[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10699-H10704]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              EFFECTS OF BUDGET CUTS ON AMERICA'S CHILDREN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, let me begin tonight with a quote from 
Hubert Humphrey, and this is something that Hubert Humphrey said in 
1977, and I quote:

       It was once said that the moral test of government is how 
     that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the 
     children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; 
     and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy 
     and the handicapped.

  When this Congress is put to those tests, it fails miserably on all 
of these counts. Last week, the GOP budget ax came down on seniors; 
and, this week, it comes down on kids.
  Now, my Republican colleagues will argue that they are making tough 
decisions to balance that budget, that this budget represents a shared 
sacrifice for a noble purpose; but, folks, the sacrifice is not shared, 
and the purpose is not noble.
  There is nothing noble in asking the poor to sacrifice for the rich. 
There is nothing noble in asking the sick to sacrifice for the healthy. 
There is nothing noble in asking the weak to sacrifice for the strong.
  Winners in this budget are the corporations that will now be allowed 
to legally dodge paying taxes and the other special interest whose 
loopholes have been left wide open.
  The sacrifices in this budget come from our most vulnerable citizens: 
the poor, the sick, the disabled, the elderly and, yes, our children.
  Yesterday, the White House released a report on the impact of the 
Republican budget on America's children. In its analysis, the White 
House, in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services 
and the Urban Institute, looked at nine areas where kids will be asked 
to bear the brunt of GOP budget cuts.
  According to the study, the health of our children will be put in 
jeopardy by a combination of Medicaid cuts, the repeal--I repeat, the 
repeal of the vaccines for children program, and cuts in child 
nutrition.
  Consider the number of children who benefit from these programs and 
the number of children who stand to lose under the GOP budget. Medicaid 
pays for immunizations, regular checkups, and intensive care in case of 
emergencies for about 18 million children in America. In fact, one half 
of Medicaid beneficiaries are children.

  The Republican budget would eliminate this health care coverage for 
as many as 4.4 million children nationwide. Let me repeat that. Mr. 
Speaker, 4.4 million children nationwide would have their health care 
coverage eliminated.
  Among the children who could be denied coverage, many are disabled. 
This budget would deny as many as 755,000 disabled children cash 
benefits in the year 2002. For disabled children, Medicaid helps to pay 
for wheelchairs, for communication devices for therapy, for respite 
care for families, and for home modifications. Without this help, 
patients may be forced to seek institutional placement for their 
disabled children.
  The Republican budget repeals the vaccines for children program. Now, 
that means it cuts $1.5 billion that would otherwise provide 
vaccinations, immunizations for our children.
  As the White House was releasing its findings yesterday, I was 
visiting with administrators and the staff in New Haven, CT at the 
Children's Hospital, Yale University's Children's Hospital. I was there 
to brief them on the budget process and to better understand how 
Medicaid cuts would impact their young patients. The health care 
professionals that I visited with told me that they do not know how 
they are going to provide the same level of care for our children if 
Medicaid is cut back by 20 to 30 percent, as the Republican budget 
proposes.
  Let me talk a little bit about Connecticut. Connecticut health care 
providers have every single right to be concerned about children in our 
State, because 14 percent of them, of our children, rely on Medicaid 
for their basic health needs. And according to the study that was 
released yesterday, the Republican budget cuts will hit Connecticut 
children hard.
  Let me repeat some of those cuts for Connecticut children, the cuts 
that I talked to the Yale Children's Hospital about yesterday.
  Medicaid pays for basic health services for 166,000 children in the 
State of Connecticut. The budget would eliminate Medicaid coverage for 
as many as 57,983 children in the State of Connecticut. It will deny as 
many as 4,000 disabled children in Connecticut cash benefits in the 
year 2002.
  Mr. Speaker, the dean of the Yale School of Medicine, Dr. Joseph 
Warshaw, was at this meeting yesterday; and I would like to quote Dr. 
Warshaw. And the quote is, ``If we abandon this safety net, the kids 
are really going to suffer.'' I am not making that up. You can see that 
quote in the New Haven Register today.
  The vice president for administration spoke up and talked about how 
the hospital would certainly accept all those children who were faced 
with a health care problem and would not want to deny them any health 
care, but they were going to be faced with how they were going to try 
to have to deal with the level of services they may have to and how 
they would probably have to cut back on services.
  Kids are really going to suffer. That is a pretty strong statement. 
And let me be very honest with you. That statement does not come from a 
Democratic Member of the House of Representatives, and I am a 
Democratic Member of the House of Representatives. It does not come 
from someone with any kind of a partisan interest in this debate. It 
comes from a health care provider who understands what these cuts in 
Medicaid will mean in real terms to the children that he sees every 
single day at this hospital.

