[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 163 (Friday, October 20, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S15386]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, we have heard much debate this morning, I 
think healthy debate, about the budget that is working its way through 
the House and through the Senate. I sit on the Budget Committee. This 
afternoon we were told by the Republicans that we will have our meeting 
where we will then act on the budget bill. As a matter of fact, we are 
going to meet in about an hour and a half.
  I worked very late last night and I never got a copy of the budget. I 
started work very early this morning and I do not have a copy of the 
budget. And the American people need to understand that this budget is 
not just about numbers. It is about changing laws.
  For example, in that budget, national standards for nursing homes are 
repealed. Changes in the laws are made so it will cost students more 
for college loans. Tax laws are being changed so the working poor will 
have to pay more taxes. Indeed, 51 percent of the people of America 
will pay more taxes because of this budget. And they all are on the 
middle-income to the poor level of our society. Champagne bottles are 
being chilled in penthouses all across the country--except in those 
where someone has a conscience. Because if somebody can explain to me 
why people who earn millions of dollars a year deserve a tax break, I 
am ready to listen, when we are trying to balance the budget.
  The attack on elderly in our country is extraordinary. When I was 
growing up I learned some basic values. My parents said you have to 
work hard, you have to play by the rules, you have to respect your 
elders and honor your children.
  This Republican budget is a slam at every one of those values. We are 
attacking the working poor. We are raising taxes on people who work so 
hard to bring home $30,000 a year or less, and we are hurting those 
people. Honor work? We are cutting $270 billion out of Medicare. We 
need to cut $89 billion, we are told by the experts, to make it sound 
and whole. But the Republicans are cutting $270 billion out of Medicare 
and funneling it into the tax cut for the rich--the Republican funnel 
plan.
  Medicaid--repealing nursing home standards so it is easier for 
nursing homes to make more money, folks. That is what it is about. Why 
else would you do it? You do not have to be very old to remember the 
days in the 1980's when the scandals erupted about nursing homes. We 
found our senior citizens were being drugged, overdosed on drugs so 
they could be controlled in the nursing homes. They were being scalded 
in hot baths. They were being sexually abused. They had bedsores. They 
were lying in their own excrement.
  Well, I made a pledge to my magnificent and beautiful mother, whom I 
love, a few years ago who spent her last days in a nursing home after 
she had spent down every penny she had, and all of her dignity, that I 
would not let this budget go by without telling the American people the 
truth, that the profits of the nursing homes will not be put over the 
well-being of the elderly in our society, those who have given birth to 
us, those who have nurtured us, those who worked so hard so we could 
get an education. My mother never graduated from high school, and she 
sacrificed so both her children could go to college.
  Is this what the American dream is about? Is this what family values 
is about? Well, maybe it is popular to vote for that budget. Maybe I am 
out of step. Maybe compassion is out of fashion. Maybe respecting your 
elders is out of fashion. Maybe believing in your children is out of 
fashion. But not for this Senator. Six million people voted to bring me 
here, and I am going to stand up and I am going to fight. If it is 
popular, it is, and if it is not, it is not. That is OK, too.
  The Republicans have put their budget on a fast track--no time. You 
tell me why we have to be on Friday afternoon waiting for the numbers 
when we could take this budget home over the weekend, examine it, and 
know what the heck we are doing on Monday morning. I will tell you why, 
folks. They want this budget to slip through with the least notice 
possible. They do not want the American people to understand it. And 
President Clinton is going to veto it. He is going to veto their 
budget. He is going to say no to their budget. And he might do it in 
the name of his mother, a nurse who healed the sick, a woman who died 
of breast cancer, who believed in the values of this society. He is 
going to veto this budget. This budget is not in any way including 
those American values that we learned when we were growing up; to honor 
our elders, to believe in our children.
  Do we have to do this to balance the budget? We do not. That is not 
even an argument. I voted for two balanced budgets in the Senate--one 
by Senator Bradley and one by Senator Conrad. As a matter of fact, they 
cut even deeper into the deficit than that which the Republicans have 
produced. But they contained within them some values--family values, 
American values, compassionate values, commonsense values.
  So this is not about balancing the budget. We all want to balance the 
budget. We all voted for various amendments that would do that. It is 
about how do you get there and who gets rewarded and who gets hurt. I 
know this is a cynical time in America. I know it is a cynical time. 
When a Republican stands up, they do not believe the Republican. When a 
Democrat stands up, they do not believe the Democrat. Look at the 
numbers. Read the law. That is why they are rushing these things 
through. They do not want you to see the numbers. They do not want you 
to read the law. They do not want you to know the nursing home 
standards are repealed. They do not want you to know they are going to 
charge people who are waiting for their child support a fee to collect 
that child support. Imagine. A woman is desperate for her child 
support. They finally get it. They are going to make them pay a fee. 
For what? To give $5,500 a year back to people who earn over $350,000 a 
year. Have they no shame? Have they no values?
  We have a funnel Medicare plan. It funnels the money from Medicare 
right to the hands of the rich. We have a Medicaid plan that I call the 
Dr. Kavorkian plan. I am not doing it to scare people. I am do it doing 
it because it is the reality. I told you what these nursing homes 
looked like before. And I will tell you, when faced with that choice, 
what would you do?
  We put a lot of pressure on Newt Gingrich, and he finally changed the 
spousal impoverishment law that he tried to do away with. We are 
looking at whether or not he really saved it. But can you believe they 
were ready to do that, too? They were ready to say to an elderly man 
who put his loving wife of 60 years into a nursing home that he could 
not keep his house, he could not keep his car, and he could not keep 
his $1,200 a month; the Government was going to go after it before his 
wife could get help in that nursing home. Family values? I do not think 
so.
  So I am going to walk into that Budget Committee this afternoon, and 
I am going to talk about the values that I have as a daughter of an 
immigrant mother who never went to high school but who is as smart as 
anyone in this Chamber. I am going to talk about the sadness I feel 
that America is turning its back on who we are and what made us great 
as a nation. But I am also going to fight.
  Thank you very much, Mr. President.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota is recognized.

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