[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 180 (Tuesday, November 14, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H12334-H12341]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     NOW, FOR THE REST OF THE STORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Taylor of North Carolina). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Barrett] 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be here 
tonight. I am going to be joined by several of my colleagues on the 
Democratic side. I guess, as Paul Harvey would say, we would like to 
tell you the rest of the story, because for the last hour we have heard 
what best could be described as maybe Lost in Space, or Fantasies of 
the Unknown, or something like that.
  However, I think perhaps what is good for the American people is that 
we will have an opportunity to give the perspective from those of us 
who are in the minority here, those of us who are interested very much 
in moving the Government and the society forward.
  I am pleased to be joined by the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. 
Pallone] who is here tonight, the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. 
Thurman], and the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur]. We are going to 
spend the next hour talking about a few things.
  I want to start off by talking about efficiency and the ability of 
Congress to do its work, because I am a Member of the 103d Congress. I 
was a freshman last year, as was the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. 
Thurman]. The message that we received when we were elected is that the 
American people did not want business as usual. They wanted Government 
to work, they wanted Congress to come and do its job. Frankly, that is 
exactly what we did last year, especially, especially when it came to 
the appropriations bills.
  Today is November 14, 1995. The House of Representatives and the U.S. 
Senate had completed and sent to the President and had signed into law 
3 of 13 appropriation bills. For those of you who do not know, we are 
required by law to complete the 13 appropriation bills basically by 
October 1 of each year.
  Many times what happens is there is a continuing resolution that 
permits Congress, in essence, to grant itself a 

[[Page H 12335]]
little bit of an exemption, or an exception, and work a little bit 
later, but in 1993 when the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman] and 
I were freshmen in our first year, and in 1994, when the gentleman from 
New Jersey [Mr. Pallone], the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], the 
gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman], and I were in the majority, we 
finished every one of those bills prior to the October 1 date. Not only 
did we finish every one of those bills, we had them finished, sent to 
the President of the United States, and they were signed into law.

