[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 153 (Thursday, September 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9660-H9666]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 RADICAL LEGISLATIVE CHANGES ON HORIZON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bunn of Oregon). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Owens] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority 
leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate myself with the 
remarks of some colleagues of mine who were here earlier speaking about 
the Medicare cuts and the Medicaid cuts. Nothing is more important now 
on the legislative agenda than the rape of Medicare and Medicaid.
  Many people have focused on Medicare and do not even know that 
Medicaid is being cut even more drastically than Medicare. Medicaid is 
being cut by $180 billion over a 7-year period. But it is a smaller 
program and the percentage of the cut is much greater.
  Of even greater significance than that is the fact that there are 
proposals on the table to eliminate the entitlement for Medicaid. 
Medicaid at present offers a means-tested entitlement. That is, if you 
can prove that you are poor and needy, then you qualify for Medicaid if 
you are in the category which on the basis of this means-testing 
process makes you eligible.
  This means-tested entitlement, as we call it, is now on the chopping 
block. It is being proposed that it be eliminated.
  We have a precedent that has been set in the last few days. We have 
witnessed the Senate follow the pattern of the House and eliminate the 
entitlement for AFDC, Aid to Families with Dependent Children. That is 
welfare mothers in popular terms.
  Welfare mothers, welfare families, welfare children, under the law 
that has existed since the Social Security laws were enacted, under the 
New Deal, under Franklin Roosevelt, have had an entitlement. That is, 
if you can prove that you are really in need and you are poor and you 
qualify under the means-testing, then you are eligible for the benefits 
of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children.
  That is gone now. It is only a matter of the President signing it 
into law. The Senate has passed a bill which removes the entitlement. 
The House had already removed it before. It is a barbaric act.
  I have used the word ``barbaric'' before. I have defined barbarians 
as those who have no compassion. Many barbarians have a great deal of 
education but they have no compassion.
  When I use the word ``barbarian,'' I do not refer to religion. I do 
not care which religion or which denomination they belong to. If they 
have no compassion for anyone except their own kind and kin, then they 
are barbarians. They are incapable of having compassion.
  Barbarians are a threat to society, especially when barbarians have 
power. When barbarians are able to make decisions and they do not have 
any compassion, they are a threat to any society. They are a threat to 
America, because they are making these horrendous cuts and taking away 
entitlements like the entitlement of a needy child to help from their 
Government.
  They are threatening to take away the entitlement from Medicaid, the 
entitlement of a person who is sick or families who are in need of 
medical attention and are unable to pay for that medical attention 
themselves. They are going to take it away.
  They are going to leave the elderly out on the hillside to die, in 
symbolic terms, because when you cut Medicaid and you take away the 
Medicaid entitlement, what you are doing is cutting nursing home care, 
because two-thirds of Medicaid goes to nursing home care and care for 
people with disabilities. Two-thirds. One-third is for families who are 
poor, but two-thirds goes for nursing home care for the elderly and for 
people with disabilities. So you are going to take away the nursing 
home care from the elderly people when you remove that entitlement.
  The Federal Government is going to get out of the responsibility of 
promoting the general welfare in that respect and leave it all up to 
the States who would not do it before. Before we had Medicaid, they 
would not do it. Before we had Medicare, the States would not do it. So 
there is no reason to believe the States are going to take up that 
burden once the Federal Government gives them that responsibility and 
slowly the amount of money made available by the Federal Government is 
decreased.
  I want to loan any support and certainly associate myself with the 
remarks of my colleagues who spoke earlier about this problem of 
Medicare and Medicaid being number one on our agenda. Everybody has to 
be concerned about it. It is a snapshot of our civilization.
  Where are we in America right now? If the American people sit still 
and allow this to happen, where are we? If we allow coverage for health 
care to instead of going forward to become universal coverage as we 
were discussing just a year ago, just a year ago we had plans on the 
table to move forward universal health care coverage, where eventually 
95 percent, at least, of all the people in America would be covered 
with some kind of health care plan. Now instead of moving forward, we 
are going to take away the coverage which is already guaranteed to 
people who are eligible for Medicaid and move backwards.

  There will be many fewer Americans who are covered with any kind of 
health care plan after this Medicaid entitlement is removed. That is a 
great step backwards, and the American people must focus in and take a 
close look at who are we, what are we, where are we?
  Are we so desperate that we have to act as barbarians? Are we so 
desperate that we have to sit by as the voters and the citizens and 
approve of such barbaric acts? Are we going to swallow the arguments 
that we are on the verge of bankruptcy and there is no other way to get 
out of this threat of bankruptcy except to do mean and extreme things 
to each other, to the least among us, those who are unable to help 
themselves?
  Please try to stay with it, because the pace of change over the next 
3 or 4 weeks will be quite rapid. Next week we will have a week off, 
but the pace goes forward even though the Congress will not be in 
session, because the negotiations now on the appropriations bills, the 
negotiations and the details of the health care plans and Medicaid, the 
welfare reform, a number of things are happening, and they will go 
forward even while Congress is not in session next week.
  But once we return, then all other things will have to be wrapped up 
in a matter of a few weeks and the pace will be mind-boggling. There 
will be radical legislation changes. We are not just finishing up the 
first half of the 104th Congress.
  The agenda for the 104th Congress requires, because of the way the 
leaders have structured it, that we pass radical legislative changes 
before this half of the session ends. That means that in the next 3 or 
4 weeks, you are going to have to follow very closely while some very 
mean and extreme changes are made rapidly. Under the cover of the 
rapidity, the swiftness with which things are done, much will be lost 
unless we follow very closely.
  We did pass a continuing resolution today. A continuing resolution, I 
have explained before, is a resolution necessary to keep the Government 
going when the appropriations bills have not been passed to cover 
programs and activities of the Government. Most of the appropriations 
bills have not been passed by both the House and the Senate.
  I would like to applaud our leaders in the House, our leaders in the 
Senate and our leaders at the White House for not indulging in 
melodrama. We did not have any melodramatic showdown 