  Our debate on the magnitude of these Medicaid cuts is about more than 
ideology. It is about more than a political philosophy. It is more than 
an intellectual or an academic exercise. That is not what this is all 
about. It is about reality and real people. It is about the reality 
that these deep Medicaid cuts are going to hit kids, kids in this 
country, kids in the State of Connecticut, very, very hard. And that is 
why tonight some of us are here as we stand with these photographs of 
American families that rely on Medicaid for their basic health care 
needs.
  I would like to just introduce you to one family and tell you their 
story in their own words. A mother from Illinois tells us how Medicaid 
has helped her to earn her nursing degree without putting her 
children's health at risk. This is a quote.

       In December of 1996, I will graduate with an associate 
     degree in nursing and a lot of 

[[Page H 10700]]
     pride knowing that I am fully capable of supporting my family. I would 
     not be in this position today if public aid was not there to 
     bridge the gap of no medical coverage.

  That was signed by Kathy Davis, and these are Kathy Davis' children. 
Kathy Davis does not want a handout. She wants a helping hand. Here is 
a woman who is doing all the right things trying to provide for her 
family, build a better future for these two youngsters in this 
photograph.
  The Government should not be in the business of punishing people who 
are working hard, and working hard to improve their own standard of 
living. We should be in the business of helping them to raise that 
standard of living. That is what our job is all about here. That is 
what the mission of government is.
  Mr. Speaker, Medicaid is a safety net for millions of American 
families just like Kathy Davis and her family and her two young 
children here. This budget cuts that safety net away, and it is our 
Nation's children who are going to take the fall.
  I urge my colleagues to look at these faces. I urge them to think 
about these kids on Thursday, this week, when the budget comes to the 
floor for a vote; and I ask my colleagues to ask yourself, is it worth 
it? Is it worth it?
  Balancing the budget is a tremendously important goal, but if we 
balance the budget on the backs of sick children, disabled children, of 
just children in general, it will be a truly shameful day in the 
history of this great Nation of ours; and it will be a sad day in the 
history of this institution, which is charged with creating good public 
policy, sound public policy, responsible public policy that will allow 
the people in this country, in fact, to have a better standard of 
living for themselves and for their families, especially when they are 
working as hard as they are and playing by the rules and trying to help 
themselves and their families.
  Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like now to ask the gentleman from New Jersey 
[Mr. Pallone], who has joined with me and with several of us almost on 
a nightly basis, to talk about some of these issues: Medicare, Medicaid 
and the budget and its impact. I would like to ask my colleague from 
New Jersey to let us know about his sentiments on this issue.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] for allowing me some time to talk about some 
of the same subjects, particularly with regard to children.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to start by pointing out that last week when 
the House passed the Medicare bill it passed the largest tax increase 
on senior citizens in the history of this Congress through Speaker 
Gingrich's Medicare plan, while reducing the quality of health care 
that seniors can expect to receive.
  Many of us, including the gentlewoman from Connecticut and myself, 
have continued to talk the last few weeks about how this Medicare plan 
forces seniors to pay more and essentially get less. But this week 
Congress will be voting on what we call the budget reconciliation, 
which will include once again this Medicare package.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that New Jersey can count again on most of its 
Members, as they did last week on the Medicare bill, to stay firm and 
vote again to oppose this terrible Medicare legislation. The majority 
of New Jersey Members in the House of Representatives, both Democrat 
and Republican, ended up voting against the Medicare bill.
  In addition to incorporating Medicare into this budget package, there 
are other cuts like the Medicare cuts in Medicaid, which is the health 
insurance program for poorer people, as well as cuts in nutrition 
assistance and the school lunch programs.