  As of today, we have only three appropriation bills that have been 
signed into law by the President of the United States. He has vetoed 
one, so we have nine that have not moved through the appropriations 
process.
  So yes, there is a problem. The problem, plain and simple, is that 
Congress has not done its job. The reason it has not done its job is 
because we have spent so much time this year on extraneous matters, on 
public relations gimmicks like the Contract With America, that we 
basically have not done the job that we were hired to do.
  Under the leadership of Speaker Gingrich and his followers, we have 
not done the nuts-and-bolts operations of government. That is why we 
are standing before you today with a problem.
  I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman].
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker I think the gentleman makes a very good 
point. My comments are based on this appropriations process, because I 
have found it very interesting that only two or three of these have 
actually passed.
  Actually, when I go home and I talk to my constituents, I try to 
explain to them a little bit of what has gone on here. I personally 
think we need to thank the American public tonight, as in the minority, 
and I will tell you why. One of the things I heard was, ``Well, it does 
not sound like Democrats are very organized, and they are not really 
getting their points out,'' and those kinds of things. Then I started 
to pay more attention to what was happening over in the Senate. All of 
a sudden, it was remarkable to me, because the issues that we had 
raised as Democrats on this floor about issues within these 
appropriations bills, and by the way, which were not about spending, 
they were trying to legislate on the appropriations bills, were being 
raised on the Senate side.
  Remember the issue about clean water and the health and welfare of 
this country when it came to meat inspections? Remember that? Who 
raised those issues? We did. We did out homework over here. We pounded, 
and we let the American people know potentially what was going to 
happen to them and what could potentially happen to them as a result of 
the passage of these bills. We said to our constituents: ``We don't 
have the votes in the House to stop this. They are on this roll. By 
golly, we are going to get this done.''
  What did we say to them? I did. I said to them, I said, ``Go talk to 
your Senators. They have a different ability for rules, they have a 
different ability to be able to raise the issues within the Senate 
side, because we are controlled totally by what amendments we can even 
bring to this floor by a Committee on Rules. They have an opportunity 
to debate these issues that we raised over here.''
  What has happened now, because of the issues that we have raised, the 
Senators have said, ``Whoa, wait a minute. There are some thing in here 
that are dangerous, and there are things that our constituents are 
raising to us, and we don't have the answers to those questions.'' We 
can't come to the table and reconcile our differences between the 
Senate and the House because we are that far apart, because the 
American public said to the Senators, ``This is the wrong way to go,'' 
which is what the President is saying.
  So we are really doing exactly what the American people asked us to 
do. The problem is that we have left hundreds of thousands of people in 
a real predicament.
  I think the gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur], tonight could tell 
you what happened and who was not served in her district because of 
what happened today, and I would love to hear those facts and figures, 
because I think it is outlandish that we have all kinds of people with 
problems, because the American people's problems have not quit because 
Government has.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman 
from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur].
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues here, and 
I guess what we can talk about is wreck-onciliation, and it is truly a 
wreck for our communities, and for communities across this country.
  I happen to serve on the Committee on Appropriations, and I can 
testify that there have been many, many years when we have cleared our 
bills on time, all 13 of them, before October 1. There is no reason to 
furlough 800,000 Federal employees. I can tell you in Toledo, OH, my 
largest community, we had our office in the Federal building, and just 
today, because Social Security had to really close down, those people 
were furloughed, there were 70 people whose claims could not be 
directly processed, 500 visitors were turned away, because our office 
is pretty close to their office, and, on average, they receive about 
245 phone calls a day. That means 245 seniors called in to the office, 
and the phone could not answer today, because the people were not 
there.
  Here in Washington, tomorrow I think I am the only Washington 
monument that students in my district will see, because hundreds of 
them are here during the fall season, and they learned that all the 
monuments, all the museums, are all closed down. So here they have 
saved their money, they have done car washes during the summer, they 
have worked so hard to come with their classes to Washington, and today 
they cannot see any of them. This is their one time. It is so expensive 
to come here, so we are seeing the results of this unnecessary train 
wreck here in the month of November.
  What is amazing to me, this so-called new leadership on both sides of 
the Congress, why do we have to wait until the end of the week? It is 
Tuesday. Now they told us we have to wait through Wednesday, wait 
through Thursday, and maybe we will have a vote on Friday. What are we 
waiting for?
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from 
New Jersey if he has any thoughts on what we are waiting for. I yield 
to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone].
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I think it really comes down to the 
intransigence, if you will, of the Republican leadership and Speaker 
Gingrich, basically not willing to compromise, not willing to negotiate 
common ground.
  The thing that amazes me is how this continuing resolution, which is 
basically a stopgap way of keeping the Government going until we 
finally resolve the larger budget issues, this continuing resolution, 
which historically, at least as long as I have been here, whenever we 
had one, it was basically what we call clean, a clean continuing 
resolution. It just tried to provide the money to keep the Government 
going, without being loaded down with all kinds of extraneous material.

  This time, however, the Republican leadership put this Medicare 
premium increase in the continuing resolution, so that I think we are 
talking about $11 more per month that seniors would be paying for their 
part B Medicare as of January 1. This was included in the continuing 
resolution, so the President, when he received it, had to veto it. I am 
proud of the fact that he vetoed it in order to guarantee that senior 
citizens' Medicare premiums would not go up January 1. This is the kind 
of nonsense we are getting.
  We are being told, instead of just trying to pass a continuing 
resolution that keeps the Government going while we try to work out our 
differences on the budget, it is loaded up with Medicare increases and 
all these other things.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Let me make sure I understand this. Are you 
saying we should not be debating the Medicare issue?
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I am saying that the debate over the 
budget, and I would like to get into that a little bit, is ongoing, and 
will be dealt with either by the end of this week or within the next 
few weeks, but while that debate is ongoing, it is necessary for the 
Government to keep operating the way it normally does.

[[Page H 12336]]

  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. So it has nothing to do with the continuing 
resolution?
  Mr. PALLONE. Absolutely not. There is absolutely no reason it should 
be included within the continuing resolution.
  Mrs. THURMAN. If the gentleman will continue to yield, if I remember 
correctly, on this floor there was a freestanding Medicare bill passed, 
is that correct?
  Mr. PALLONE. Absolutely.
  Mrs. THURMAN. I would like to go back a little bit, for those who 
might have watched the debate during today. The gentleman from 
California [Mr. Thomas] was on the floor reciting from the Wall Street 
Journal. I actually tried to get this information in on the floor at 
the time, but we were limited on the amount of time we had to debate 
what I thought was a very important issue.