[[Page H 9661]]
at this point. Because to have any attempt to stop the Government or 
even pretend to stop the Government at this point would be ridiculous.
  There is so much to be done, there are so many appropriations bills 
that have not been passed by the Senate. There is so much, it would be 
ridiculous to pretend that we could stay here over the weekend or work 
out some kind of solution in such a short period of time. There will be 
still a problem later on. We have expanded it until November 13, I 
think, and the continuing resolution ends on November 13.
  The train wreck that has been talked about, the train wreck that is 
coming will definitely occur at that time, I assure you. There will be 
a clash between the President and the Republican-controlled Congress, 
because the President says he will not accept certain bills. He has 
made it quite clear. On some he says he may not accept them, but on one 
or two he has said he will not accept certain appropriations bills.
  One of them is the human services, education and job training 
appropriation bill. If it comes out of the Senate and comes out of the 
conference process and looks the way the bill looks in the House, with 
$4 billion in education cuts and $5 billion in job training and human 
services cuts, then the President has made it quite clear he will not 
sign the bill, he will veto it.
  Probably he will veto a Medicare bill which is as outrageous as those 
that are being proposed. I hope the President will shortly, in the next 
few days, make a clear statement that he will veto any bill which ends 
the entitlement for Medicaid.
  We have lost the entitlement for Aid to Families with Dependent 
Children. We have lost the entitlement for people who are poor and are 
in need of assistance. It is lost. Overwhelmingly the Democrats joined 
the Republicans to vote for it in the Senate. They can never override 
in Presidential veto. The power of the actions of the Senate has come 
back to influence the people in the House. It is a lost cause.
  The House stood up firmly, Democrats in the House stood firmly on the 
principle of entitlement. I congratulate my Democratic colleagues, the 
conservatives, the liberals. Everybody got together on the bill that we 
offered as a substitute.
  We offered a substitute bill which would have provided job training, 
would have provided a longer time for people to be educated and get job 
training. It would have provided some kind of program to help create 
jobs. In addition to that, most important, the bill that was offered by 
the Democrats on the floor of the House at the time of the welfare 
reform bill consideration kept the Federal entitlement. The Federal 
Government stands behind individuals who are in need. The Federal 
Government stands behind individuals who are in need when a hurricane 
happens. We take it for granted. It is not written in the legislation 
that automatically you will get Federal aid; it is going to be there no 
matter how rich you are. If your house is blown down by the winds, no 
matter how many times you build your house in a place where the winds 
are likely to blow it down, when they come again, you will get Federal 
help. When floods occur, no matter how close you build your home to the 
river, no matter how many times you keep building your home close to 
the river, no matter how well-off you are, when floods occur, you are 
going to continue to get help from the Federal Government. Earthquakes, 
$7 billion, $8 billion for the California earthquake. You can expect, 
regardless of the state of a person's income, everybody who is affected 
by the earthquake will get some help from the Government.
  That is a civilized government. That is a government designed to 
promote the general welfare. That is the way it should be. But it 
should also be that way for people who have economic difficulties and 
need help.
  Oh, yes, there are abuses in the welfare program. There are abuses in 
the earthquake relief program. Have you heard? There are abuses in the 
flood relief program. There are abuses in programs that relieve 
hurricanes and tornados. Wherever human beings exist, they promulgate 
abuses of programs. Some people take advantage of the situation. There 
are going to be abuses.
  I am going to talk in a few minutes about two sets of abuses, abuses 
that are in the welfare reform program that enrage so many citizens and 
abuses that took place in the savings-and-loans program, which seem to 
be forgotten already although they cost more than $250 billion. That is 
a most conservative estimate. I will make a comparison in a few 
minutes.
  Before I do that, I just want to end my alert on Medicare and 
Medicaid. American people, please, keep your eyes on Medicaid and the 
Medicaid entitlement. Do not let the Medicaid entitlement be wiped 
away. We can only mourn now for the entitlement for poor people, public 
assistance, and only mourn now for the entitlement for children, 
dependent children. We can only mourn because it is almost all over. 
The agreement has been reached. There is very little we can do 
politically to roll back the clock and to gather the forces necessary 
to maintain an entitlement that was instituted by the Social Security 
Act under Franklin Roosevelt. We cannot bring it back.
  But we can stop the escalation of the barbarity. We can stop the 
barbarians from taking away the Medicaid entitlement. We can act. Let 
your Congressman know. Let your Senators know. Let everybody know you 
do not want to move further away from universal health care. The thing 
that brings us closest to health care for poor people is the Medicaid 
Program. You do not want to take health care away from seniors who, 
after they exhaust their income, they exhaust whatever assets they 
have, go from Medicare to Medicaid. You do not want to do that. Too 
many of our senior citizens would be left on the hillside to die, in 
symbolic terms.
  Let us move for a minute to take a look at the fact that Americans 
are outraged by abuses in welfare and the welfare reform has certainly 
been in response to some ridiculous kinds of things that have occurred. 
I would criticize the social work profession. I would criticize the 
public policy planners for allowing a lot of little things that could 
have been corrected to mushroom. But I assure you that welfare, as a 
system, is far more honest, the system for providing public subsidy to 
children who are dependent is far better run and far more honest than 
most Federal programs that exist today. Let me repeat that: There are 
abuses in any program that has ever been conceived by the Federal 
Government, State government, or local Government, and any government, 
any programs that have been conceived of by any government anywhere in 
the world. The human mind is such that there are people who can move in 
and begin to find places to take advantage of the system. The abuses 
are inevitable because of the fact that human beings are so intelligent 
and some of them who are very intelligent are not at all honest. There 
is always the guy who is looking, the hustler who is looking for a way 
to take advantage of the system.
  So welfare has had its abuses. The abuses, again, are minuscule 
compared to the abuses that we have seen in some other programs.
  Let me just stop for a moment and read a couple of clippings to you. 
Let me just stop for a moment and take advantage of some recent 
developments which you might have missed. You might have missed the 
fact that in the New York Times, on September 25, and many other papers 
in the last few days, there has been a big discussion of the fact that 
the CIA had more than $1.5 billion. I know these numbers lose you. You 
know, you think in millions, and hundreds of millions, but when you get 
to billions, people just cannot understand a billion dollars and what 
you can do with that. You know, a billion dollars, I assure you, would 
pay for a lot of nursing home time for hundreds of thousands of people. 
A billion dollars would cover a lot of food for a lot of school lunch 
programs. A billion dollars is a lot of money.
  The school program, lunch program, was cut by about $2 billion over a 
period of 7 years. We could give back that $2 billion and say:

       School lunch program, you don't have to worry about 
     searching out the immigrant children. You don't have to worry 
     about driving out the immigrants, legal immigrant children, 
     by the way. You do not have to worry about looking for the 
     illegal ones. You do now have to deal with these draconian 
     cuts that are going to be squeezed as you move the program 
     down to the State level 

[[Page H 9662]]
     and cut back on the amount of funds, because you have a $1.5 billion 
     windfall here in the CIA.

  The CIA has secreted. They have so much money and there are so many 
abuses, and the administration is so loose and so lax until $1.5 
billion was secreted away in a slush fund without the Members of 
Congress being informed. The heads of the agency, the agency heads, the 
people in charge said that they did not know about it. The President, 
the White House, they did not know about it; $1.5 billion. Put that 
down. You know, that is an estimate of the New York Times. It is 
secret, of course. It probably was more, but it is a secret figure. The 
conservative estimate is $1.5 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, what I am trying to do is demonstrate that there are 
widespread and very costly abuses throughout the Government. There are 
many at the city level and State level which never get the visibility 
that Federal programs get. But occasionally there are some secret 
programs in the Federal Government, like the CIA slush fund that I am 
talking about.
  They discovered $1.5 billion in a slush fund that nobody knew about 
except, I guess, the people who keep the money. I mean, how can they 
not know? How did it not show up on the books? What welfare recipient 
could ever get away with a few hundred dollars not showing up in the 
system? Here we have $1.5 billion.
  What is going to be done as a result of finding that there were 
people who were keeping $1.5 billion or more out of the reach of their 
supervisors and out of the reach of Congress and the President? What is 
being done? Excuses are being made. All kinds of excuses are being 
made.
  Now, this is in an agency which has been guilty before, ladies and 
gentlemen. This is the spy satellite agency. You know, in popular 
terms, this is the Nation's spy satellite agency. It is the National 
Reconnaissance Office. The National Reconnaissance Office was cited, 
you know, not too many months ago for having a building under 
construction which cost $317 million, more than $3 million. This was a 
building under construction for more than, and I have it here, $347 
million last year. Last year, Senators said they were surprised to find 
the agency had built a new headquarters in northern Virginia near 
Dulles International Airport. The Senators of the United States were 
surprised that a whole building had been built, a new headquarters in 
northern Virginia near Dulles International Airport. You cannot hide a 
building, and you certainly cannot hide a building next to the airport, 
I guess, unless you are the CIA. But the Senators were surprised to 
find that $347 million had been used to build a building.
  But $347 million had been concealed in accounts that did not appear 
to be for construction. The agency said it has been negligent. ``Oh, we 
are sorry, Mr. Senator, we are sorry, Mr. Representative, but we have 
been a little negligent. We had this $347 million, and we built a 
building, and you did not see it.''
  Now the same agency is discovered to have an additional hidden amount 
of $1.5 billion or more, and they are saying the same thing. ``We are 
sorry, you, we are a little loose.'' Excuses are being made because 
these are white middle-class males. Excuses are being made. They can be 
sloppy. They can waste your money. They are not welfare children. They 
are not welfare mothers, who most people think are black or Latino, 
although the statistics will show that there are more whites on 
welfare.
  The racism that creeps into the outrage about welfare will not here, 
because, after all, these are educated people, very well educated. If 
you can hide the building of a building next to an airport, you are a 
genius. It takes a whole set of geniuses to build a building next to an 
airport and, you know, Dulles is here in the Capital. It is in the 
Washington area, and the Senators not see it, not know about it, the 
Representatives not know about it, the White House not know about it. 
These are geniuses who have misspent $1.5 billion or more. They are 
geniuses, but barbarians in the sense that they have no qualms, no 
conscience, to say, ``Look, we did not use this money, you can have it 
back, and you can use it to cover some Medicaid costs in the nursing 
homes or you can use it to cover some food stamp costs, you can use it 
to cover some earthquake victims' costs, some flood victim costs.''
  No. They have kept the money and, fortunately, something happened 
that it was discovered. This is the same agency that so mismanaged and 
blundered so much that they had a man named Aldrich Ames in there for 
years in charge of the spy operation in Eastern Europe and Russia, and 
he was a spy for Russia, for the Soviet Union. Aldrich Ames is his 
name.
  Aldrich Ames grew up in the CIA culture. His father was in the CIA 
before him. Aldrich Ames was an alcoholic. Aldrich Ames was a guy who 
took his girlfriend to the safe houses of the CIA against regulations. 
Regulations, you know, we have got family values in the regulations, 
but he violated that. He violated all of the operating principles of 
the agency, and yet he was promoted again and again, and he caused the 
death of at least 10 people working for the CIA, according to official 
count, caused their deaths.
  My point is, I do not want to dwell too much on this, my point is 
here is a blundering, deadly agency of the Federal Government, and all 
they get are raps on the knuckles. This a very poisonous agency that 
causes life and death in large numbers. This is the agency which 
labeled Jean-Bertrand Aristide as a psychopath. This is the agency 
which gave money to the group in Haiti that was fighting against the 
United States Government's effort to reach a peaceful solution in 
Haiti. This is the CIA.
  The CIA budget, we do not even know what it is, but we can go on the 
floor and propose to cut it, whatever it is, We wanted to cut it by 10 
percent. The estimates by the New York Times and those media groups 
that are able to get good information, the estimate was that it was a 
$28 billion operation, and we looked forward to a 10-percent cut, which 
would have produced $2.8 billion that could have been put into 
education, college Pell grants. You know, we are cutting all over the 
place.

                              {time}  1945

  You know we are cutting all over the place. You have heard my 
colleagues before on the other side of the aisle talk about Government 
waste must go. Well, let us not continue to cover up where the real 
waste is. Let us not join the barbarians. Let us cut, I say cut.
  Ten percent of the CIA would have produced at least $2.8 billion per 
year. We want to cut it 10 percent for 5 years so that you would cut 
the agency down to about half the size, and this made sense. But on the 
floor of the House we have produced this bill three times, and each 
time we get fewer votes from the Members of the House of 
Representatives.
  Do they want to streamline Government? Do they want to cut waste? Do 
we want to balance the budget by the year 2002?
  No. We want to terrorize the poor. We want to go after the blacks. We 
want to go after the Latinos. We want to demonstrate that this 
Government does not exist for certain people. We want to throw certain 
groups overboard and produce a situation where only the elite can 
survive. Otherwise why do we not go after an obviously blundering 
dangerous agency and do to it what we have done to the welfare program? 
Radical reform; they need radical reform.
  The radical and extreme reform that took place with respect to 
welfare was not necessary. Reform was necessary. In fact, Government 
should be in the business of reform. We should always be reforming. 
That is what Government should do, trying to streamline itself, trying 
to make better use of the taxpayers' money, trying to get greater 
value. That is what we should be all about. But we are blind when it 
comes to certain favored groups, certain favored operations.
  You think that is an extreme situation? Let us take a look at the 
article that appeared in the New York Times on September 7 of this 
year, not too long ago. It is about the old mining law where the 
Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Babbitt, is complaining about the fact 
that he is powerless to stop some other white males who are educated 
and rich from taking advantage of the system. Mr. Babbitt is upset. He 
says his hands are tied by a century-old law which forced him to 
approve reluctantly the sale of 110 acres of Federal 