                              {time}  1915

  So in a sense what we are seeing is both senior citizens with 
Medicare and now also children, with Medicaid, nutrition, and school 
lunches are being cut. Their programs are being cut or raided in order 
to provide tax cuts for the wealthy, for the wealthiest Americans.
  Just to give you some statistics, according to the U.S. Treasury, 
Office of Tax Analysis, and this is with regard to the Senate version 
of budget reconciliation, income earners who make up to $30,000 per 
year can expect a $19 to $88 tax increase. In other words, not a tax 
cut but a tax increase if your income is up to $30,000 a year.
  Meanwhile the average American who earns over $200,000 a year will 
receive a $3,416 tax cut. I would ask you, is that fair, particularly 
when we see who is impacted? Again, mostly senior citizens and 
children.
  Now, while many of the Republicans are claiming to be balancing the 
budget for the future of our children and suggest that somehow this 
budget plan is actually going to benefit children, their plans actually 
hurt children. It is just the opposite of what they say.
  I am sympathetic to this, Mr. Speaker. Right now I have two young 
children, one is about 8 months old and another is a little over 2 
years old. And when I look at them and I think about how difficult it 
would be for someone earning a lot less than myself to be able to 
provide for them, particularly with regard to health care, it really 
makes me wonder where we are going in this Congress with this terrible 
budget bill.
  I just wanted to quote from a recent New York Times article that was 
in the New York Times, Monday October 23. It says, and I quote,

       The specific spending cuts in the Republican plans would 
     fall very heavily on poor and lower middle income children 
     today, leaving them less able to hold jobs in the years 
     ahead.

  I think what the New York Times is pointing out is that if we cut 
these programs for children, then in the long run we are not going to 
have adults who can really compete and do a good job as Americans in 
the marketplace. And ultimately we are essentially making it more 
difficult for these children when they become adults to contribute to 
society. So it really makes no sense.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is totally inappropriate to balance the 
budget and provide tax cuts for the wealthy on the backs of children. I 
just wanted to give an example, if I could. To my left here are two 
kids who really could be my own, in fact in some way they remind me of 
my own. This is used basically to illustrate the terrible impact of the 
cuts in Medicaid, which is the health income program for low-income 
Americans, which provides health care coverage now for one in four 
American children.
  It is a statement basically from their mom whose name is Leslie. She 
is a 26-year-old mother of the two children, ages 6 and 2. And she says 
she is recently divorced and caring for her children as an at-home 
mother. Her income is substantially below the poverty line but with 
careful planning she manages to feed, clothe, and provide shelter for 
her children. And she says that her finances must be stretched out 
obviously to cover the budget, which is very strained. Without 
Medicaid, which again is the health insurance program for poorer 
children, even the best laid financial plans would surely collapse. The 
dilemma she would face without Medicaid in place would be basically to 
decide whether or not to feed her children or to provide shelter for 
her children. And she just goes on to point out how difficult it would 
be without Medicaid, again, the health care program for low-income 
Americans.
  Childrens hospitals, as we know, receive about 40 to 70 percent of 
their revenue from Medicaid. So it is not only a question of when you 
cut Medicaid you hurt low-income children. But you also hurt all 
children in a way because, for example, the hospitals where oftentimes 
we go in order to deal with the problems that affect children would be 
significantly cut back in terms of the type of services that they could 
provide. Medicaid, as I said, provides health care to about 36 million 
low-income Americans. But two-thirds of the funding is utilized by the 
blind, disabled, and the elderly for acute and long-term care. What we 
are trying to point out here is that a lot of people, disabled people, 
elderly people, as well as children, are impacted by these cuts in 
Medicare.
  And what I would like to ask, and I know the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut is here, it is incredible to me that we can cut $182 
billion out of Medicaid when we spend more for defense in this budget 
bill. It actually is more money that goes for defense while we are 
making these cuts in Medicaid.

[[Page H 10701]]


