a lot of social programs in there. 
There was midnight basketball and many of us, in talking with the 
people in our districts last time when we were running, heard over and 
over again, ``We want a real crime bill. We want something that is 
really going to battle crime in this Nation and not just have some 
feel-good legislation that makes people think something happened.'' So 
we passed, I think, a very, very good, comprehensive crime bill earlier 
this year. It gave flexibility to the States to determine what really 
worked in those particular communities. If midnight basketball works in 
a community, that is something they can have an option to do. Other 
communities may choose to do something entirely different. It required 
truth-in-sentencing where, if you have a violent criminal, they are 
going to be locked up because when they are behind bars, they are not 
out on the streets preying on the public.
  It toughened the death penalty in this country. I firmly believe in 
the death penalty. Most of the people in this country believe in the 
death penalty. There are some people that have just a moral feeling 
about it. They do not agree. That is fine. It is a free country. We can 
have both sides of the 

[[Page H 9583]]
issue. We do have a death penalty in most States. The problem with the 
death penalty, and some people argue it is not a deterrent, the poor 
deterrence is the fact of the way we handle the death penalty in this 
country. We let people sit in death row for 15 years, 16 years. We need 
a short appeals process, and then the death penalty, I believe, should 
be carried out. Then I think it would be a deterrent. That is one of 
the things this crime bill did. It shortened the death penalty appeals 
process. I think we need to go even further in that area. It was 
certainly a step in the right direction.
  The levels of crime has gotten far too high in this country. We are 
actually doing something about that finally in this House.
  Mr. TATE. I want to commend the gentleman for his work on the 
Committee on the Judiciary on these issues. I remember the gentleman 
speaking several times on the floor trying to toughen the legislation, 
and I think the gentleman should be commended. He hit it right on the 
nose: Block grants, once again letting the cities and States decide how 
the money should be spent. Instead of mandating what I call hug-a-thug 
social programs down on to local governments, we are going to let the 
local governments come up with their own plans, community policing, 
more police, more equipment, whatever they need. Every community is 
different. Cincinnati is probably different than Seattle. The cities in 
North Carolina are different than the city of Tacoma.

  Mr. CHABOT. We have a better baseball team.
  Mr. TATE. I would have to dispute the gentleman from Ohio on that 
particular phrase. That was not part of the contract.
  But I appreciate his comments. But once again, truth-in-sentencing, 
you hit it on the nose. If someone is caught and convicted and 
sentenced, should they not serve at least 85 percent of their sentence? 
Once again, we want to bring credibility back to our system, whether it 
be in our own House as we pass reforms, or in our justice system to 
make sure we truly have a justice system, not just a legal system. We 
want to make sure there is some justice in our system where, if you 
commit a crime against society or against an individual, you ought to 
serve time.
  Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman mentioned I am on the Committee on the 
Judiciary. A couple of the other things in the contract, many of the 
items passed through the Committee on the Judiciary, so we had our 
hands full in that earlier 100 days. Tort reform, for example, was 
something passed through the Committee on the Judiciary.
  We had a lottery system in this country where trial lawyers 
oftentimes benefited, made tremendous amounts of money. It is arguable 
whether the people that got hurt got very much at all. We wanted to 
change the lottery system.
  There was a case in New York City, for example, that gives you an 
example of what was wrong with the system. There was a case where a 
homeless person decided to commit suicide, threw himself in front of a 
subway train. He was unsuccessful. He did not die, but he was injured 
seriously. He turned around and sued the city of New York, and he won, 
and that just shows one of the ridiculous types of cases that, under 
the existing laws, happened.
  Another case a lot of people have heard about is the lady who spilled 
coffee on herself at McDonald's Restaurant, turns around and sues 
McDonald's and gets a multimillion-dollar verdict. It was reduced 
somewhat to the hundreds of thousands, but we all pay for higher 
insurance premiums, and we need to have a system that, rather than just 
lawyers making out, we need for people who have really been injured and 
people who need justice to be able to get fair and equal justice under 
the system, and that is what our bill attempted to do.
  Mr. JONES. If the gentleman will yield to touch on another subject or 
item in the Contract With America, and the gentleman or the gentleman 
from Washington [Mr. Tate] might speak to this, that we had legislation 
that would strengthen families by giving greater control to parents as 
it related to education. We also strengthened the child support 
programs so that the fathers that were not meeting their 
responsibilities of being a father in a divorce situation, that they 
would have come up with the money to support that child and also we got 
tough with child pornography. I believe that these were part of the 
Contract With America and, generically speaking, some of the areas that 
we spoke to in our legislation, again, what the American public wanted 
to see.