[[Page H 9663]]
land in Idaho for $275. I did not make a mistake, my colleagues, $275 
for 110 acres of land.
  Now I would say that $275 for 110 acres of land is a bargain almost 
anywhere, you know, even in a swamp. Well, you might hope that 1 day 
you are going to find something in the swamp that is going to be 
useful. You got nothing to lose if it only cost you $275. But this land 
is estimated to contain a billion, a billion dollars worth, of 
minerals.
  Let me repeat, $275 for 110 acres of Federal land in Idaho. The land 
may contain a billion dollars worth of minerals. I am quoting from the 
New York Times, September 7, 1995. You can go check it out with Mr. 
Babbitt, the Department of the Interior.
  The next paragraph goes on to explain the land was conveyed to 
Faxcult, a Danish company, under an 1872 law that requires the 
Government to sell Federal mining rights for as little as $2.50 an 
acre. It is an 1872 law that requires the Government to sell Federal 
mining rights for as little as $2.50 an acre. Do you hear? It was sold 
to a Danish company, a foreign company.
  Mr. Speaker, they are on the floor bashing immigrants and talking 
about how terrible it is that immigrants come in and they take jobs and 
do horrible things. Here we have given away to a foreign country 110 
acres of land for $275, and the estimated mineral yield of that land is 
a billion dollars.
  Now you might say, ``Well, it's very generous of us. There's nothing 
barbaric about that.'' You know, it is Americans who are compassionate 
enough to give to foreigners a great gift. Foreigners are not their 
kind and kin, so, if they are going to give to foreigners, the Danish 
owners, this kind of bargain, this kind of gift, then that shows that 
they are not barbaric. These are very generous people. They may be 
naive, but they are very generous, because, after all, they are giving 
it away, and they will not gain anything.
  Well, life is a bit more complicated than that. Economics is a bit 
more complicated than that. Business is more complicated than that. 
Probably no American company thought they could stand up and take the 
heat from the American people of having gotten away with that kind of 
deal. So they have gotten a foreign company, but I assure you the 
people that owned this company are not all Danish. I assure you that 
the conditions which led to keeping this law would not be there just to 
benefit a foreign company.
  Congress has sought for years to change the law according to the New 
York Times again. Congress has sought for years to change the law, but 
under the strong pressure from the mining industry western lawmakers 
have repeatedly blocked the legislation. Supporters of the law maintain 
that it helps to promote mining in the United States and preserve jobs. 
To promote mining in the United States and preserve jobs you have to 
give away 110 acres at $2.75 an acre. Congress has sought for years to 
change the law under strong pressure, but under strong pressure from 
the mining industry.
  Who is the mining industry? You know, I assure you it is not just 
this little Danish company, not foreigners. The mining industry has 
stockholders. The mining industry has very powerful people in very 
powerful places.
  Western lawmakers have repeatedly blocked the legislation.
  Western lawmakers? Who are the western lawmakers? They are not 
foreigners. We do not elect foreigners to office, so western lawmakers, 
whoever they may be, have blocked legislation which is sought to 
correct this 1872 law. Probably made sense in 1872 that everybody--you 
would have to be a fool to believe it made any sense now. Any child can 
tell you this does not make any sense except if you want to rip off the 
American people.
  Land is owned by the American people until it is conveyed to the 
mining company, and they say it helps the United States to promote 
mining in the United States and preserve jobs. If you charged more, you 
charged a thousand dollars an acre, you cannot promote mining and 
preserve mining jobs? You know, if it is a billion dollars that is 
expected, a billion dollars worth of minerals, you certainly could get 
a higher price.
  We are back to that old issue of taxation and revenue. I proposed 
before that we have a revenue commission, you might recall, a revenue 
commission to look at ways to get revenue more creatively instead of 
continuing to tax families and individuals so heavily. You know 
families and individuals are heavily taxed; 44 percent of our tax 
burden is borne by families and individuals, and only 11 percent is 
borne by corporations.
  Now these are not the only sources of revenue. There are other kinds 
of revenue that help make up the total package. When you take a look at 
some of those other kinds of revenue, we can get revenue from mining 
lands that are sold, as the President proposes, but here we are up 
against lawmakers, western lawmakers, who are not insistent, enraged by 
the fact that somebody is ripping off the Government. No, those are not 
poor welfare people, one out of every hundred who might be a hustler, 
who might be taking advantage of the Government programs. These are not 
people using food stamps who might buy cigarettes for food stamps 
instead of buying food. These are not those kind of people. These are 
people who are taking millions of dollars away from the American people 
that could go into our revenue coffers.

  Let me just read on a minute because it is a bit sickening, the whole 
story, and you can get the flavor of how sick it is by just reading.
  The wimpish way we react, the wimpish way our policymakers deal with 
these outrageous abuses, is enough to give you a heart attack. It is 
outrageous.
  Quote from the New York Times article:

       But Mr. Babbitt, in conveying the Federal tract in Idaho, 
     said he found making such deals, quote, ``increasingly 
     distasteful'', increasingly distasteful, and he called the 
     law, the law that does this, whose intent originally was to 
     promote development of the West, outdated and exploitative, 
     exploitative, exploitative of taxpayers. Mr. Babbitt found it 
     increasingly distasteful, and he found the law outdated and 
     exploitative of taxpayers.

