[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 164 (Monday, October 23, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15443-S15444]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             RECONCILIATION

  Mr. FORD. Mr. President, I was listening to the debate by all of our 
Senators and how well words are used and how well numbers are used.
  We see this big board that is here--you may take it down; it should 
not be on the floor after the Senator has left, anyhow--that the budget 
is balanced. The budget is balanced under the proposal. That is the 
reason we can give a $245 billion tax cut; the budget is balanced. If 
you take $245 billion out of it, it is unbalanced. Figure it any way 
you want to. I have a balanced budget, but all of a sudden I have an 
expenditure that I did not account for, so my budget is out of balance.
  Anybody sitting around the kitchen table at night trying to figure up 
their bills, has a balanced budget, then all of a sudden they have a 
doctor bill, have a car that breaks down, whatever it might be; 
therefore, their budget is out of balance.
  Instead of a medical bill or car breaking down, they want to give a 
$245 billion tax cut.
  We hear about cutting education, only just a minimal amount--$400 
million is $400 million. The distinguished occupant of the chair and 
other Senators here know States that put up anywhere from 60 to 70 
percent of their general fund in that State to education. Every little 
bit of help makes 

[[Page S 15444]]
education better, gives the States an opportunity.
  Talk about private education--sure, the big companies, corporations 
give to their private institution of higher learning. What about the 
State institutions? We have 55,000-plus students in Kentucky that get 
some kind of grant or loan to go to school. Now we will reduce those or 
eliminate them or make them higher at the end, and we will lose 
somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 Pell grants in my State.
  They say, well, we will increase Pell grants by $100. That is true. 
But you will knock out from 600,000 down, so eliminate my students that 
have an opportunity to have a little bit to get over the hump.
  It is the same way with the earned income tax credit. We have a poor 
family out here struggling to get into the middle class at $27,000 
annual income, a family of four. You tell him you cannot have any 
credit for working, you cannot have any help for working, you cannot 
have any help to get over the poverty line. So we will cut that out.
  They say, CBO said we would balance the budget. That is true, but 
then you will take $245 billion out of it. I hear a lot about what the 
President said about taxes; he may have taken too much or gone too far. 
Let me say this, Mr. President. In my State, after I voted for that 
package in 1993, those who paid taxes in 1992, 12,500 of my 
constituents, according to the information I have, paid increased 
taxes--12,500 filers in 1992 paid more for 1993. Mr. President, 315,000 
of my constituents paid less. Everybody else paid the same. We reduced 
the budget by $500 billion, and by that we reduced interest rates, and 
that made a $600 billion reduction.
  We eliminated or reduced over 300 programs in the Federal Government; 
going to remove 272,000 Federal bureaucrats, and we are on the way--
close to 200,000 less than in 1993.
  I thought that was a pretty good vote and I thought the path had been 
drawn pretty clear. I do not believe the Republicans would be here 
today with their deficit reduction tax cuts--all these things--if we 
had not cast that vote in 1993 to make this country better.
  We hear a lot about Social Security and Medicare and the commission 
that reports it. The commission reported a year ago that we would have 
solvency problems in Medicare a year earlier. Now it is a year later. 
We are in better shape.
  For a small amount we can take care of Medicare as it is for a 
decade. We have always taken care of the problems in Social Security 
and Medicare.
  So now we hear they will cut Medicaid. Medicaid is what the middle-
income, if you want to call it that, $35,000 to $75,000 income--most of 
them, after they spend everything they have, they are on Medicaid in a 
nursing home.
  About August they will pick up the phone and say, ``Wendell, come get 
Dad. We have run out of money.'' ``Wendell, come and get Ma. We have 
run out of money.'' Do not worry about that; that will never happen, 
they say.
  They have reduced the regulations on the nursing homes, and the 
statement was that you can sedate these old folks in nursing homes. 
They will be easier to handle and you can have fewer employees. That is 
exactly what got the Federal Government in the nursing home regulation 
business in the first place--the damage that was being done to our 
elderly that we were trying to help.
  When you begin to look at the morass of what we are getting ready to 
vote on and shove down our throats, you will find in the days to come 
that there will be a lot of words that were said on the other side, how 
great it will be, take our money, put it in stocks and bonds. You get 
on the stock market one of these days and you will have problems. 
Pension funds; use them. Do all these things. This is one Senator that 
is not going to vote for it.
  I hope that the question that the distinguished Senator from North 
Dakota asked the chairman of the Finance Committee or the Budget 
Committee the other day, where is the meat? Where are the hearings? We 
do not have any hearings. Are you afraid to debate it? I am not afraid 
to debate it. But you come here on the floor with public relations 
house statements, statements that are written--I have the book sent to 
all the Republicans. Everyone has one. Here is what you say when asked 
this question. Here is what you say when asked that question. If they 
do not ask this question, you raise this. All from the public relations 
house.
  Mr. President, I know my time is up, and I wish that we would have 
more time when reconciliation comes up so we could really look at it in 
depth, but we are going to be limited, we are going to be limited.
  I yield the floor.

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