  Why are the Republicans cutting funding for school nutrition 
programs? School nutrition programs we know work. In my districts there 
are a lot of children that are able to take advantage of them. We are 
also cutting or reducing child abuse protections by nearly 20 percent 
in this bill.
  And to me it just boggles the mind. The Speaker, Speaker Gingrich, 
and the Republican leadership, I believe, are destroying the next 
generation and whacking seniors, who have already made this country 
great, through Medicaid, Medicare, nutrition program, and other program 
cuts. All of this just in order to pay for tax cuts for the rich. I 
think there are other ways to balance the budget. I voted in the past 
to support balanced budgets, but this budget plan is terrible. I really 
would urge my colleagues to vote against it.
  I want to thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut, once again, for 
organizing this, because I think it is very important to point out that 
just as these Republican plans last week in Medicare were hurting the 
elderly, now with this budget reconciliation, we are really hurting 
severely children.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I thank my colleague for his comments and say it really 
is rather incredible. I take a look at some of the other cuts in 
Connecticut, and you have similar numbers and probably larger numbers 
in New Jersey. But we are going to see that about 1,374 children in 
Connecticut will be denied Head Start, about 180,000 children 
nationwide; 9,200 Connecticut children will be denied basic and 
advanced skills, and that happens through the cuts in the title I 
program of our education budget. It is a 17-percent cut in 1996.
  We are going to cut safe- and drug-free schools, which 170 out of 175 
school districts in Connecticut use to keep crime and violence and 
drugs away from children.
  We are jeopardizing the nutrition programs for about 300,000 kids in 
the State of Connecticut; 130,000 children in Connecticut live in 
working families that are going to have their taxes raised an average 
of about $300 under this Republican budget.
  And yet, we are going to see a tax break for the richest people in 
this country. It is just so out of sync. It is out of whack.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I know we have other speakers, but the 
gentlewoman mentioned certain things that are really so important. Head 
Start, which I did not even mention, we have waiting lists, long 
waiting lists in New Jersey in most of my towns for Head Start. It is a 
prudent program that was supported by President Bush and President 
Reagan before him. It was never a partisan issue. All of a sudden now 
we are talking about cutting back on Head Start.
  The earned income tax credit, which again I did not get into, 
basically goes against the whole philosophy which says that you want to 
encourage people to work. The main reason why that was put in place, 
again, not just by Democrats but also by Republican Presidents 
beforehand, the way I understood it, was to get people off welfare and 
let them have a little extra money through a tax break so that they 
could use it and be discouraged to go back on welfare. Now we are 
talking about eliminating that earned income tax credit.
  Third, you talk about nutrition programs. I spent some time, I guess 
it was a couple months ago now, going into some of the schools in my 
district and actually partaking of school lunch with the kids.
  Ms. DeLAURO. So did I.
  Mr. PALLONE. It is amazing. There are some school districts that I 
represent where overwhelming majorities of the kids take advantage of 
the school lunch program. Sometimes they get it free or sometimes they 
have to pay something. But without that school lunch program a lot of 
them just would not eat. So, again, I yield back, but it is just 
incredible to think how this impacts children.
  Ms. DeLAURO. I want to make one more comment and then yield to my 
colleague from Texas.
  There was an article in yesterday's New York Times by Bob Herbert. It 
is entitled ``Kiss and Cut, Empty Promises About Children.'' I think 
that there are two pieces that are particularly important in the 
discussion and the debate that we are going to have over the next few 
days here, because we are going to hear a lot of talk on this floor.
  This is Dr. Irwin Redlener who was president of the Children's Health 
Fund. Their mission is to deliver services to youngsters in rural and 
urban communities. He says here, the fact that there are proposals on 
the table now that will further undermine health care, the health care 
safety net for children is really incredible. It suggests the 
possibility of some terrible consequences for society in the future 
because what it really means is that there will be children who will 
suffer from disabilities, physical and mental, that will haunt them for 
the rest of their lives. It is incredibly stupid and shortsighted to 
take down Medicaid in this way.
  Then he concludes the article, because again what we are to hear on 
this floor in the next couple days is that what we are doing in this 
budget is saving this country for our children, that all of this, all 
of these cuts in nutrition and in health care and in education, and 
just go down the line, all of these cuts are going to be there for our 
children's future.
  There is a particularly, I think, poignant finish to this article. It 
says, when the budget cutters smile in your face and tell you how much 
they love your children, ask to see that ugly and arcane region known 
as the fine print. You will need a guide and a strong stomach. What 
they do to children there is not to be believed.
  I encourage everyone to look, to listen, to watch in the next couple 
of days about what is in that fine print and what, in fact, is being 
proposed for the children of this country.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just have to, if I can, interrupt. I had 
previously quoted from this New York Times story of the same day, 
yesterday. It is interesting, it is not the same one but a different 
one from what the gentlewoman has. They bring up how the Republican 
leaders are basically over the next few days going to emphasize this 
$500-a-child tax credit.
  What this article says, and I would just quote from it briefly, it 
says the tax credit would do little to help children in low-income 
households, and families that have no Federal income tax liability 
other than exemptions, after other exemptions and deductions, would not 
be eligible for refunds.
  For example, a family of four with both parents working and both 
children in child care programs would not qualify for the credit if it 
earned less than $24,000 a year. It says the Center on Budget and 
Policy Priorities, a Washington research group with a reputation for 
accurate statistics, has calculated that 23.7 million children, or 34 
percent of the Nation's children, live in families too poor to qualify 
for the credit. Another 7.1 million children, or 10 percent, would 
qualify only for a partial credit. The real winners from the Republican 
tax and budget plans are likely to be affluent children who receive 
relatively little direct Federal spending.
  So again there is going to be all the emphasis on this $500-a-child 
tax credit. It is not a bad idea. But the bottom line is the way they 
put this together ultimately means that it is primarily affluent 
children who benefit, and many of the children who really need it are 
getting nothing.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield the 
balance of my time to my colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. 
Jackson-Lee], who truly spends so much time here on behalf of the 
people of this Nation and really fighting for their causes.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Blute). Is there objection to the 
request of the gentlewoman from Connecticut?
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] 
is recognized for 30 minutes.