  Mr. CHABOT. Those are very good issues, points, and things that we 
certainly made progress in.
  One of those things which is near and dear to my heart is the area of 
education. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] and I are 
cochairmen of a group that has been trying to get rid of the Federal 
Department of Education up here in Washington, so that instead of 
bureaucrats making the decision about how our kids are going to be 
educated, we let parents and teachers and local school boards determine 
how the money ought to be sent and how the education ought to be 
carried out and what books they ought to have instead of some nameless, 
faceless bureaucrat up here in Washington, and we would save billions 
of dollars in the process.
  Mr. TATE. Is there anyone that sits in that big building out there, I 
think on Independence Avenue, in the Department of Education, anybody 
in that building teach anywhere in the district of Ohio that you 
represent?
  Mr. CHABOT. The gentleman has got me stumped. I cannot guarantee that 
there is not somebody in there.
  Mr. TATE. I can tell you I do not know of anybody there that teaches 
anywhere in the Ninth District of Washington. That is our point, once 
again these are people, good family people that work there. They do not 
know the families in my district. So why are they making decisions? I 
think you made a good point.
  Mr. CHABOT. The bill that we have sponsored up here is called the 
Back to Basics Education Act, and we have 111 cosponsors, meaning that 
111 Members of this body have indicated they support this legislation. 
Again, what it does is it takes the power away from the bureaucrats up 
here in Washington and gives it back to the folks at the local level, 
parents, teachers, and local school boards.
  Education is a very, very important issue with me. I am a former 
schoolteacher. I taught in an urban school in downtown Cincinnati and 
taught the seventh and eighth grades. In fact, my daughter is in the 
eighth grade this year, so I can identify very much with her and the 
kids we taught and why this particular bill is so important to the 
education of children all over this country.
  It saves money, too, which is important to the taxpayers.
  Mr. JONES. If the gentleman will yield, I join you and the gentleman 
from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] in your efforts. I think I am a 
cosponsor of the bill, and I join you in looking at the possibility of 
downsizing or totally eliminating the Department of Education. I could 
not agree more, having served in the North Carolina General Assembly 
for 10 years; I know the States can do a better job of working with the 
counties, working with the teachers and the parents in the counties and 
throughout the State, of doing a better job of educating our young 
people than the Federal Government can.
  Mr. CHABOT. What we have done thus far this evening is we have kind 
of talked about what we did during the first 100 days, and the time 
after that, the Contract With America, what we passed, what we still 
have to do. We are in September now. We have got a few more months left 
in this year, and at this time we are setting the budget for next year 
and we are in very significant times for the future of this Congress 
and the future of this country, and I think what might be helpful at 
this time is to show what are the most important issues right now that 
we have facing us and perhaps discuss those.
  I have here a chart which shows four of the issues, and perhaps one 
of my colleagues might like to indicate what we see here and what the 
significance of these issues is.
  Mr. TATE. The thing that really strikes me is if we just passed just 
one of those this year, this would be a truly historic Congress. If we 
just balanced the budget for the first time since 1969, 

