[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 159 (Friday, October 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10060-H10066]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  AMERICA IS NOT A SPECTATOR DEMOCRACY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). 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 begin where the last speaker 
left off.
  I think that it is important to note that America is not a spectator 
democracy. Americans should participate. Americans should be engaged in 
the process of deciding our own faith.
  We have a Constitution which allows us to do that. We are not 
helpless victims. We should not sit by. We should participate. We need 
more demonstrations. We need more writing of letters to Congressmen. We 
need more petitions. We need more marches. Whatever is possible to 
participate in, we should do that. Action is needed now.
  I think it is important also to note that the first participation of 
Americans should be in terms of the dialog. Let us engage in the 
dialog. Let us listen to what we hear. Let us analyze it. One of the 
great things about seniors, and I like to be around seniors because 
senior citizens have lived for some time and experienced a great deal. 
I am not too far away from that myself now. When I was very young, I 
always liked to be around senior citizens. They know so much more than 
the rest of us. They are always so much more interesting to talk to and 
listen to.
  You cannot put much over on senior citizens. I do not think the 
salesmen we have heard this morning will be able to put much over on 
senior citizens. I do not think the sales package of the Republican 
majority will put that much over on senior citizens. Senior citizens 
will listen and ask themselves the question, how is it that the 
Republican majority in their plan makes such a great deal about 
eliminating fraud, when at the same time, they have recently made a 
deal with the doctors and the medical establishment, the perpetrators 
of the fraud, to endorse their plan? Why are the doctors so happy? What 
is contained in the deal that was made between the AMA and the medical 
establishment and the Republican majority which makes them so happy?
  Surely they are not agreeing to a program which is going to make them 
more accountable. Who is responsible for the excessive costs? The 
medical establishment. Who is responsible for the fraud and the waste? 
The medical establishment.

  How can you say that to a senior citizen who has seen a number of 
things happen in their lives? They have seen the hustlers and seen the 
swindlers come and go. No senior citizen would go out to buy a used car 
without thoroughly checking it out and having somebody with them who 
knows a lot about cars. No senior citizen would buy a new car without 
checking it out. There are a number of things you do, because you are 
old enough to know better.
  So check out the proposition that fraud and waste will be eliminated 
in the Republican majority plan, and the Republican majority made a 
deal with the doctors. How can those two things be the same? The 
doctors, the medical establishment, are the people responsible for the 
fraud and the waste, certainly the fraud.
  Last year when the Clinton administration's plan was on the table, I 
proposed a number of times that we have a one-tenth of 1 percent set 
aside of all the money appropriated to establish consumer advisory 
committees, patient advisory committees. The people who are in the plan 
should at least have one-tenth of 1 percent of the total amount of 
money so they can maintain an organized advisory committee made up of 
the people receiving the service.
  Nobody would support that plan. Nobody would support that plan. If 
you do not have that kind of organized plan built in to defend yourself 
against fraud, I do not suggest to any senior citizen, and I do not 
think any senior citizen would be foolish enough to turn their doctor 
in.
  I heard the proposition that you get a reward, you get a bonus for 
turning your doctor in for fraud. If you turn your doctor in, be sure 
you get another doctor. I think I can tell senior citizens, if you turn 
your doctor in, do not go back to him. If you turn two or three doctors 
in in the same city, they are going to blacklist you. I do not advise 
you to follow that route, period. And I do not think most seniors would 
be dumb enough to get involved in a situation where the people 
responsible for their lives, they are reporting fraud on.
  That is not enough. If you want to deal with fraud in health care, 
you need a better apparatus to do it. Do not tell senior citizens to 
buy that.
  Do not make comparisons with the Clinton plan. Let us engage. Let us 
remember, what did the Clinton plan try to do last year? What was the 
administration's primary aim? The primary aim was to get universal 
health care coverage, not just to deal with Medicare. Medicare, 
Medicaid, it was understood that the programs had to be refined, that 
there was some waste, that it is possible to make it more efficient and 
more effective. And in order to get the money needed to extend the 
coverage and to have more people covered, we would do that.
  The noble purpose of the Clinton administration plan is not one of 
the purposes and goals of this Republican health care plan. They are 
dumping the coverage. Less people will be covered because they are 
saying that Medicaid should no longer be an entitlement. They did not 
talk about that. There is a health care plan which includes more than 
Medicare; it includes Medicaid also.
  Medicaid will no longer be an entitlement. You will not be able to 
get Medicaid, which means seniors are in great jeopardy. Those who 
spend all their resources as a result of a very serious long-term 
illness will not be able to fall back on Medicaid and go into a nursing 
home and deal with a long-term convalescence because it will not be 
there without the Medicaid entitlement.

  They are going to take away the responsibility of the Federal 
Government to provide for the poorest people, the health care. That is 
a great step backward from the Clinton plan that was on the table last 
year. It was called too complicated, too complex. It was more 
complicated because of the fact it tried to do more. It tried to 
address the problem of our civilization that we must be ashamed of.
  American civilization is the only industrialized nation in the world 
which does not have universal health care coverage. By universal, I 
mean it is moving toward the coverage as many people as possible. Some 
have 96 percent. Canada may have 98 percent. But the idea of universal 
coverage is there in most of the industrialized nations of the world. 
Only South Africa is an industrialized nation that has no universal 
health care coverage.
  So we are trying to move in that direction. This plan abandons it 
completely. In the Republican health care plan, there is no attempt to 
move toward universal coverage. In fact, there is a headlong gallop 
backward toward less coverage by denying the Medicaid entitlement. So 
we are in serious trouble.
  I also hope that everybody who heard the previous discussion will use 
their faculties and engage and go back and look at a little recent 
history and know that the biggest felony in America was already 
committed. In the future you might say to saddle our children, our 
grandchildren, with bills that are difficult to pay in the future. You 
may call that a felony, but I think that is quite farfetched. That is 
going way out.
  We have had the worse felony in the history of America take place 
right before our eyes. It is called the savings and loan swindle. Some 
of the gentlemen who are talking, certainly the one in the well, knows 
the history of the savings and loan debacle very well. Never before in 
the history of civilization has there been a swindle of the magnitude 
of the S&L swindle, where the taxpayers in America were made to pick up 
a bill of $250 billion, by the most conservative estimates. It is 
conservative, and it is not settled yet, because it is still going on. 
It might be $300 to $400 billion that the taxpayers 