                            more on medicaid

  Ms. JACKSON-LEE. I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for her 
wisdom and also her tenacity in not giving up.
  I was on the House floor this morning, and I began to sense maybe 
even a glimmer of frustration in my own voice because I drew those who 
were lessening attention that we in this body sometimes tend to view 
incidences, votes, and occurrences like yesterday's news. We tend to 
think that it was last 

[[Page H 10702]]
Thursday's vote. It is over with and we go on to something else.
  It is particularly important that we continue to address these issues 
because I believe that the American people will want us to do the right 
thing and then themselves will rise up and demand this body, this 
collective body of the U.S. Senate and of course the U.S. House of 
Representatives to do the right thing.

                              {time}  1930

  Might I say, Mr. Speaker, something that really caught my attention, 
and it might be the frustration of some of my colleagues in the other 
body, but one Member was quoted to say when they were being approached 
about matters dealing with working out resolutions to avoid having such 
severe cuts in Medicaid and whether or not they would be willing to 
compromise and bring those cuts substantially down and maybe out of 
frustration, this person was heard to say, ``I'm willing to swallow a 
lot to get to that,'' and I would simply say that the children of this 
country cannot swallow a lot, they are little, small tykes, and we have 
an obligation not to be frustrated, not to be overwhelmed, not to worry 
about the next vote, or the next headline, or the next news byline, but 
simply to fight, fight, fight, if we have to, for these abominable cuts 
that are going to devastate our children and those senior citizens, of 
course, with Medicare, but those in long-term care, by this $187 
billion in Medicaid cuts as well as this budget reconciliation process.
  I draw you attention, Mr. Speaker, to these children who are standing 
here with me by way of a photograph, and this really speaks to the 
issue of what Medicare is all about. Medicare is not about the so-
called deadbeat that we have always been hearing about, the one who 
gets accused of being on the dole. This is about children like this and 
a mother from Rhode Island, Jacqueline, who says,

       I have three children. My two girls are asthmatic, and they 
     have to be on medication at all times. This medicine costs an 
     average of $110 each month. My third child is a diabetic, and 
     he needs two types of medication. If it was not for Medicaid, 
     I would not be able to keep my children and myself alive.