  Now I am not criticizing Mr. Babbitt except I think his language is 
much too wimpish.
  You know, I am reminded of the quote from King Lear. King Lear, after 
his daughters have betrayed him, said, ``Fool me not to bear it tamely. 
Touch me with noble anger.''
  Somebody ought to have some noble anger when the CIA secretly has 
$1.5 billion stashed away and nobody knows about it. Somebody ought to 
have noble anger when the CIA can build a building near the airport and 
the Senators and the Members of Congress do not know about it, and the 
building costs $347 million. Somebody ought to be outraged.
  They tremble and they shake when they talk about welfare people. You 
heard them before saying they stand in line, and they get with their 
food stamps better food than the guy behind them who is working all 
day. That is outrageous, and they tremble and they shake when they say 
that, but they can let the white males, educated in many cases, rich, 
promulgate a system. Any lawmaker who is part of promulgating this 
system is not dumb. Somewhere there are benefits that his constituents 
are getting in larger amounts if you want to keep selling the land of 
the people of the United States for $2.50 an acre, and you know 
billions of dollars are going to be made.
  The 110 acres in Clark County, ID, are believed to contained an 
estimated 14 million tons of high-quality travertine, a mineral used to 
whiten paper. I am quoting from the New York Times article again. Last 
year, quote, ``when American Barrick Resources, a Canadian mining 
company, used the law to buy a mine with $10 billion in gold deposits 
for about $10,000, Mr. Babbitt called it the biggest gold heist since 
the days of Butch Cassidy.''
  Let me read that again. Last year, when American Barrick Resources, a 
Canadian mining company, used the same law to buy a mine with $10 
billion in gold deposits for about $10,000, Mr. Babbitt called it the 
biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy.
  Mr. Babbitt, I am glad you have such strong language for it, you 
know. If you get $10 billion from the people of the United States for 
$10,000, you think somebody would be on television screaming about it. 
They could do nothing else except tell the American people about it.

[[Page H 9664]]

  The President and his campaign said we want to end welfare as we know 
it. Why does somebody not say we want to end the giveaway of billions 
of dollars mostly to foreign companies, but they have American backers? 
We want to stop American lawmakers from perpetuating this thievery. Why 
does somebody not have the guts to stand up and be outraged about 
stealing money which could provide coverage for thousands of people on 
Medicaid? For hundreds of nursing home people?
  I continue to quote from Babbitt. I find this process where my hands 
are tied by a law signed by Ulysses S. Grant increasingly distasteful. 
Mr. Babbitt likes the word ``distasteful.'' Again I am not criticizing 
Mr. Babbitt. At least he is talking about it. Where have the other 
Secretaries of Interior been? Where have the lawmakers in this House 
been? Why does not anybody talk about this? Why does anybody not expose 
it? Why is it the American people do not know that they are walking 
away with billions of dollars in minerals that belong to you?

                              {time}  2000

  He said that, ``While Congress is cutting programs across his 
department,'' Mr. Babbitt is upset about his department being cut, as 
he should be, the Interior Department, he said, ``While Congress is 
cutting programs across my department, the government is losing $100 
million a year from royalties from hardrock mining.'' One hundred 
million a year in royalties for hardrock mining. How many school 
lunches could you buy with $100 million a year? How many prescriptions 
for Medicaid recipients can you fill for $100 million a year?
  I quote again from the article: ``The bill to overhaul mining laws 
would require a 2 percent royalty on net profits on minerals taken 
under the 1872 law. Other proposals before the Congress would require 
companies to pay fair market value for the surface land, but nothing 
for the minerals.'' In other words, as we sit here today, as we talk 
today, there are Members of Congress in the Senate and in the House of 
Representatives who are protecting the thievery that is going on right 
before our very eyes. This is a Federal program that should have 
radical reform, radical change, but nobody is moving because white, 
rich, well-educated males benefit from it. They protect themselves.
  I talked before about the end of entitlement for Medicaid. I said, 
``The end of entitlement for Medicaid is on the table.'' It is not here 
yet. Medicaid is a patient in the emergency room, on the operating 
table. Medicaid is about to be butchered. Aid to Families With 
Dependent Children is on its way to the morgue. They have cut the 
entitlements already. What would Franklin Roosevelt say? I am sure that 
the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt is quite angry and quite agitated 
tonight. Over the last few months, I am sure that spirit has been quite 