[[Page H 10061]]
have to put out to clean up the savings and loan swindle. Never before 
in the history of civilization have so many stolen so much from so many 
and gotten away with it with so few prison terms, never before.
  So the savings and loan association swindle is the biggest swindle in 
the history of mankind. Newspapers like the Washington Post and some 
others never seem to quite get the time or the space to deal with the 
magnitude of that swindle.
  The party that now proposes to cut Medicare by $270 billion over a 7-
year period has not dealt with the fact that we still have a $250 to 
$300 billion bill that we maybe ought to try to collect. The taxpayers 
of America maybe ought to say to the savings and loan associations that 
do exist now, to the accountants that were part of the conspiracy, to 
the lawyers for the banks that were part of the conspiracy, that they 
all pay a surcharge until that $250 to $300 billion is paid back.
  The great swindle has taken place already. The greatest felony in the 
history of civilization, has taken place right before our very eyes, 
and very little is being done about it.
  Finally, I want to address myself to the fact that everybody who 
hears should engage and listen and question and ask the question, is 
the Medicare system about to go bankrupt? You have heard them quote the 
trustees, and they have given you the names of the trustees, Shalala, 
people within the Clinton administration. Why do you not go and ask 
Donna Shalala, Mr. Rubin, why do you not go and ask them, is the system 
in danger of bankruptcy within 7 years?

  Since they are being quoted, listen to their answer. they said so 
already. You have a problem of about $90 billion, $89 to $90 billion 
over the 7-year period.
  It was assumed that, if you make the system more efficient, if you 
weed out the waste and the fraud, you could achieve the savings of that 
$90 billion over a 7-year period without draconian cuts in the 
benefits, without tremendous increases in the premiums.
  So listen to their dialogue and take it a little further. Go ask the 
trustees. Go ask them, do you have to make this $270 billion cut? And 
also the $270 billion, how does it relate to the tax cut that the 
Republicans are proposing, which is $240 billion?
  Let us listen. Americans, we are not spectators, we do not have to be 
witnesses. We can do things. We need action. That is what I want to 
talk about today. We need people to understand that, if you sit still 
and watch this as a spectator, the President as a Democrat against the 
Republican controlled Congress, and we wait for the great train wreck 
situation to evolve to its climax, you will be derelict in your duty as 
Americans.
  You owe it to all of us, we elected officials have to do our job and 
we have not done it well and should find new ways to do it better. Even 
Democrats in the majority are going to have to find a way to deal with 
the fact that a Republican controlled Committee on Ways and Means will 
be on the floor with a bill which will have a closed rule. As Members 
of Congress, we have to vote it up or down, but we cannot have an 
opportunity to let our constituents know where we stand and offer some 
alternatives and go on record for the alternatives. That will not be 
the case. We have to find a way to deal with that, but that is another 
discussion for another time.
  We need action now. Every American should ask themselves the 
question, what am I closest to, what can I do? My vote is not enough. I 
have an opportunity to vote every 2 years for Congress. I have an 
opportunity to vote every 4 years for the President. That is not 
enough. I also have in the Constitution the first amendment, a number 
of other things standing behind me which allow me to do things beyond 
my vote. Action is needed.
  On the issue like education right now, let me make an appeal that you 
get involved in the fact that the education budget was cut by $4 
billion, the Federal aid to education. You say that is a tiny amount. 
The Federal Government only puts in about 7 percent of the total amount 
for education anyhow. So why are you worried about that? Well, the cuts 
in the Federal dollars are followed by cuts in many States where the 
States are cutting the money available for education and the localities 
are cutting money. So we have an education crisis in most of the 
country. Certainly in the big cities we have a serious crisis.
  I am calling for some action now. I think that we should call upon 
all of the children in the schools, we should call upon all the 
parents. And beyond the parents and the children, we should call upon 
the church leaders, the business people. Everybody should let it be 
known that we think education is very important.
  The polls consistently show that education ranks in the top five 
concerns of Americans over and over again. No matter how other things 
fluctuate, crime may go to the top sometimes, health care may go to the 
top, education always comes out of the top five.
  There is a basic understanding, the folk wisdom of Americans is that 
education does come first. It is like the early slaves coming out of 
slavery. They wanted first of all to learn to read. Education had the 
primary value for the early free families. Education in the black 
community has always been a highly charged value. Confusion about how 
to get that education and obstacles being placed in the way of 
preventing the obtainment of the education has been a problem. But the 
value is there. It is certainly a value in the African-American 
community. It is an American value.
  Action is needed now, because the signal has been sent from 
Washington. The Republic controlled Congress has cut education by $4 
billion. Head Start has been cut. The one program that sends the 
greatest amount of money out to elementary and secondary schools, the 
aid to the disadvantaged, called the title I program, the title I 
program has been cut by $1.1 billion. the summer youth employment 
program has been cut out completely, zero. We have an emergency. We 
ought to do something.

