[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11669-H11670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                THREE GOALS OF THIS REPUBLICAN CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Allard). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. 
Shays] yield for 10 seconds?
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I will yield very briefly.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to add, at the end of the remarks of the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Diaz-Balart], this column on Fidel Castro 
from this week's Time magazine. The party at Mort Zuckerman's house 
with Mike Wallace, Dianne Sawyer, Peter Jennings, Barbara Walters, all 
sorts of other millionaires, and the guest in uncharacteristic civilian 
clothes is Fidel Castro. Unbelievable.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida 
[Mr. Diaz-Balart] for the work he has done in trying to awaken us to 
the need to be very aggressive as we deal with Mr. Castro.
  Mr. Speaker, I wanted to address the House for the 4 minutes I have 
remaining to respond very strongly to the fact that we have three basic 
goals in this Republican majority. One, we want to get our financial 
house in order and balance our budget. The second issue is that we want 
to save our trust funds, particularly Medicare, and in the process 
preserve and strengthen it. Also, just as importantly, we want to 
change this social and corporate welfare state into an opportunity 
society.
  Now, in the process of doing this, I have heard tremendous reference 
to the fact that we are cutting certain programs that we are not 
cutting. Admittedly, discretionary spending is going down. There are 
real cuts in discretionary spending. Foreign aid is being cut. Defense 
is a hard freeze, but we are oversubscribed in defense programs, so 
there will be cuts in defense.
  But when we come to the earned income tax credit, it is going up, it 
is not going down. It is going from $19.8 billion this year to $27.4 
billion in 7 years. Only in this city, and where the virus has spread, 
when you go from $19.8 billion to $27.4 billion do people call it a 
cut.
  The School Lunch Program, calling it a cut when it goes in 5 years 
from $6.3 billion to $7.8 billion. How can that be a cut? It is an 
increase any way you look at it.
  Student loans, over a 5-year program it is going to go from $24 to 
$33 billion. I say again, only in this city when you go from $24 to $33 
billion in student loans is it a cut. Now, what we are doing is saying 
students are going to pay the interest rate from the moment they 
graduate until that grace period ends. That will accrue to them. It 
will cost them, over the life of the program, $9 more a month if they 
borrowed $17,000.
  Then, Medicaid. Medicaid is not being cut, it is going up. It is 
going up from $89 to $124 billion. We are going to spend over $329 
billion more on Medicaid than we did in the last 7 years, we are going 
to spend in the next 7. That is a 73-percent increase.
  Medicare is going to go from $178 to $278 billion, $178 to $278 
billion over 7 years. That is a 54-percent increase. Or, in terms of 
what we spent in the last 

[[Page H 11670]]

7 years, we spent $926 billion, it is going to go up to $1.6 trillion.
  That is a difference of $674 billion of new money, 73 percent more 
than we are going to put in Medicare in the next 7 years than we did in 
the last 7. Then if you want to know what it is on a per-beneficiary, 
it is going to go up 40 percent. Only in this city, when you spend more 
money like we are spending, do people call it a cut.

  Now, why are we doing this? We are doing this because our national 
debt has gone up and up and up. It was about $375 billion around 1975. 
Democrats and Republicans can share the blame in why these deficits go 
up. A White House that was Republican, a Congress that was Democrat. 
That is the past and both fingers were on it. But we have an 
opportunity now to get our financial house in order and stop increasing 
our national debt.
  I just want to say that I am absolutely determined that there is not 
a chance that I will vote to increase the national debt until this 
President agrees to a 7-year budget. I want to say, contrary to what my 
colleague from Connecticut said, we are not saying it has to be our 
budget, we are just simply saying it has to be a 7-year budget. We will 
work out our difference, some of what the President wants, some of what 
we want. The bottom line, we have to get our financial house in order 
in 7 years. That is the outer edge. It would be better if we did it in 
4 or 5 years.

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