angry and agitated at the wholesale destruction of the programs which 
he began to put in place.
  Franklin Roosevelt was the architect of the Social Security Act, 
which created Social Security, and later Lyndon Johnson used Social 
Security to go on to create Medicare and Medicaid. They are all 
related. I am sure Franklin Roosevelt, having created entitlements for 
the poor, he also created farm subsidies for poor farmers. Farm 
subsidies for poor farmers now have become farm subsidies for rich 
farming businesses, agricultural businesses, so I am sure the spirit of 
Franklin Roosevelt is a little upset about that.
  As he looks at the end of entitlements for people who are poor and 
need public assistance, for children, mostly, Aid to Families With 
Dependent Children is just that. If you do not have poor children, you 
do not qualify. We are ending Aid to Families With Dependent Children, 
the entitlement.
  On the other hand, Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal, the 
Congresses that surrounded him, were also the architects of the savings 
and loans program. They were the architects of the Federal Deposit 
Insurance Corporation for banks and for savings and loan agencies. I 
wonder what the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt is doing as it beholds the 
kind of abuse that took place in the savings and loan program, the 
kinds of abuses that have taken place in big banks of the program that 
he started; because when Franklin Roosevelt stabilized the economy and 
the banking industry by creating the Federal Deposit Insurance 
Corporation, he brought into the equation every American taxpayer. The 
taxpayers stand behind the banks. Every American can put their money in 
the bank, knowing that up to a certain amount of money, it is insured, 
backed up by our great Federal Government.
  Franklin Roosevelt started out with I think it was $10,000, which was 
a lot of money at that time, and he probably never dreamed that the 
abuse, both official abuse and unofficial abuse, would lead to a 
situation where we would raise the amount from $10,000 per person per 
bank to $100,000 per person per bank. So you can abuse it by going to a 
lot of different banks and getting insurance.
  It was not ordinary Americans who abused it. People who put their 
deposits into savings and loan associations did not abuse the loan. 
People who put their deposits in the banks which later on failed, they 
failed and we covered up the failure. Several big banks have failed in 
this country and we have covered it up and bailed them out with the 
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation funds. The savings and loan 
debacle, which is the greatest swindle in the history of mankind, there 
are no other swindles as great as the savings and loan swindle, that 
could not be covered up. It was a federally assisted program.
  Did we get rid of savings and loan associations? Have we put them out 
of business? Have we been as radical in dealing with the savings and 
loan situation as we were with the reform of welfare? No, we have not. 
How many people were put in jail for their abuse, often outright 
stealing of large sums of money that then had to be replaced by the 
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation? How many people have been put in 
jail? Relatively few, because most of them are white, middle-class, 
well-educated, and sometimes very wealthy males. they are not treated 
the same way as poor people, many of whom are Latinos and blacks, and 
most of all, poor. They are not treated the same way. If they were, 
then the savings and loans, the whole program would have had radical 
changes. Large numbers of people would have been put in jail. Large 
numbers of people would have been taken out of the banking industry.
  There was collusion all over the place among well-educated, wealthy 
people in high places, in many cases: accounting firms who turned their 
heads away while all kinds of tricks were played with the books; 
lawyers who found a way to make everything that was done, no matter how 
terrible it was, legal.
  In the State of Texas they had a situation where it was not the 
Federal Government regulating the savings and loan association, but the 
State of Texas. The State of Texas has the power to regulate the 
savings and loan associations in Texas, but the Federal Government, all 
of the taxpayers of America, stood behind their savings and loan 
associations, just as they stood behind those in New York or any other 
part of the country. Why do I say that? Because in Texas you had the 
largest number of savings and loan associations failing, the largest 
amount of money was lost in Texas, where the State had the power to 
oversee the banks. But the Federal Government, the taxpayers, stood 
behind the banks with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 
dollars, so they made a killing in Texas. Not only did they oversee the 
situation and let it get out of hand any way they wanted to, they made 
millionaires, they made billionaires, most of whom have never gone to 
jail.