  So we are asking that everybody--this is an appeal that I made to the 
National Commission for African-American Education. It is an appeal I 
made to an assemblage of the Congressional Black Caucus education brain 
trust. It was adopted and made a resolution that November 15, which is 
right in the middle of open school week, open school week is a national 
phenomena all across the country. So on Wednesday, November 15, we are 
asking that everybody who cares about education will do something.
  Do not be a spectator. Bear witness. Go out to your local school. 
Everybody has a school near them. It is the nature of education in 
America that there is some school near everybody. Go to the nearest 
school and do something to let it be known that all citizens care about 
education.
  In the leaflet we have put out calling for overwhelming support for 
education on November 15, the national education funding support day, 
we have stated that you can participate in the following activities: 
Show up at your nearest school. Just show up and let your presense be a 
testimony of your support. This is the first and most important step.
  During the morning gathering at the school, spend 1, 2, 3 hours at 
the school. Do some upbeat things. Take some upbeat and positive action 
to demonstrate your love for children. Bring some pencils and papers 
and crayons if you are in a poor neighborhood to hand out to the 
children. Or bring chalk and erasers and supplies for the teachers 
inside the classrooms. If you are in New York City, they need chalk, 
pencils, erasers. We have a crisis in supplies in the great city of New 
York where we spend $8 billion on education. There is a crisis in terms 
of supplies and chalk.
  There is a crisis also in terms of they do not have places to seat 
children. At the beginning of the school year in New York, there were 
8,000 high school pupils who did not have a place to sit. They have not 
fully solved that problem.
  So show up and do something useful. If the area around the school 
needs the rubbish and dirt removed, then bring some plastic bags and 
shovels and clean it up. Do something useful to help the program inside 
the school. Talk to the school administration, the principals. if it is 
not disruptive, ask what you can do to help inside the school.

[[Page H 10062]]

  At the same time as you pass out information about PTA meetings, 
school board meetings, legislative budget hearings, citizen rallies, 
you should sign up volunteers to help with school trips. Distribute a 
list of names and addresses and phone numbers of all elected officials, 
especially those elected officials who are directly responsible for 
education. You should engage all participants who come by to register 
new voters and to make sure they are registered themselves. If you re 
in an area like the area I live in, where there are 150,000 people who 
are not citizens, you should certainly encourage immigrants to seek 
citizenship. These are legal immigrants. They can seek citizenship. 
Show them ways to do that. Certainly the parents of children in the 
schools who are immigrants, you should encourage them to seek 
citizenship.
  There are a number of ways on November 15, Wednesday, everybody can 
take action. You do not have to be a spectator. You can take action for 
education. You can deal with the fact that the President is going to be 
in negotiations with the Republican controlled Congress on the 
appropriations bill for education. There are a lot of items in there.
  We want him not to lose his focus, to understand that the American 
people care about education. Education is one of the top priorities. It 
is not enough just to believe that; you have to manifest it and let it 
be known. We have to engage in what is called a manifestation to your 
empowerment, a manifestation of your concerns. You are not only 
concerned but you want to let it be known, you are a voter, you are out 
there, and you want to do something about the problem of funding for 
education.
  I have just used education as an example. But there are many other 
ways in which we need to show that we are involved in this process. You 
have to believe that this is a turning point in the history of America. 
It is a turning point. You have to believe Speaker Gingrich when he 
says we are going to remake America; take him seriously. Whatever you 
may think of the Speaker, he is competent, he is a great organizer. He 
is probably the greatest politician that has come along in the last 20 
years. When he says he is going to do something, take him seriously.
  The Speaker says we are going to remake America. He has a lot of 
bright people with him who believe that they can do that and are trying 
to do that.

