[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 157 (Wednesday, October 11, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14959-S14960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          THE POLITICS OF FEAR

  Mr. GRAMS. Mr. President, my Minnesota office is located in the town 
of Anoka, the Halloween capital of the world.
   For most of my neighbors there, a good scare means nothing more than 
a Halloween visit to a haunted house, or maybe a roller coaster ride at 
the amusement park, or an evening in front of the TV watching old 
horror movies. So who would have ever guessed that, in 1995, the list 
of ways to give somebody a good scare would include handing them a 
letter from their U.S. Congressman.
  There is a campaign of fear and misinformation being waged around us, 
Mr. President, and I come to the floor today to share with you my 
absolute contempt for it, and my sincere sympathy for its innocent 
victims.
  The perpetrators? My colleagues in the minority party, in both 
Chambers, who are sinking to new lows as they fight desperately against 
the tide of public opinion that came crashing down on them last 
November.
  Their victims? Senior citizens, who have done nothing to deserve this 
kind of treatment, except, apparently, to grow old.
  Let me tell you about one of those victims.
  She is 91 years old, and for the last couple of years, she has lived 
in a nursing home in the town of Cambridge, MN.
  Her name is Ethel Grams, and she is my grandmother. My grandmother 
received a letter, delivered right to her nursing home bed, from her 
Representative in the House. And I am appalled that older Americans, 
who are among the most vulnerable in society, are being subjected to 
these kinds of scare tactics, fear-mongering, and blatant, self-serving 
distortions.
  The letter is about Medicare, and is sprinkled--liberally--with 
inflammatory phrases like drastic cuts and benefits coming under 
attack.
  Her Congressman writes of Republicans, quote ``coercing seniors into 
health plans'' and ``herding as many seniors as possible into managed 
health care programs.''
  ``Republicans in Congress are proposing to cut Medicare by $270 
billion over the next 7 years,'' he writes, ``in order to pay for a tax 
cut of $245 billion for the wealthiest of Americans--those making over 
$350,000 a year.''
  Those assertions would be laughable if they were not so serious.
  Mr. President, imagine suggesting to a 91-year-old woman, bedridden 
in a nursing home, that her health care plan is under attack, that with 
Republicans in the majority, the medical benefits she is relying upon 
will be slashed.
  What is she supposed to think? How could she not be scared?
  I cannot speak for every senior citizen, but I know how much it 
frightened my grandmother.
  Unfortunately, this is not the only example of the damage being 
spread through this campaign of fear. 

[[Page S 14960]]

  Another of my colleagues has mailed out his own letter to seniors, at 
taxpayer's expense, and portions of it were printed recently in the St. 
Paul Pioneer Press and Dispatch.
  This Congressman wrote of drastic cuts and proclaimed that ``the GOP 
plan in Congress would force seniors to give up their personal 
doctor.''
  ``Millions of seniors would be forced into managed care programs. * * 
* While older Americans pay more for Medicare,'' he wrote, ``the 
privileged will pay less in taxes, with some receiving lavish tax 
breaks.''
  Newsweek aptly labels the Democrats' campaign as ``Medi-Scare'' in a 
cover story last month. Let me quote a paragraph for you:

       ``Democrats depict the GOP's Medicare plan as a 
     bloodthirsty attack on the elderly. ``More people will die,'' 
     declares a hysterical new ad from the AFL-CIO. ``And it's 
     only for the sake of tax cuts for the rich,'' says Democrat 
     Ed Markey of Massachusetts.

  ``That's hyperbole, for sure,'' writes Newsweek.
  It is more than hyperbole. Anywhere else, this would be labeled, at 
best, a blatant distortion of the truth and the State attorneys general 
would be called in to investigate.
  In Washington, we call the practice spin control. This is the only 
city I know where once a lie is repeated three times, it is accepted by 
most as being a fact.
  Mr. President, it is time we hold our colleagues accountable for 
their misrepresentations, and, beginning today, that is what I intend 
to do.
  They say our plan to preserve Medicare, cuts benefits to seniors--I 
say ``show me.'' They say the majority of our tax cuts will go to the 
rich--I say ``show me.''
  They say we are forcing seniors to give up their doctors--I say 
``show me.'' But I know they cannot, because the facts say otherwise.
  Fact No. 1: We have to reform Medicare to ensure quality health care 
for our seniors at a cost we can honestly afford. Unless we do, there 
are only two options.
  Either the Medicare hospital insurance trust fund, which has provided 
health care services for 37 million Americans, will go out of business, 
bankrupt in 7 years, or we can raise taxes on our seniors and working 
families by $388 billion over the next 7 years.
  That is the option the Democrats have chosen seven times over the 
past three decades--they have reduced benefits and raised taxes.
  But going to the taxpayers for more money is the easy way out, and 
Americans have said ``enough.'' They are demanding reform, not higher 
taxes.
  Fact No. 2: We are going to save Medicare by increasing spending, but 
at a slower rate not with the dangerous cuts breathlessly predicted by 
the Democrats.
  Medicare spending under the Republican plan will increase by 40 
percent, from $4,800 per beneficiary this year to $6,700 in the year 
2002.
  Like Americans do every month around their kitchen tables, we have 
set a budget we can afford, and then decided the best way to deliver 
the benefits.
  We are not promising benefits and then raising taxes again and again 
to pay for them.
  Fact No. 3: Medicare reform has no connection at all to our efforts 
to provide tax relief to the middle-class taxpayers, the working 
families who so desperately need it.
  With or without tax cuts, Medicare is in severe financial trouble. 
Even President Clinton, who has been virtually absent during the 
Medicare debate, realizes that.
  In fact, the budget he proposed last June combined slowing the growth 
in Medicare spending with $110 billion in tax cuts.
  The Washington Post addressed the attempt to link tax relief and 
Medicare reform in a September 25 editorial:

       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's wrong.

  Fact No. 4: The vast majority of the tax relief in the Republican 
budget is directed right where it is needed most--to middle-class 
American families.
  Every family with children will benefit from the $500 per child tax 
credit, and more than 85 percent of the children eligible for it live 
in families with incomes at or below $75,000.
  These families are not the privileged or the wealthiest of Americans. 
They are average folks who are struggling to meet their tax burden 
while trying to make a good life for themselves.
  Those are the facts, Mr. President. They are an honest attempt to 
look at the options, the costs, and the consequences--we are not taking 
some figures and then blatantly distorting them and proclaiming them as 
truth.
  If my colleagues want to write and distribute fiction, they ought to 
label it as such and sell it through the Book of the Month Club.
  The taxpayer-financed fiction like the letter received by my 
grandmother--and similar letters received by hundreds of thousands of 
other senior citizens--must come to an end.
  Government does have the power to do good, but the minority party 
undermines everyone's credibility when it preaches the politics of 
fear.
  I suggest the next time someone wants to scare a senior citizen, they 
should invite over a willing relative and pop in a videotape of 
``Frankenstein'' or ``The Silence of the Lambs.''
  Do not threaten the security of strangers, and do not prey on their 
fears, because it is immoral and it is wrong, and it should be shame on 
them, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________