  Then when it all collapsed, we set up the Resolution Trust 
Corporation. That was the device we set up. We did not take away the 
entitlement, we did not wipe out the Federal Deposit Insurance 
Corporation. We did not do anything as radical as what we are doing to 
poor people on welfare. No, we set up a Resolution Trust Corporation, a 
very complicated animal, and most of the offices of the Resolution 
Trust Corporation, the greatest percentage of the offices of the 
Resolution Trust Corporation, had to be based in Texas. That is where 
the greatest problem was.
  California was next, and they spread it around. Denver had its 
Silverado Bank, the famous bank. The son of the President of the United 
States sat on 

[[Page H 9665]]
the board of the Denver Silverado Bank. It was spread around, but Texas 
had the greatest concentration. After they had regulated their own 
banks to make rich those they wanted to make rich, they they got the 
benefit of having a large Government agency locate there and spend 
money there and hire people there. Many people who were hired in the 
Resolution Trust Corporation had formerly worked in some of the banks 
that had gone, that failed, some of the savings and loan associations 
that had failed, so they got a jobs program as a result of swindling 
the American people out of a large part of that $250 billion to $300 
billion.
  This is happening in America. This happened recently in America, the 
largest swindle probably in the history of mankind, right before our 
eyes, and we reacted by coddling and taking care of those who were 
guilty.
  Let me be more specific about guilt. You be the judge. The Silverado 
Bank in Colorado, in Denver, CO, the Silverado Bank made a deal with a 
person who came for a loan. One of the people who came for a loan 
wanted to buy a building. The building was assessed to be worth $13 
million, $13 million. The bank said, ``Look, we will accept an 
assessment of twice that much for the building, $26 million, if you 
will deposit in our bank the extra $13 million, so we will give you a 
loan of $26 million for a building worth $13 million on the condition 
you will deposit that $13 million back in the bank, because we know the 
auditors are coming and we have problems.''
  If that is not a criminal action, I do not know what is a criminal 
action, but that was done by the Silverado Bank. That is just one of 
the things they did. They lost almost $2 billion. They are not the 
largest offender. We all know Mr. Keating in California was the largest 
offender, but Silverado lost more than $1 billion, and on the board of 
Silverado was the son of George Bush, Neal Bush. This kind of 
transaction took place, and later on as they sorted it out a 
recommendation was made that Neal Bush should be barred from sitting on 
any boards of any other banks. He protested vehemently.
  Later on, I think secretly, out of the eye of the cameras, he even 
was made to pay some kind of fine, along with the other board members 
who had been a part of that situation. But nobody has said he should be 
put in jail or any other board members of Silverado should be put in 
jail. Two hundred fifty billion dollars, at least, and there are some 
estimates that it is twice that amount. You cannot get decent figures 
because the white males, the educated white males, the wealthy, 
educated white males who run the banking system and the accounting 
system and the lawyer system related to it, they make it so complicated 
you cannot get clear figures as of right now as to what the savings and 
loan swindle has cost the American people.
  This is a Government program: wasteful, blundering, billions of 
dollars down the drain. Nobody has ever said, ``Let us get rid of all 
savings and loans, let us get rid of the Federal Deposit Insurance 
Corporation.'' No, we have found a way to take care of the needs of the 
white middle-class wealthy who are involved in the abuse that have 
wrecked the savings and loan associations.
  This is strong language, I know, but the barbarians do not hesitate 
to drive their spears through the bellies of babies. The barbarians 
have no shame. The barbarians come to the floor of the House and they 
talk about the need to streamline Government and the need to have a 
balanced budget by the year 2002. But the barbarians come to the floor 
of the House and they will not cut the B-2 bomber, which might cost us 
$33 billion over the lifetime of the program. The barbarians with a 
straight face said, ``We must continue the B-2 bomber.'' They fight 
hard on the floor and they win the votes to keep the B-2 bombers. The 
barbarians want to increase the funding for star wars, a system that 
has always been questioned by scientists.
  The barbarians come to us and say that they want to give a tax cut, 
and I am all in favor of a tax cut, but if the tax cut is close to the 
same amount as the Medicare cut, the tax cut is, I think, $240 billion 
over a 7-year period, and the Medicare cut is $270 billion over a 7-
year period; $240 billion for the tax cut, $270 billion for the 
Medicare cut. The barbarians look at us with straight faces and say, 
``We must have a tax cut. If that means that the elderly cannot have 
nursing homes, then so be it. If that means that prescriptions are 
going to be limited because people cannot afford to pay for their 
prescriptions, and of course when they cannot get their medication many 
will die, so be it.''