  I think they are very bright, but they have no compassion. I have 
called them high-technology barbarians because of the lack of 
compassion. I will repeat it again. They are the smartest people you 
can engage anywhere, but they have no compassion; and therefore I think 
they deserve the label of high-tech.
  Barbarians. But they have to be taken seriously.
  The Speaker has said we are engaged in war without blood. Politics is 
war without blood. Politics is war without blood. If you are engaged in 
war without blood, then do not sit there and assume that you are on the 
sidelines, that civilians are not going to be involved. There are no 
civilians in the political war. Everybody is in danger. Everybody must 
understand that you must engage in the war. He has said it. This is 
war. Therefore, you must make plans to participate in the war.
  The allied forces must plan a defense against those who have mounted 
the attack. The Speaker has made it clear, he is going to remake 
America. We are mounting the attack. They hit the Nation on November 9, 
1994, with a blitzkrieg. That blitzkrieg was very successful. They have 
taken control. They will march on. Allied forces must be united. Allied 
forces must understand they are in a war, and you must plan for the 
defense. Do not sit there and think that you are a civilian and you are 
going to escape. None of us are going to escape. We are all part of 
this war.
  They are going to remake America, and I do not think we need to 
remake America. I have said that over and over again. America needs to 
be improved. There are all kinds of ways in which we should strive to 
improve America. We do not need to remake it. We need a steady process 
of escalating improvement, but they are going to remake it. And they 
are not going to remake it in the interests of the majority. America is 
going to be remade, and they have made that clear in all of their 
actions since January 1995. Since January 1995 of this year, it has 
been quite clear that, no matter what the Contract With America says, 
the overwhelming aim of the Contract With America is to make America a 
place where the elite can survive conveniently without any problem in 
terms of taking care of the majority. A small elite minority will be 
survivors, and they will enjoy the fruits and benefits of a great 
American economy, and the rest of the people will be thrown overboard. 
That is clearly how America will be remade if we sit by and let it 
happen.
  We should not be spectators. There is a train wreck in process 
already. People have said, well, the great train wreck metaphor did not 
quite materialize on October 1. We passed a continuing resolution which 
will take us until the middle of November. The drama of a train wreck 
has been avoided.
  Well, the train wreck process has started. It is pretty clear that 
the Republican majority is not going to yield. They are moving headlong 
forward with Medicare, the rape of Medicare, as one of the things they 
are proposing to do, into the entitlement for Medicaid. All kinds of 
things are happening which make the train wreck inevitable.
  But recently it was announced that the Speaker and the majority in 
the House are contemplating sabotaging the train process, put a brick 
on the track and run away, not to engage. The train wreck metaphor 
always assumed you would have a situation where the President would 
veto the bills, the Republican majority in both Houses cannot override 
the veto, and therefore there would be negotiations at the White House. 
That happened once with George Bush. The negotiations at the White 
House would be between a Democratic President and a Republican 
controlled Congress.
  What the Speaker has recently indicated is that in his war without 
blood, guerrilla tactics are going to be introduced. They are going to 
put a brick on the track and run away. Congress is going to pass the 
bills, send them to the White House, and adjourn.
  I can think of nothing more irresponsible than that. But that is the 
kind of guerrilla action we have to look forward to.
  Why not? Because in the process of avoiding the dramatic train wreck, 
what has happened already? What happened with the continuing 
resolution? The continuing resolution that has been passed already 
reduces spending and moves toward the level of spending that the 
Republican-controlled Congress wants. Already we have downloaded, we 
are spending less, moving in that area. Why do they not try to 
negotiate another continuing resolution and also further download the 
situation and decrease the budgets of all the programs?
  That is what you call slow poisoning, a slow poisoning through the 
continuing resolution. Instead of attacking the victim with a knife and 
slashing him to death, you poison them quietly. The continuing 
resolution can poison all the programs that the Republicans do not 
want. The pain will be less visible. Most of this pain will not be felt 
until next October 17 anyhow. Some of it will be introduced, however, 
right away, through this poisoning process, the greatest most dramatic 
things in Medicare and Medicaid, the big programs.
  What we do now will take effect in the next fiscal year. So you have 
to keep in mind that the process is important right now because of the 
pain it is going to produce later on.

                              {time}  1200

  Some of the pain will not come until after the November 1996 
elections. That is not by accident. Certain cuts are programmed and 
scheduled so that the impact will be felt after the November 1996 
election. Keep your eyes on the process now. Do not be a spectator now. 
Get up and act now. Write your letters now. March and demonstrate now. 
The train wreck calendar is in process. It is no less a problem than it 
was 2 months ago.
  Taxes, revenue, money, budgets, appropriations, that is the heart of 
the process of what is going on here. We do a lot of important things 
in the U.S. Congress. We should not minimize any of the things we do. 
What the Congress of the United States does affects the 

[[Page H 10063]]
life, health, and welfare of people all over the world. It should not 
be minimized ever. But of all the things we do, at the heart of it are 
the processes which relate to taxes, revenue, money, budgets, and 
appropriations. That is at the heart of the process.
  My colleagues may wonder why I always come back to this discussion of 
the tax burden and the way the tax burden has been shifted over the 
last 50 years. I do not have my chart here today, but I had one last 
time which showed in graphic terms one of the great problems with 
America, one of the reasons why people who want to remake America are 
telling us that the good things will go bankrupt, they want to reduce 
school lunches because they are too costly, they want to reduce 
Medicare drastically, Medicaid, they want to end the eligibility. They 
have already ended the eligibility for Aid to Families With Dependent 
Children. Everything is going to go bankrupt, they say, because we have 
a deficit and it is possibly going to get greater and there are no more 
sources of revenue, no sources of taxes.
  They have labeled certain people as big spenders. As I said last 
Tuesday, one of the right wing groups has labeled me as one of the five 
biggest spenders in the Congress. I proudly accept that honor of being 
labeled a big spender by their standards, although their standards are 
quite flawed.
  I am the sponsor of a $60 billion bill. They have gone around and 
checked to see what the dollar figure is on the bills that Members have 
proposed. I am the sponsor of a bill which proposes to spend $60 
billion for job training, for jobs for the stimulation of the economy, 
and $60 billion may sound like a lot of money.
  How dare anybody propose over a 5-year period to spend, over a period 
of time to spend $60 billion a year to revitalize the economy. That is 
a stimulus to deal with what I consider to be a transition periods that 
we are now in. We are in a transition period where the new technology 
is throwing people out of work, downsizing and streamlining and pushing 
people out of jobs and we need a stimulus.
  We may thing $60 billion is a great amount. The little nation of 
Japan, with 75 slightly more than 75 million people, has a package now 
going forward that is $90 billion a year. A stimulus package that is 
$90 billion. So a $60 billion proposal, I do not have the power to get 
it passed, but if we want to judge me on what I see as a vision, the 
vision of America I have, what I see as the remedies, then I accept 
that judgment.
  On the other hand, the flaw in this rating of big spenders does not 
take into consideration what a Member is against, the spending they are 
against. As I said before, Rush Limbaugh, who chose to highlight this 
on this show, needs some people who know how to subtract. Take all the 
programs and all the times I have spoken on this floor and all the 
amendments I have introduced to subtract from the Federal budget. 
Programs that I am against mount up into the billions of dollars.
  The F-22 that will be manufactured in Newt Gingrich's district of 
Georgia. Will cost us $12 billion over the next 7 years. I am for 
taking that one out. The B-2 bomber, over the life of its history, will 
cost us $33 billion. I am for taking the B-2 out. The Seawolf 
submarine, more aircraft carriers, star wars, the CIA.
  I had a very specific amendment on the budget to reduce the CIA 
budget by 10 percent a year over a 5-year period. If we assume the New 
York Times figure of $28 billion for the CIA and the intelligence 
operation is correct, then, over a 5-year period that $2.8 billion 
would amount to quite a bit of money that we could use to replace the 
$4 billion they took out of education, the $7 billion they are taking 
out of low-income housing. We could do things with that $2.8 billion 
per year over a 5-year period or, let us extend it to a 7-year period.
  The CIA has proven over and over again that not only is it of dubious 
worth, but it is also dangerous. The CIA recently revealed that they 
had a petty cash fund of $1.5 billion that nobody knew about in high 
places. The Director of the CIA did not know about the $1.5 billion. 
The President did not know about it. Nobody knew about it in high 
places. How much more do they have? How is the CIA able to have a $1.5 
billion slush fund? That is what they admit to. I am sure it is higher. 
A $1.5 billion slush fund and nobody knew about it.

