[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 162 (Thursday, October 19, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10469-H10470]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE BILL WAS WRITTEN IN THE SPEAKER'S OFFICE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, the rules of debate here in the House are 
rather constrained at times, and they were constrained this evening as 
we had the opportunity to witness at the close of this great debate a 
bit of grace- less gloating from the Speaker of the House, Mr. 
Gingrich, about the victory that everyone on all sides knew was going 
to occur here today. They provided no opportunity, of course, to ask 
him a question, much less to respond immediately to his comments, but 
those comments deserve a response.
  It is true that this Chamber is almost empty at this moment. Of 
course, our Republican friends are out popping the champagne corks, 
celebrating as is their right the fact that they really got those 
seniors. They are able to be out there saying, well, our buddies are 
going to really like that tax break we are able to provide now, and we 
taught those seniors a lesson when we took $270 billion out of Medicare 
so we could fund our tax break for the rich.
  But Members will recall specifically, though they are celebrating 
now, that when the Speaker spoke he began by reading to us the names of 
the family members in his family and how much they were interested in 
what was occurring here today. Then he proclaimed with the greatest 
magnanimity there were so many who had contributed to the raiding of 
the Medicare system today, it is peculiar that omitted from that list 
of all those who helped was the Golden Rule Insurance Co. You will 
recall that it was only a week ago that CBS Evening News reported that 
Golden Rule, which had complied with the golden rule by contributing 
over a million dollars to the Republican party, stood to be one of the 
major beneficiaries of this so-called Medicare reform since they are 
the prime promoter of the so-called Medisave Program.
  The truth of the matter is that this particular bill, not 10 Members 
of this House knew what was in it until about 

[[Page H 10470]]
the time the debate began. And all this hoopla about how we had 
everybody involved and there were task forces and so forth. The truth 
of the matter is this bill was written by one person, Speaker Gingrich, 
sitting in his office with one special interest lobbyist after another 
coming in. These task forces that existed, they were just an excuse for 
democracy. Instead of having the normal committee process operate, 
little task forces would meet and go in and out of the Speaker's 
office, in secret, where the American people had no opportunity to 
observe what was happening.

  Can you imagine raiding the Medicare trust fund to the extent of $270 
billion and not allowing one senior citizens in this country to testify 
on the specifics of the bill that provided for that raid?
  Yet, my colleagues, that is precisely what happened with this new 
spirit of democracy and all the task forces and all the inclusion. The 
bill was written in the Speaker's office. The committee process was 
basically eliminated. I understand they are even considering the 
possibility of eliminating committees and perhaps just substituting a 
committee of one to write all of the legislation in this House.
  You know, I have discussed this morning a bit tongue in cheek the 
fact that there was a painting that kind of summarized what was 
happening to seniors today, a painting by a famous American artists of 
the last century called plucked clean. It seemed to me that it 
symbolized what was happening here as our seniors were plucked clean 
and having to face higher deductibles and higher premiums and higher 
costs for health care at the time they were stretched to the limits.
  Well, really, I think this same painting is a little bit symbolic of 
what is happening to democracy in this House. Instead of a proud eagle 
of democracy, democracy is being plucked clean in this House, because 
next week we are about to have the same thing happen. We have got 
something called reconciliation that is coming up, not the kind of 
reconciliation that happens between husband and wife. This is not a 
divorce unless it is the divorce between the reality of the real lives 
of the middle-class families that are working to make ends meet in this 
country and the Republican rhetoric that we hear on this floor.
  No, indeed, we are talking about a bill that is going to do all kind 
of mysterious things that have never received a hearing. It is going to 
rewrite laws that committees refuse to pass, and all of that is about 
to occur next week without the Members ever having seen the bill and 
without there ever having been even a final hearing.
  What we should be talking about next week is a gift ban on the gifts 
that tie lobbyists and legislators and a reform of the lobby process. 
Apparently under this Speaker we are going to continue to write laws in 
secret that bind the American people, like was done today in secret 
working with various special interest lobbyists to get the law written 
their way. The American people deserve to have this out in the public. 
We need to reform this Congress and change business as usual as much as 
we need to protect the seniors of our Nation and prevent these kinds of 
Medicare raids.

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