  Mr. Speaker, I think the bottom line here is alive, not even healthy, 
but alive, a diabetic and asthmatic children, and so, Mr. Speaker, I 
rise this evening realizing that it has to be a continued opposition to 
what has to be an extreme response to the alleged interests in 
balancing the budget. I am a person that believes a balanced budget can 
occur, and, I think, can occur over a deliberative process, recognizing 
that health care in this country is an important aspect of the quality 
of life, and I want this country to live up to its traditions, its 
aspirations, and the image that it has around this world, and so I rise 
tonight particularly to attack the mean-spirited effort that is going 
on against the Nation's children, and I refer, of course, to the 
Republican budget cuts.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican plan to balance the budget would, among 
other things, eliminate Medicaid coverage for as many as 4.4 million 
children by 2002. It would deny Social Security benefits to some 
755,000 disabled children, and eliminates summer job opportunities for 
4 million young people, cut nutrition assistance to 14 million 
children, reduce child abuse protection by nearly 20 percent, and deny 
assistance to more than 16,000 homeless children.
  Mr. Speaker, when I served as a member of the Houston City Council 
with citizens comprising of 1.4 million individuals, we faced the real 
burden and the real concern of seeing every day faces of homeless 
families, individuals who but for some undesirable occurrence in their 
life living not in cars, but under bridges with no protection 
whatsoever. It was certainly the extension of this Government, the 
McKinney Act, in fact, in provisions thereunder, that recognized that 
homeless children and families needed opportunities, too.
  What do we do in 1995? We discard all of the progress that has been 
made in helping those families bridge themselves from homelessness to 
independence by this major budget reconciliation process that then 
cuts, and cuts, and cuts, and destroys, and destroys, and destroys. 
There is no doubt that many children will suffer if this effort is 
successful. That is why it is important that people who are on this 
side of the Mississippi River and beyond understand the very crux and 
crisis that we are facing.
  My Republican colleagues argue that their progress would benefit 
children in the long run. Cutting the debt today they argue will save 
children from paying unbearable taxes in the future. Let me frankly say 
to you, Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether these children will even have an 
opportunity to be adults and certainly taxpaying adults for we diminish 
their opportunity with poor health care, Head Start being eliminated 
and simply not providing an opportunity for them to be educated and to 
bridge themselves out of poverty. These are innocent children, simply 
innocent victims, who will look to this country not for a handout, but 
for a hand up and a helping hand. Republican tax cuts would fall 
heavily on poor and lower-middle-income children.
  Just this morning I heard a constituent citizen of the Nation calling 
up saying that he is tired of taxes, but he makes $28,000 a year, and 
he takes care of at least five persons. Well, you know what? The tax 
cut that Republicans are proposing would not help this gentleman. The 
took away his very bridge, the earned income tax credit. He will not 
get that anymore. He is hard-working. He is not on the dole. He goes to 
work every day, and he supports his family and his children, but yet 
when this Government could do something for him, give him an extra 
measure of opportunity, not giving him the opportunity to buy a 
television set or maybe some used 15-year-old car, but possibly 
providing the extra incentive that he needs, the extra light bill that 
he has to pay. Maybe it has gotten too cold that year or too hot that 
year and utilities have gone up. This is the opportunity we provide 
hard-working Americans under Democrats.
  What we provide now with the Republican leadership and the Budget 
Reconciliation Act is a cut totally of the earned income tax provision. 
This smacks in the light and the direction of which we would want this 
country to go, and that is to applaud those who are working and seeking 
to be independent and supporting their children. These cuts will now 
provide us with hungry, malnourished children who cannot be expected to 
concentrate and do well in school. These children will prove less able 
to compete for good jobs with children from more affluent families.
  Mr. Speaker, all children ought to be loved and appreciated, and so 
this is not a fight between affluent children and poor children. This 
is a question of our priorities. This is the question of the moral 
fabric of this Nation.
  The Republicans plan cuts' effect on the one-quarter of the Nation's 
children who live in poverty would be substantial. The White House has 
calculated the poorest fifth of American families with children would 
lose an average of $1,521 a year in income and $1,662 a year in health 
benefits under Republicans. The simple question is: Where do they go 
from here? What is their alternative? What are we simply saying to 
them? You cannot pay your rent, so go out into the street? We cannot 
provide you with health care, so be part of the epidemics of measles 
and various other childhood diseases that will plague this Nation? 
There are families with average incomes of $13,325.

  Furthermore, the Republicans' proposed $500 child tax credit would do 
little to help children in low-income households, and this becomes a 
real dilemma. Is anyone accusing or castigating those families who have 
been able to work and do well, provide for their children and not 
indicate that the $500 which the underlying current in that effort is 
to suggest that children are precious--of course we believe that 
children are precious, but I would simply ask, and I do not know if we 
have had a reconciliation on this issue, do we give it to families 
making $500,000 a year? $200,000 a year? Some of the suggestions have 
been to cap it at $75,000 a year. The real issue is the families making 
$30,000 a year need it as well, and the earned income tax credit is now 
being eliminated, so that means that we are making less precious the 
children of those making less money.
  Mr. Speaker, I would not want to live in a nation that promotes those 
kinds of ideals. All children are precious. All 