  I think one of our famous predecessors said when we have a million 
here and a million there, we get into the billions and it all starts 
adding up. A billion is a lot of money, ladies and gentlemen; $1.1 
billion is the amount of the cut on the title I program. If they would 
just please give us, CIA, your petty cash fund, your unauthorized petty 
cash fund, give us your unauthorized petty cash fund to make up the 
$1.1 billion, we will let them keep the rest.
  I know what the deal is. I heard the Permanent Select Committee on 
Intelligence say now that we know about that money, we have taken it 
back. How is it the Office of Management and Budget did not know about 
it?
  Office of Management and Budget specializes in cutting small 
programs. They cut out like library programs that acquire foreign 
language books in universities; they cut out little programs that train 
teachers; they are specialists in going through and cutting out little 
programs. To be small is to be dangerous in the Office of Management 
and Budget. How, Office of Management and Budget, did you ever let the 
CIA acquire a $1.1 billion slush fund?
  So the message is, if we look at the record of Major Owens in terms 
of spending, and we subtract all the things I have said we should stop 
spending for, including the farm cash subsidies that flow to places 
like Kansas to farmers who are making $400,000 and $500,000 a year, let 
us stop giving money to farmers that make more than $100,000 a year. 
That is a good cut-off point. They will not give me that kind of cutoff 
for the welfare recipients in New York, but for the welfare farmers we 
propose let them keep getting cash subsidies if they make $100,000 or 
less.
  No, no, we put that on the floor and it was voted down. Where was the 
Rush Limbaugh statisticians to figure that one out when that amendment, 
cosponsored by myself, was voted down? We could save a lot of money if 
the farm subsidy program were just limited to people making $100,000 or 
less. But this Congress would not tolerate that. It only got 47 the 
last time we put that on, 47 votes out of 435.
  Americans had better engage in a dialog. There is a lot of waste in 
government, and the places where they will not touch it are the places 
we should all be looking.
  Take a look at a recent report that was put out by the Center on 
Budget and Policy Priorities. The Center on Budget and Policy 
Priorities said congressional Republicans, I am quoting from the 
National Journal's Congress Daily, October 11, 1995, ``if the Rush 
Limbaugh researchers want to track this,'' October 11, 1995, the 
National Journal's Congress Daily.
  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said, ``Congressional 
Republicans in their budget cutting fervor are giving corporate 
subsidies a free ride.''
  The study was based on the Congressional Budget Office report 
defining which Government programs or tax breaks constitute business 
subsidies and focus on tax appropriations and reconciliation proposals 
passed so far in the House.
  It found that for every dollar that this majority, Republican 
majority House, has reduced corporate subsidies provided by Government 
program, for every dollar they have reduced the House has increased 
corporate tax subsidiaries some other way by nearly the same amount, 
$1. So addition and subtraction. Do not let the Republicans play games 
with us. They have reduced some of the corporate tax subsidies, but for 
every one that they have reduced in dollar value, they have given the 
same amount in some other way.
  Therefore, a statement accompanying the study contended, ``Congress 
is achieving an overall reduction of only $6 billion, or less than 1 
percent, in the $724 billion in corporate subsidies the Federal 
Government is slated to provide over the next 7 years.''
  Let me read that again and put that down in this dialog that we have 
to participate in. Remember this figure that this Republican majority 
that is so intent on cutting Medicare by $270 billion, this Republican 
majority is 

[[Page H 10064]]
only willing to cut the corporate welfare by $6 billion, which is less 
than 1 percent if we look at the total amount of $724 billion that the 
Government is slated to provide to corporations over the next 7 years.
  Herein is the problem. Not only must we cut defense programs, not 
only must we cut wasteful farm subsidies, weapon systems, and a CIA 
that is spending our money in a very excessive way; we must cut the 
subsidies that we are providing for corporations.
  ``This lack of progress,'' I am reading again from the report:

       This lack of progress in reducing the overall level of 
     corporate subsidies stands in sharp contrast to the deep cuts 
     that Congress is making elsewhere in the budget. If overall 
     corporate subsidies were to be cut to the same degree that 
     the Congressional budget resolution targets programs other 
     than defense and Social Security, they would be reducing $122 
     billion over the next seven years out of the corporate 
     subsidy budget.