[[Page H 9584]]
we could go home and say we have accomplished something, that is goal 
No. 1, in 7 years, and as the gentleman from North Carolina stated, a 
child born today will have $187,150 in taxes that they will have to pay 
in their lifetime just to the Federal Government just to finance the 
national debt, not to pay it off, but to finance it.
  Mr. CHABOT. Why do we not drop down to the third item and maybe come 
up to the second item last?
  Mr. TATE. Under welfare reform, as we talked earlier, I mean, truly 
historic as well. If we come up with welfare reform between now and the 
rest of the year, one has passed the House, one has passed the Senate, 
we are going to work out the differences and some fine-tuning to do 
between now and the middle of November, come up with plans to give 
States more flexibility, come up with plans to truly break the cycle of 
dependency.
  The fourth item on there is providing tax relief for working families 
and job creation, giving more working families money back to them, 
creating jobs so those people on welfare will not be stuck in a cycle 
of dependency but will have a job that pays good wages, that gets the 
engine of the economy going, which is small business.
  Mr. CHABOT. The four items that we have up here are the important 
issues we still have facing us this year, the ones we really want to 
accomplish, the ones we will not back down on, we will not blink on, we 
will not flinch on in dealing with the President, things that 
absolutely have to be done for the future of this country.
  The next item that we want to talk about now, for the balance of the 
time that we have left this evening, is the fact that we have to save 
Medicare from bankruptcy, and that is the issue that I think is so 
important that we are going to spend the rest of the time that we have 
here this evening discussing how we are going to save Medicare and why 
it is so critically important.
  I think the way we want to start out here is that, first of all, I 
think most people around the country realize now that Medicare is in 
serious trouble, and Medicare's own trustees, including the Clinton 
administration Cabinet secretaries, Donna Shalala, Robert Rubin, and 
Robert Reich, have indicated that Medicare starts losing money next 
year and goes bankrupt in the year 2002. So that is what this next 
chart here indicates.
  This is the conclusion of the Medicare trustees. This was in April of 
1995. Again, I want to emphasize that three of these trustees, these 
are not Republican Members of Congress, they are not our staff people. 
These are President Clinton's top Cabinet officials, Donna Shalala, 
Robert Rubin, and Robert Reich, and what it says here, ``The fund is 
projected to be exhausted in 2001.'' By funds, they are talking about 
Medicare funds. The funds will be exhausted in the year 2001.
  Here are their signatures. Here are their names right down here.
  Mr. JONES. If the gentleman will yield, is it not correct that 1996 
will be the first year that there will be more money going out of the 
fund than coming in, and, for an example, what we are talking about 
is $1 billion more going out of the fund in 1996 than coming in?

  Mr. CHABOT. That is one of the scary things, that it goes bankrupt in 
7 years, but it starts losing money next year, and this has not 
happened before. This is the first time in history it goes completely 
bankrupt in the next 7 years.
  I would argue very strongly that it would be immoral for us to let 
that happen. My mom and dad, you know, are on Medicare. They receive 
the benefits. Many of our relatives do. People in my district do, 
thousands and thousands of people. It is something that they paid into. 
It is something that was sacred, that the Government basically made a 
contract with them just like we made a contract with America this year.
  I think it is our responsibility, as Members of Congress, to not let 
Medicare go bankrupt. We have to save it. We have to preserve it. We 
have to protect it for the seniors now, for this generation and for 
future generations. That is absolutely critical.
  Mr. TATE. If the gentleman will yield, I could not agree more. This 
is to me, to sit back and do nothing is the absolute worst thing we 
could do. We cannot just bury our heads in the sand. We cannot just 
say, ``I wish it would go away.'' That is not the way things work.
  We are elected to be responsible. We are elected to save programs 
that the public believes are important and come up with ways to save 
it.
  I happen to have a copy of the summary right here, ``Status of social 
security and Medicare programs,'' and it clearly states the HI, the 
hospital insurance fund, which pays for hospital bills, continues to be 
severely out of balance and is projected to be exhausted in about 7 
years.

                              {time}  2215

  I mean that is about as clear as it gets. It is projected to be 
exhausted in 7 years.
  I guess I cannot look at the grandparents, the retired folks in my 
district, the people that depend on Medicare, in the face and say, 
``I'm sorry. I'm not going to do anything. I hope it goes away.''
  I mean we have to do something. We cannot afford not to. We have a 
moral responsibility, a moral imperative, to do something, and I just 
appreciate the gentleman bringing this issue out tonight because I can 
think of no more important issue than keeping what I call the original 
Contract With America, a contract from one generation to the next to 
help our seniors, and, boy, I would do everything I can to preserve, 
protect, and strengthen it, and that is what our program is all about.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I think one thing that we absolutely should 
make clear is that although some of the folks who want to scare senior 
citizens across this country are talking about us cutting Medicare, 
that could not be further from the truth. What we are talking about 
doing is increasing the spending on Medicare, but at a slower rate. 
Right now in the private sector medical care has been increasing at 
about 5 percent, 6 percent, thereabouts, a year. Medicare has been 
going up 10 percent, 11 percent a year, so just about double what it 
has been in the private sector.