[[Page H 10703]]
of them should be embraced. All of them should be given the opportunity 
to fulfill the highest achievement they can possibly achieve, and our 
physically challenged youngsters should particularly be encouraged for 
great things they can do, and they can do these great things as we of 
the Nation provide the underpinnings and the support for them as well. 
Families that have no Federal income tax liability after other 
exemptions and deductions would not be eligible for refunds. That is 
the earned income tax credit which helps so many of the working poor.
  We talk and talk in this Congress about children and our family 
values, but, despite all the lip service given to children, proposed 
Republican budget cuts are antifamily and antichildren. For the past 
few months I have been fighting to prevent cuts in health care which 
would remove the health safety net for many Americans. These cuts were 
cooked up behind closed doors without discussion and an appreciation of 
the devastating consequences the proposed cuts would have on the very 
old and the very young in our society. Even in the Medicare debate 
simple assets such as mammograms for our senior citizens, denied and 
rejected. Simple opportunities to provide physicians in underserved 
areas, denied and rejected. What an attitude, but other kinds of 
cooked-up deals that smell very smelly to me, they were put into the 
bill, and they are moving along quite well. It really is a shame that 
those aspects of the bill that provide the most devastating occurrences 
were provided and allowed in the Medicare bill that was just passed 
last week, but, oh well, just as I have said, another headline, another 
day in the United States Congress.
  But I simply say, no, these are devastating consequences proposed by 
the Republican majority that would have devastating impact on the very 
old and the very young.
  Just this past weekend, as I said this morning, I had the opportunity 
to visit with seniors at a large luncheon provided, of course, by the 
city of Houston and provided under Federal funds, sometimes the only 
meal that these seniors would have, and off to the side an older women 
pulled me and said, looking sad, ``Can you help me with my utility 
bill?'' This is not the senior citizen that we tend to think is going 
to be able to survive without Medicare or Medicaid. This is someone 
truly on the edge, possibly on the edge of living in decent home 
conditions or living out on the street. It seems, however, that the 
debate of the past few weeks has fallen on deaf ears.
  Mr. Speaker, in my district of Houston, TX, too many children are in 
poverty too many times. As someone who has been an advocate for the 
homeless on city council and those children who need well care, health 
care, I find that we are not listening, and I find that we allow too 
many of our citizens to live in poverty for we say, if it is not in 
front of us, then it is not before us. I would simply say it is a play 
on words, just as I have done. It is before us, and it is in front of 
us, and we are going off the edge of a cliff. I find it hard to believe 
that this Congress would further cut the safety net for these children.

  As one doctor of low-income children has said, I see kids literally 
every day with asthma that has not been treated, asthma so bad that 
they cannot function. Do you imagine, or can you imagine, what that is 
like, to see a child hardly able to breathe and getting no relief, to 
see a child unable to attend school, the same child that you cajole and 
encourage their parents to get a job, but yet you are creating a 
situation where this child will either not live to full adulthood or 
live a very short life. I see kids with ear infections that have led to 
hearing losses, the doctor says, to the extent they are not functioning 
in school. We can solve these problems, but we are not doing it.
  In short, Mr. Speaker, these cuts are appalling. I am tired of 
Members of this body giving lip service to children's needs while 
voting against measures which will protect children's well-being and 
strengthen families. As it is now when we talk particularly about the 
city of Houston, I can tell you how hurting this will be for us. The 
Harris County Hospital District, again for a lack of a better term, 
will simply be devastated. Already they will be suffering under the 
Medicare plan which diminishes their opportunity for physicians to 
treat these citizens as well, but this program, as we look at it during 
the budget reconciliation effort this week, will find that Medicare 
coverage will be cut for as many as 206,641 children in Texas and 4.4 
million children nationwide. Currently 20 percent of our children in 
Texas rely on Medicaid for their basic health needs. Medicaid pays for 
immunization, regular checkups, and intensive care in case of 
emergencies for about 1,407,000 children in Texas.
  That is a particular concern of mine. I worked for many, many years 
in the city of Houston working with our city health department to move 
up the well-care checkups for our children, and all the time, as a 
city, we constantly face the problem no money, no money, no money.