  Let me repeat the figures. These are figures we should put in our 
private database and remember as we go through the dialog about where 
America is going and what money and funding will be available for 
programs that are worthwhile for all the people. Understand that the 
corporations are refusing, the Congress is refusing to reduce the 
subsidy for corporations, which now would be $724 billion over a 7-year 
period. They are refusing to reduce that in the same manner that they 
are reducing other nondefense programs. If they did that, we could save 
$122 billion over the next 7 years.
  Remember, as we listen to this dialog of the swindlers who want to 
take $270 billion from Medicare and they want to end the entitlement 
for Medicaid totally, the heart of this whole process is remaking 
America, is the question of who will get the money.
  Will the American majority, those in need, or the educational 
establishment in order to guarantee we have productive taxpayers in the 
future, will the places that will do the most for America be the 
recipients of the funds or will they give it to the Americans having 
the most, corporations making profits at a great booming rate? They are 
the ones who should be paying more; they are only paying 11 percent of 
the total tax burden, while families and individuals are paying 44 
percent of the tax burden. Here is the time to correct it.
  If the Republican majority were sincere, if the salesmen who tried to 
sell us the $270 billion cut in Medicare as an effort to save Medicare, 
if they were to got to work on cutting the corporate subsidies, 
we would be able to lower the deficit at the same time, not make 
draconian cuts in Medicare, Medicaid, and education, and still go 
forward with a fair tax system. Raise the tax burden, eliminate the 
subsidies, have the corporations carry more of the burden. That is the 
answer.

  Now, what will happen? They are going to make these draconian cuts 
and try to sell them to us by coming with a set of diversions. How will 
the Republicans try to get away with all this? How will they face 
senior citizens next fall at election time? How will they face the 
parents of children who have been deprived of lunches? How will they 
face the people who are sons or daughters of immigrants or people who 
are the fathers and mothers of immigrants, or people who are certainly 
immigrants themselves who have become American citizens? How will they 
get away with all this? The great massacre will be covered by 
diversions.
  They will have arguments on gun control to divert the attention of 
people who care about guns away from the fact that they are being 
robbed of an opportunity to get an education or to have a job 
retraining program when they are laid off. Large numbers of people in 
the working class care a lot about guns. I am sorry they do. The great 
majority of American people, 80 percent, want some form of gun control, 
and they can certainly care about guns and agree to the sensibility of 
gun control, but, no, they will divert us. They will be talking about 
guns and the needs to save America by having more freedom to use guns 
and less gun control.
  They will be talking about the Voting Rights Act being a threat to 
Americans, that if we draw districts in a certain way, that is un-
American. Odd shaped districts have been drawn since the history of the 
country by both parties, and America has never suffered.
  They will be after the immigrants, yelling and screaming about the 
immigrants are causing the downfall of America. Well, immigrants have 
traditionally been a vital part of the American scene, and America is 
doing very well compared to most of the other industrial nations of the 
world.
  They will talk about affirmative action, affirmative action and a 
color-blind society. Again, I have talked about that in the past. 
Affirmative action is necessary, to correct past wrongs. We had 232 
years of slavery, the greatest crime in the history of humanity, 232 
years of slavery in America, 100 years of brutal oppression following 
that 232 years of slavery. We cannot expect the African-American 
population as a group to make up for all that lost time.
  There was a recent book on wealth, black and white in America, and 
one of the important conclusions of that book was that in terms of 
wealth versus wages African-Americans are coming closer and closer. 
Certainly middle class African-Americans who have an education are 
closer and closer to the wages of middle class whites, not the same but 
getting closer all the time. The gap has been closed over the past 10 
years. Great advances have been made in terms of wages.
  But when we look at wealth, and wealth means more than wages, it 
means ownership of assets, when we have a home, we have a car, we have 
stocks and bonds, when we look at wealth, the gap is wider than ever 
before between middle class African-Americans and middle class whites. 
Why? The biggest factor in wealth is inheritance. What is passed down 
from one generation to another is the biggest factor. The biggest 
factor of home ownership in America is the fact that the mothers and 
fathers are able to give a young couple the downpayment on a house. And 
the biggest body of wealth held by average Americans is in their homes.

  So it is just common sense. If we had 232 years where your slave 
ancestors were passing nothing down, there was nothing they could pass 
down because they had nothing for 232 years, they are behind, and then 
100 years of oppression after that where they had very little to pass 
down. Then they are not ever going to catch up, and nobody says they 
must catch up.
  But understand, the great disparity that has been inflicted on 
African-Americans is because of slavery, because of slavery, the 
greatest crime in the history of humanity, the obliteration I call it. 
The obliteration. It was an attempt to obliterate the humanity, the 
soul, of a set of people so that those people would be a more efficient 
beast of burden. They would be more efficient in industry, mostly the 
agricultural industry, but efficient machines, efficient beasts of 
burden. It was an attempt to obliterate them and take away their 
humanity. Do not let them have families, do not treat them like human 
beings. Sell them as if they were commodities.
  That great crime of slavery cannot be just ignored. It is a vital 232 
years of American history, 232 years. I have talked about slavery 
before and people have gotten upset. I have talked about the great 
Atlantic crossing, the number of people lost, and the figures I used 
aroused Rush Limbaugh researchers, and I conceded the point that I had 
made a mistake, quoted in the New York Times, which itself was quoting 
a sort of folk history that is prevalent in the black history about the 
numbers. It is like Paul Bunyan exaggerating the numbers.
  The fact is that millions were lost crossing the Atlantic in the 
slave trade. Millions were lost crossing the Atlantic, and millions 
were lost in the brutality of the slave industry in America.
  If we want to quibble like some of the Nazis still want to quibble 
about the holocaust, it was not 6 million, they want to talk about 5\1/
2\ million, or 4 million. If we want to quibble, go ahead, but I say to 
those who are interested in the conversation and the dialog, just mourn 
for the first million. Mourn for the first million. Everybody will 
concede there were at least a million lost crossing the Atlantic. 
Everybody will concede there were at least a million lost through 
the brutality of the slave trade in America.