  So what we have to do is we have to slow the growth of Medicare so it 
is more consistent with what is going on in the private sector so that 
we can save Medicare, and in fact the dollars in our plan go up, and I 
will give you the dollar amounts. Right now for every senior in this 
country on average, Mr. Speaker, we spend $4,800. The U.S. Government 
spends $4,800 on Medicare per senior citizen this year. Under our plan 
over that 7 years' period of time it will go from $4,800 up to $6,700, 
and that is more than the rate of inflation every year. So we are 
talking about increasing spending from $4,800 to $6,700.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, I say to my colleagues, that ain't a cut, and even 
up here in Washington when oftentimes folks on the other side of the 
aisle are trying to scare seniors and trying to mislead, that is not a 
cut, it is an increase, and that's the way we have to save Medicare.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on something the gentleman is 
going to touch on in a second. I just want to read a paragraph to him 
and the gentleman from Washington that is in the Washington Post dated 
September 15, Friday, and I do not think any one of us could say that 
the Washington Post is pro-Republican philosophy. So, therefore, I 
think it is worthy that I should read this to you and those that might 
be viewing. It says:

       Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole accused the Democrats and their 
     allies yesterday of conducting a campaign based on distortion 
     and fear to block the cuts in projected Medicare spending 
     that are the core of the Republican effort to balance the 
     budget in the next seven years. They're right; that's 
     precisely what the Democrats are doing--it's pretty much all 
     they're doing--and it's crummy stuff.

  This is from the Washington Post, September 15, and I read that 
because of what you just said. I want to share with you and the 
gentleman from Washington [Mr. Tate] that back in my district we are 
basically a rural district. Many of the senior citizens are so 
dependent on Medicare, and I can honestly tell you that right now they 
believe that we are sincere, that we are going to do what has to be 
done to preserve, protect, and strengthen the Medicare for our senior 
citizens, and I can tell you even though the other side, and not 
everybody on the other side, but some, are trying to scare the senior 

[[Page H 9585]]
citizens in my district, it is not working.
  I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.
  Mr. CHABOT. You have mentioned the Washington Post. I have a couple 
of articles here. This is exact wording from the Washington Post here, 
and I would just like to refer to a couple of these things, what the 
Post has to say about the Democrats' mediscare campaign. This is an 
exact quote from the Washington Post:

       They have no plan. Mr. Gephardt says they can't offer one 
     because the Republicans would simply pocket the money to 
     finance their tax cut. It's the perfect defense. The 
     Democrats can't do the right thing because the Republicans 
     would then do the wrong one. But that has nothing to do with 
     Medicare. The Democrats have fabricated the Medicare tax cut 
     connection because it is useful politically. It allows them 
     to attack and to duck responsibility, both at the same time. 
     We think it is wrong.

  This is the Washington Post.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman from 
Washington because in this display of distortion by the other side, and 
again not talking about every individual, but talking about the--those 
of a very liberal nature that are not willing to address this every 
serious problem facing Medicare in the future. Congressman Tate, is it 
not true that the other side has been running some very distorted, 
unfair ads in your district pointed at you?
  Mr. TATE. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could say that was not so, but, you 
know what? It is. In face, they have purchased about $85,000 over the 
last week or so, running ads on television, running advertising on the 
radio, having Medicare vans going through the district.
  The amazing thing is these same organizations are also people that 
receive grants from the public government, which is amazing, taxpayer 
funding of the big lie, saying that somehow we are cutting Medicare, 
and I can tell you the people in my district have been calling our 
office, and as of last Thursday or Friday we had over 700-some calls, 
and only 22 have called in and said, ``You know, don't cut Medicare,'' 
and the vast majority of whom, or 90-some percent, said, ``Randy, we're 
not going to listen to these ads. We're tired of outside groups coming 
in trying to scare us, trying to threaten us, saying the sky is going 
to fall, the Chicken Little approach,'' and I can tell you that the 
people in my district understand that Medicare is going broke. The 
trustees have come out and said that we need to save it, that we are 
going to increase the amount that we are going to spend on it.
  Mr. Speaker, I have had town halls. I know probably all of us have 
had town halls, senior advisory committees. They have had 20-some 
hearings, Ways and Means, Commerce Committee this year, soliciting 
ideas. Instead of a top-down approach, we have gone out to the people 
in our districts and asked, ``How can we fix the plan? Here is the 
problem. What's your solution?''
  And that is what we are trying to incorporate. The people in my 
district are ignoring the ads. They are saying they are tired of the 
lies, they are tired of it being financed by their own dollars. You 
know, these are same groups, the same American Families Coalition, who 
receive money from the Federal Government. It is outrageous and it is 
blatant.
  Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I have another Washington Post, and 
obviously these are blowups here, but what the Post has to say about 
the Republicans' Medicare plan--this is the Washington Post:

       Congressional Republicans have confounded the skeptics. 
     It's incredible. It's gutsy. It addresses a genuine problem 
     that is only going to get worse.