  The barbarians are not afraid to make their case forcefully. The 
barbarians want to end Davis-Bacon, which was created to stop bringing 
in slave labor. It was created by two Republicans to stop people from 
bringing in slave labor and undercutting the wages of working people. 
We are going to have to have some other kind of Davis-Bacon to stop the 
nations like India from bringing in computer programmers who work for 
one-twelfth the amount of money computer programmers who are Americans 
work for. We are going to have to have some kind of Davis-Bacon to stop 
the Russian physicians and technicians who are working here for the 
minimum wage. They can come here and undercut American physicists.
  We are in a situation where the civilization, the society, must take 
some steps to do what is rational to make for an orderly transition, 
where people are able to earn a living and not disrupt things by 
allowing hustlers to take advantage of the situation by bringing in 
outsiders who can undercut the labor market. The labor market that we 
may be protecting tomorrow may be our physicists and our chemists and 
our college professors. We had better take a look at the logic of 
Davis-Bacon, the invention of two Republican Members of Congress.
  The barbarians refuse to look at this chart, which I will have in the 
future when I speak, I will have a larger version of it. This is the 
chart I have been talking about on several occasions.

                              {time}  2015

  This shows corporate versus family and individual share of Federal 
revenues. The share of the revenue burden that is born by corporations 
went down from 39.8 percent in 1943 to 11.2 percent today, while the 
share of the individual and family tax burden went up from 27.1 percent 
to 48.1 percent, and now it is at 42.7 percent.
  This chart is one I bring to every session to let my colleagues see 
the remedy. If my colleagues want to balance the budget, here is the 
remedy. Balance the tax burden, raise the tax burden, the percentage of 
the tax burden borne by corporations. We can lower the percentage of 
the tax burden borne by individuals at the same time. We can do justice 
to the American people and American families who have paid enough high 
taxes. At the same time, we can balance the budget by having the 
corporations, which are making profits now at a higher level than ever 
before, having them pay a greater share of the burden.
  It is a simple solution. We do not have to cut Medicare, we do not 
have to cut Medicaid, we do not have to act barbaric, in a barbaric way 
toward children and the elderly. We should on a rational basis sit down 
and take a look at the next 7 years, or as the President has projected, 
the next 10 years; whatever my colleagues want to do to balance the 
budget, it is possible to do it in a rational way.
  On the one hand we have to save money by dealing with all of these 
abuses that we allow to go on if white, rich, educated males are 
involved, get rid of those abuses and at the same time look at the 
revenue question, the revenue side and produce the revenue in a 
rational way and a less painful way.
  This is income taxes. We can take a look at the mining, how much more 
we may realize by taking a hard look at the mining situation or other 
resources that are presently owned by the American people that are 
being squandered. I have talked about the frequencies, the fact that we 
have auctioned off certain frequencies and earned $9 billion already. 
We can take a hard look at that. There may be more.
  There are solutions that are not barbaric solutions, and I ask the 
American people to keep their eyes on activities in the Congress for 
the next few weeks. It is your money, it is your civilization. We do 
not want to be accomplices to barbaric acts. We want to promote 

[[Page H 9666]]
the general welfare. We want to take America forward, out of the spirit 
of Franklin Roosevelt and the spirit of Lyndon Johnson. We want to 
continue to have a great society. We want to take care of the majority 
of the people that need to be taken care of. We are Americans, we are 
not barbarians.

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