  In North America, the slave trade was kind compared to the slave 
trade 

[[Page H 10065]]
in the Caribbean Islands and the slaves trade in Brazil and South 
America. The practice in Brazil and South America was to work the 
slaves until they worked them to death. They did not have breeding 
farms. They did not attempt to keep the slaves alive and get offspring 
from them like they did with their livestock. They just worked them to 
death and brought in more, so the numbers will never be known.
  So anybody who thinks they can count the numbers of slaves that came 
into the New World by looking at British ships and British accounts and 
assuming this whole thing was organized and regulated is not naive; 
they are dishonest. We cannot regulate savings and loans and banks in 
America to keep them from swindling taxpayers. How do we think in those 
days there was any kind of real regulation of a slave trade that was 
pumping money into the coffers of some of the most respected people in 
the European nations?
  So let us not quibble about the numbers, Rush Limbaugh and your 
researchers. Let us not quibble about the numbers. If we care about the 
subject, than just mourn for the first million. Mourn for the first 
million slaves who were treated like animals and died like animals. 
Mourn for all of those who were thrown into the breeding pens and 
forced to breed like animals. Mourn for all of those who died horrible 
deaths as a result of being under masters that wanted to work them to 
death. They wanted as much as they could get out of them until they 
dropped dead. So there is plenty to mourn for.
  Do not make a joke out of slavery. When we make a joke out of 
slavery, we are endangering ourselves. I think of your posterity, your 
children and your grandchildren, may not appreciate it. Do not make a 
joke of the greatest crime ever in the history of humanity, the attempt 
to obliterate the souls of millions of human beings.
  We are not spectators, as I said before. We do not have to stand by 
and watch this diversion. This diversion is going to take place. Gun 
control, affirmative action, voting rights, immigrants, that diversion 
is going to take place. We know it will take place, so let us prepare 
ourselves. Let us get our allied forces together.
  The constitution provides us with the weapon. We can demonstrate, we 
can petition, we can march. Do not sit and mourn about somebody else's 
march. Let us make our own march. The caring majority ought to be 
marching, the caring majority should get ready at every level. What I 
call manifestations of empowerment should be taking place at every 
level all across America.
  What is a manifestation of empowerment? It is an action like the one 
I just proposed for Wednesday, November 15. Come out, wherever you are, 
and go to a public school. Let it be known we care about education. 
That is a manifestation of empowerment.
  In every way the health care problem is not just a national problem. 
They are threatening to sell the hospitals in New York City. Some of 
the best hospitals in the world that have great reputations, that have 
served people for several generations are now to be sold and made into 
private hospitals. So we are saying in New York come out on a given 
Sunday, let us have hospital appreciation Sunday. Let all the churches 
bring their congregations from church to the hospitals and let us 
surround them and let it be known that people care about their 
hospitals, people care about health care in various ways in cities, 
in towns. Get people to moving and do things. We cannot wait until 
November 1996 and think we can deal with the problem then. Get people 
moving now.

  Mr. Speaker, this is nothing new. I have an action paper, which I 
call ``The Third Force.'' It is a draft paper, and I may change the 
name and call it ``The Caring Majority Agenda,'' but I put it out in 
June and I have circulated it to colleagues of mine in the Congress and 
in the Congressional Black Caucus, and to members of the Progressive 
Caucus, I have circulated it to labor leaders and other elected firms 
and I have said we have to get moving. We cannot wait until November 
1996, let us move now.
  I will quote from my action paper.

       Republican arrogance and impatience have clearly framed the 
     parameters of the battleground. The issues and causes around 
     which we must mobilize are clearer now than ever before. The 
     questions are: Is the United States of America a nation of 
     the rich and powerful only? Shall the great majority of the 
     population remain immobile while it is reduced to a status of 
     urban servants or suburban peasants? Shall the resources of 
     the richest Nation that has ever existed in the history of 
     the world be used primarily to benefit an oppressive elite 
     minority? Or shall public policies be shaped to share our 
     real wealth and spread the benefits of our collective labor, 
     our hard won peace, and the exploding advances of our 
     technologies? Shall we share it for everybody?
       The oppressive elite majority presently in charge of the 
     Congress has thrown down the gauntlet. An assumption has been 
     made that the majority vote in the Congress and the financial 
     contributors to these Members of Congress are the only ones 
     who have the real power to decide the basic questions facing 
     our Nation.
       A mistaken assumption has been made that until 1996, only 
     the votes on the floor of Congress shall decide the fate of 
     America as it moves towards the year 2000. It is a sacred 
     duty of the caring majority to demonstrate that Americans do 
     not have to sit idly by as spectators while their elected 
     officials wreck their democracy. The ballot box on election 
     day is a primary instrument, however, it is not the only 
     means toward the end of freedom and justice for all.
       The people have a right to intervene. To save our Nation we 
     must interpose or creative political energies and our 
     individual bodies to halt the onslaught by a merciless set of 
     hightech barbarians who have misinterpreted their election by 
     an oppressive elite minority as a mandate to tyrannize the 
     caring majority.
       The caring majority must rise to defend itself. To lead the 
     crusade to save America, we need a caring majority agenda. 
     From coast to coast, in every one of the 435 Congressional 
     districts, we need citizen activists to insist that they are 
     ready to fight intensely to save their Nation from 
     catastrophe. This caring majority force needs ordinary people 
     willing to participate in a national master plan for justice. 
     We need legions recruited from among those who suffer as a 
     result of the current oppression, which is imposed by the 
     oppressive elite minority, and we need legions from among 
     those who are not suffering but who understand the inevitable 
     destructive path of the present blitzkrieg to remake the 
     American government in the wrong direction.
       The primary weapons to be employed for all strategies and 
     tactics of the caring majority should be nonviolent weapons. 
     A lapse into violence against the entrenched establishment 
     automatically guarantees defeat. Nonviolent direct action 
     employed in conjunction with clear sets of demands shall be 
     the operating rule of the caring majority. Massive 
     nonviolent direct actions and coordinated simultaneous 
     other actions are what are necessary to carry the caring 
     majority forward.