                              {time}  1945

  Obviously, an ounce of cure is worth a pound of prevention. I would 
simply say, we are being foolhardy, pound-foolish, pennywise, however 
it goes; we are being foolhardy. I believe that we have to be sensible 
and understand that our children are our future. The Republican budget 
cuts Federal Medicaid funding to Texas by $7 billion over 7 years and 
by 20 percent in 2002 alone. The sad part about it is that it gets a 
wide net of our children. It denies as many as 44,070 disabled children 
in Texas SSI cash benefits by the year 2002. The least of our little 
ones are left to the wind.
  So I think it is time to give some substance to lip service, and as I 
stand here today, I fear for the future. What we do today will 
determine how bright or dismal the future will be for millions of 
children in this country. I urge my colleagues to ask themselves, what 
is the legacy that the 104th Congress will leave? Will it be one our 
grandchildren can be proud of, or will it be one of undereducated, 
underemployed, malnourished, nonimmunized young people?
  There comes a time when we need to be able to stand up for things 
that are right. Over the past couple of weeks, we have simply seen a 
lockstep attitude. That frightens me, and it frightens me because it 
leaves little opportunity for any of us to engage in real debate.
  Just this past week we saw a headline in the newspaper that talked 
about the punitive measures that were being brought against Republicans 
who voted against the Republican Medicare plan. My hat is off to them. 
They voted for their constituents, not for their political 
aggrandizement. They were not worried about the last campaign or the 
last headline.
  My call today, as we begin this process of budget reconciliation, is 
who will you stand for? I am going to stand for the children, working 
families, senior citizens, Americans. I am going to stand for those who 
can do better if we help them to do better. I am going to stand for 
these very children who are here and who would want to be saved and to 
be contributing Americans.
  I pray, humbly so, that I can call upon my Republican colleagues, 
more of them, that will join the dignity, the respect, the strength, 
that was offered by their colleagues last week when they voted 
absolutely no on the Medicare, so-called, Preservation Act. Stand up 
again this week and join those of us who believe in our country and our 
children, and make sure that as you do that, you stand up and vote for 
our children and for our children's children, and all of Americans who 
are simply trying to grab hold onto the quality of life that we would 
pretend to have in this Nation.

  Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure that, as I close to yield to 
the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Baldacci] who has been a great leader on 
many issues dealing with our children and dealing with hunger, and for 
his constituents in the State of Maine.
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Texas for 
yielding to me. I appreciate her very eloquent statements here today. 
It gives us food for thought.
  Mr. Speaker, I am here today to add my voice to those of my 
colleagues in recognition of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Every 
year domestic violence tops the chart as the leading cause of death 
among women. Every year more women are at risk of being 

[[Page H 10704]]
killed by their current or former male partners than by any other kind 
of assailant. And every year more and more children find themselves 
living in violent homes, often the victims of violence themselves. Mr. 
Speaker, we cannot allow these staggering statistics to continue.
  I will be holding a domestic violence public forum in my district in 
the coming weeks to explore how to reduce this growing problem. At this 
forum I will be speaking with professionals from domestic violence and 
family crisis agencies who last year served over 10,000 individuals in 
the State of Maine. They provided 10,626 hours of crisis intervention 
through their hotline; 15,829 bed nights of shelter; and 14,252 hours 
of community education about the horrors of domestic violence. While we 
are fortunate that such facilities exist to help us cope with the 
massive numbers in need of assistance, it is unfortunate that such 
facilities are needed at all.
  We need to continue funding such legislation as the Violence Against 
Women Act. We need to continue supporting law enforcement and family 
crisis agencies in their efforts to create community based responses to 
coping with domestic violence. We need to continue to train health care 
professionals to recognize and respond to domestic violence. And we 
need to continue to educate men and women alike about the evils of 
domestic violence, reminding them that no one asks to be the victim of 
domestic violence, no one deserves to be beaten while in the supposed 
safety of one's own home.
  Working together, we can create a society where there is no longer a 
need for shelters, for hotlines, or for domestic violence counselors. 
Until that time, however, we must continue to work to break the silence 
surrounding this issue, and to address the critical needs of battered 
women and their children.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, again I want to thank the gentlewoman from 
Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] for yielding the time to give these remarks in 
regard to domestic violence and Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and 
applaud her efforts in bringing more attention to the overall budget 
reconciliation and what is going to be happening this week in the 
House. I want to thank the gentlewoman.
  Ms. Jackson-Lee. I thank the gentleman from Maine for his very 
important statement, Mr. Speaker. He is joining in with many of us in 
adding to some of the problems with the Budget Reconciliation Act. Mr. 
Speaker, let me applaud him for that, and add, as well, my comments on 
domestic violence. It is a crisis, and for any diminishing of the 
domestic violence funding, we are again doing something extremely 
tragic to this Nation. I will add my comments on this issue for the 
Record and expand on such.

                          ____________________