  This is the Washington Post talking about the Republicans' Medicare 
plan, and I brought a couple of articles here from two of my hometown 
newspapers, the Cincinnati Post and the Cincinnati Enquirer. I am not 
going to read the entire articles, but I would just like to read a 
couple of quotes. This is from my district in Cincinnati. This is the 
Cincinnati Post talking about the Republican Medicare plan. It says:

       Will the Republican plan actually cut anything? No. It just 
     slows the rate of growth.
       But it is extraordinary, in an age when political truth-
     telling and courage are often thought in meager supply, that 
     the Contract-With-America crowd is following through on its 
     pledge to balance the budget and is going about it the only 
     way possible, by reforming an entitlement program hugely 
     popular with middle-class voters.
       And the plan is, in fact, meritorious, not only because it 
     would save billions upon billions of dollars if enacted, but 
     chiefly because it would introduce market principles into the 
     program, enabling the elderly to shop around for what suits 
     them best.
       Democrats, carrying on as if the Republicans were caught 
     building concentration camps, have been trying to scare the 
     elderly into paroxysms of protest, so far to no avail.
       Perhaps the elderly have noticed that per capita spending 
     under the Republican plan would rise from $4,816 this year to 
     $8,734 in 2002. That's just a few hundred dollars less than 
     without the proposed changes.
       Still, action, above all, is what's needed. Now, that is 
     why the House Republicans' plan is such a valuable start to 
     badly needed Medicare reform.

  That is the Cincinnati Post.
  Let me read briefly from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

       The quacks who have been playing doctor with Medicare for 
     decades always prescribe the same treatment: Bleed taxpayers 
     to keep the cash transfusions coming, but don't close the 
     wounds--that would be painful.
       Finally, Republicans have dared to propose some surgery to 
     get Medicare healthy again. And the response from the Clinton 
     administration has been the same old faith-healing.

  And then they quote Donna Shalala's response to our plan. They quote 
Donna Shalala as saying:

       We will not go back to the days when older Americans 
     brought bags of apples to pay for their doctor visits,'' was 
     the panic-inducing response from Health and Human Services 
     Secretary Donna Shalala.
  And what the Enquirer says to her response, ``That's snake oil.''
  ``Considering the critical condition of Medicare, the Republican 
therapy is fairly painless.''
  And then it goes into some of the details about our plan, and it 
says:

       Unless something is done, Medicare could go broke and 
     double the federal deficit by 2005, soaking taxpayers and the 
     elderly with increases measured like a runaway fever chart.
       It's long past time for a healthy cure before Medicare has 
     a massive stroke. The Republican remedy is a good place to 
     start.

  That is a Cincinnati Enquirer.
  Mr. JONES. Would you clarify, you or Mr. Tate, for those that might 
be watching that the tax cuts that have been proposed, $245 billion in 
tax cuts for working families are more than offset by reductions in 
savings in Government spending over the next 7 years excluding, 
excluding Medicare and Medicaid?
  Mr. CHABOT. That is exactly correct. The liberals on the other side 
of the aisle are trying to link the two. They have absolutely nothing 
to do with each other. The Medicare pay cuts or, excuse me, the tax 
cuts, were taken care of earlier back in April, and we have a plan that 
does not affect Medicare at all. The two are entirely separate, but 
what they are trying to do is play the old political partisan game and 
scare senior citizens. I think that is reprehensible for them to play 
that game. What I wish they would do is come with us and work together 
with us so we can actually solve this Medicare crisis, and I hope the 
President ultimately will do the right thing as well.
  Mr. TATE. Mr. Speaker, I know that our time is running short, very 
short.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Actually the time is expired.
  Mr. TATE. I just want to thank the gentleman from Ohio and the 
gentleman from North Carolina for letting me engage in this colloquy 
with you tonight, and working on the Contract With America, and 
preserving and protecting Medicare, and I just want to thank you for 
the opportunity.

                          ____________________