  Now, Mr. Speaker, I am just reading portions of an action paper that 
I put out in June. I am still waiting for comments from key people. I 
also have a timetable here. I have an agenda, a partial agenda, that 
was proposed to the Congressional Black Caucus. About 3 weeks ago, I 
said the Congressional Black Caucus should endorse groups that support 
its agenda. The Congressional Black Caucus should put out an agenda and 
have groups march to support that agenda, and that agenda should be the 
caring majority agenda, an agenda for everybody to strongly urge all 
concerned groups to lobby, demonstrate, petition, write letters, and 
march in these critical days ahead when the President will be 
negotiating with the Republican-controlled Congress to save the Nation 
from devastating budget cuts.
  First on the agenda is to fight aggressive racist attacks in all 
forms. Fight the attacks on affirmative action. Fight the attacks on 
school desegregation, on set-asides, and the Voting Rights Act. Fight 
government and unofficial acts which encourage sexism, antisemitism, 
homophobia, immigrant persecution or denial of basic rights to any 
groups.
  No. 1 on the agenda must be a fight against any racism, any 
divisiveness. We need to build allies. We need to come all together and 
understand that America should be America for everybody and we cannot 
have separations in the process of the fighting. Otherwise, we play 
into the hands of those who are in the elite minority profiting from 
those divisions.

                              {time}  1230

  Fight for education as a national opportunity. Fight for education as 
a national priority. The opportunity for an education must remain a 
national priority. Fight to stop all cuts in Medicaid as well as 
Medicare. This Nation still needs a national health insurance program 
with universal coverage. Fight to stop those cuts. Fight to stop 

[[Page H 10066]]
the taking away of the Medicaid entitlement. Fight to end the monstrous 
cuts in the HUD programs for low income housing. Fight to support the 
retention of adequate wages and pensions for the military, Federal 
workers and other public service workers.
  Fight to increase the minimum wage. The Republican majority said they 
will not entertain any dialog on increasing the minimum wage. One 
hundred American economists have said we need an increase in the 
minimum wage. The only way you can have workers keep pace with what has 
happened is to increase the minimum wage. All we are proposing in the 
Gephardt bill, which I am a cosponsor of, is a measly 45-cent increase 
in two steps, a 90-cent increase in the minimum wage.
  The Republican majority says they will not entertain any discussions 
of any increase in the minimum wage.
  So we need to fight to increase the minimum wage. We need to fight to 
guarantee the right to organize unions in the worker replacement 
provisions. To end striker replacement, we have to first support 
President Clinton's Executive order. We need to fight to maintain 
health and safety conditions in the workplace. There has been a fight 
on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration [OSHA]. We need to 
fight that.
  We need to fight for cuts in the defense budget, those cuts that will 
downsize the budget and generate the money to fund the programs needed. 
We need to fight for an increase in foreign aid to Africa, Caribbean, 
Haiti. Haiti was one of our proudest moments in our foreign policy. The 
anniversary of the liberation of Haiti will take place shortly. We 
should take note of the fact it was a shining hour, a great moment, for 
American foreign policy.
  We need to fight for an increase in the funds for youth crime 
prevention program. The majority has eliminated this program. We need 
to fight for an increase in those programs and a decrease in the prison 
funds to build prisons.
  We need to fight and unite with the caring majority for the retention 
of Social Security as it is now. They are chipping away at Social 
Security. Do not believe what you hear. Stop moving the age requirement 
back. Stop tampering with the COLA's. This is an agenda for the caring 
majority. You need to move on an agenda that is focused.
  I have a timetable. You need to have actions in your localities, in 
your States. You need to do things. Americans are not spectators. We 
are not put in that spectator role. Actions at the local level, make 
allies, all races, all sexes, all religions. And finally we need an 
action in Washington.
  The whole culmination of this activity should take place in 
Washington. Washington is the place, Washington is the key. What 
happens here sends out signals. It determines the way things are going 
to go in the States and in the cities. Washington does not provide all 
the money for our cities and local government, but they set the tone. 
So, therefore, at some time on this agenda, the climax has to be the 
caring majority with its agenda has to come to Washington in millions. 
The caring majority has to come.
  I propose next spring, the anniversary of Tiananmen Square in China, 
why don't we come together and work toward it between now and next 
June? Tiananmen Square in China took place in the first week of June. 
Tiananmen Square I offer because it is so important to note the fact 
that a totalitarian government of China could not resist, could not 
stop the flow of information out from Tiananmen Square to the rest of 
the world. When you get that many people together with determination, 
they built statutes of liberty, the media was there. The media tends to 
try to ignore the caring majority agenda. You cannot get the same 
exposure for the caring majority agenda that you get for the Republican 
health care plan.
  So a Tiananmen Square type operation, have a million people come 
together on the mall. You have an agenda. There is no question why you 
are there. Come together to confront the Congress, confront the White 
House. What we need most of all is direction for our Government. Let us 
plan to do it. You are not spectators in America. You have the right to 
get up and move. Let us use our right and let us make certain that the 
remaking of America does not take place while we are sitting on the 
sidelines. Troops, get ready. The march you make will be to save your 
own soul and your own nation.

                          ____________________