  Rightly so, he did talk about some of the issues and the Medicare 
premiums. You know, in fact, this is really the story, as I understand 
it, and as has been explained to me. Today our seniors pay about $46.10 
under current law, because evidently there was the issue that seniors 
would pay 25 percent of the premiums, so it actually would have dropped 
in 1996 to $42.50. He kept talking about this was the responsible thing 
to do, you know, that we should raise this, and we had to worry about 
the computer changes and those kinds of things.
  Actually, on the Republican side over on the Senate, there was an 
announcement made yesterday in the late afternoon by one of the 
Senators that they thought we just should hold constant the $46.10, 
which was immediately rejected by the House leadership here.
  Mr. PALLONE. Right.
  Mrs. THURMAN. This is what was interesting, and I found that it was 
never mentioned when the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] 
mentioned the Wall Street Journal article. This was what the rest of 
the story, as some people might say, contained.
  ``A Strong Motivation'' is the subtitle.

       The GOP has a strong motivation for pushing the issue now. 
     Most elderly people might not notice the proposal increase if 
     it is enacted soon. That's because Medicare premiums are 
     deducted from beneficiaries' monthly Social Security checks, 
     and Social Security recipients are scheduled to get a 2.6 
     percent cost-of-living increase as of January 1. That means 
     that the average Social Security check will rise to $720, 
     from $702, according to the government. If Medicare premiums 
     grow to $53.50 on January 1, recipients' checks will still be 
     higher after the monthly Medicare deduction, $666.50 on 
     average compared with $655.90 today.

  So there is really a smoke and mirror behind this. They have to get 
the change now, so that it does not show up in May or April of next 
year, but shows up at the same time that the Medicare increase would 
come, at the same time they were getting their COLA increases.

                              {time}  2200

  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. If I could touch on that and go back to 
what the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] was saying, I am going 
to try to tie it into an issue that sounds like it has nothing to do 
with a continuing resolution or Medicare payments, but conceptually it 
does. That is the line-item veto.
  I am convinced that the American people want the line-item veto. They 
want the President to have the ability to get rid of pork barrel 
spending and items that are completely extraneous to the issue at hand. 
That is why I support it. Republicans, who for years have been in favor 
of this thing, are finding hundreds of ways to talk this to death. The 
last thing they want to do is give President Clinton the ability to 
line-item their pork barrel spending or tax matters.
  As the gentleman from New Jersey said, the continuing resolution is 
to keep the Government running for the next few weeks until the 
majority can do the work on this they were elected to do. Obviously, 
they are not consulting with us. But their job and our job in the 
Congress is to get appropriations bills passed and the reconciliation 
bill passed and sent to the President. They have not been able to do 
that.
  But, they know if they can sneak or push or pummel or bully this 
Medicare premium increase into the continuing resolution bill and have 
the President sign it into law, they are done. They are done with their 
crown jewel in terms of this portion of the budget, because they are 
determined to have that increase built into it.
  Just for a short time, I want to talk a little bit about the merits. 
I was sitting here when the Speaker was talking and boasting about the 
increases in Government spending per recipient under their plan, and I 
may surprise some Members here, but I actually agree with some of the 
things that they said. They are telling the truth when they say that 
the Government spending per recipient is going to rise from $4,800 per 
recipient this year to $6,700 per recipient in the year 2002. That is 
absolutely correct. That is something that a Democrat says the 
Republicans are telling the truth on.
  But, again as Paul Harvey would say, they do not tell you the rest of 
the story, because while they boast about that increase, which is about 
a 44-percent increase, in fact, the Speaker not more than 20 minutes 
ago said that is an increase that is twice the rate of inflation and he 
boasted that it was twice the rate of inflation. What the Speaker did 
not tell was that the Medicare premiums are going to go from $46 a 
month to $87 a month in the same period, and that is an 85- to 90-
percent increase.
  If the Speaker was saying that a 44-percent increase is twice the 
rate of inflation, what he didn't tell is that they are going to raise 
the Medicare premiums for seniors in this country four times the rate 
of inflation in the next 7 years. I think that that is something that I 
think we should debate. I think that there is public policy issues 
there that should be debated. I frankly think, for seniors who can 
afford it, they can pay more. Some of my colleagues on both sides of 
the aisle might disagree with that.
  Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield, following on what you so 
importantly have outlined, and I think that message should be repeated 
and repeated and repeated to show where the costs are going to fall, 
and then Congresswoman Thurman's comments about how much more seniors 
will have to pay and when those bills will come due, I think what is 
important to put out in the Record tonight again is to show people that 
all of these additional costs that seniors are going to have to pay, 
and all of the cuts that are going to come in Medicare totaling over 
$270 billion, as this chart demonstrates, none of that money is going 
to make Medicare more whole. In fact, it is all going to go for major 
tax breaks, over $245 billion, to among the most privileged people in 
this country.

  So, all of the sacrifice that we are talking about, the quadrupling 
of what seniors will have to pay over the remaining part of this decade 
and into the next century, is not going to do a thing to make health 
insurance more accessible to seniors. All that money and all that 
sacrifice is going away so at the same time the seniors are shouldering 
a heavier burden, the Medicare Program will not be made any better.
  I yield to the Congresswoman.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, there is another important factor in there 
and that is the issue of Medicaid, which is $181 billion cut and block 
granted back to our States, so the States cannot meet the needs once 
again for the levels of poverty and for our seniors. And it refers to 
things like long-term care, issues that we are all very, very concerned 
about.
  I find it interesting that 1 or 2 years ago for all the things that 
they talk about right now, they would not engage with us in health care 
reform that looked at the whole health care process, for cost 
containment, to find the savings, to do the kinds of things that they 
elected us to do.
  The only thing that they have looked at are the two Government 
programs that give to our seniors the dignity, when it was passed, when 
they only had 40 percent of the people with any health care to 100 
percent, and to help children in poverty to be able to have an 
opportunity to have health care.
  We have not even started. And they talk about balancing the budget. 
Actually, they obviously agree, because look where they have hit. That 
what we needed to look at was in the health care. That that was where 
our costs were going up, and that we did have to contain those costs, 
and we needed to find ways to do that.

[[Page H 12337]]

  But the way we do it is by bringing more people into the health care 
system instead of shoving people out of the health care system. I 
believe, and I honestly, believe that we will see cost-shifting in this 
country to where more people will have less coverage or more people 
will have a less ability to buy into private insurance, because the 
costs will rise so high because of what is going on here today, and 
then we have done nothing to settle this debate.

  Mr. PALLONE. I just wanted to go back to what Congresswoman Kaptur 
had said about the priorities. I came in at the tail end of the 
Republican speakers that were here before us, but I notice they kept 
talking about the budget and how important it was to balance the 
budget. I do not think there is anybody in the House of Representatives 
on either side of the aisle who does not want to balance the budget. I 
have no problem with the 7-year approach, for example, that Speaker 
Gingrich and a lot of our colleagues on the other side keep mentioning.
  But, I think the question is priorities and that is what 
Congresswoman Kaptur was pointing out. We could all figure out a way to 
balance the budget. And I have voted for balanced budget amendments and 
I have voted for balanced budgets, but the priorities that the 
Republican leadership have are totally wacky as far as I am concerned, 
and basically penalize the middle-class and the poor people in this 
country in order to give these tax breaks to the wealthy.
  As was mentioned, the Medicare cuts alone for this budget bill are 
$270 billion. The tax breaks are $245 billion. They almost equal each 
other.
  If we did not cut Medicare, and essentially destroy the Medicare 
Program, this is what I think this Republican budget would do. I think 
at one point we had a Democratic alternative that cut Medicare $90 
billion, which is what was recommended by the trustees. If we put most 
of that money back in and avoided these tax breaks for wealthy 
Americans, we would not have to change the Medicare Program at all. We 
could still keep it a very high-quality Medicare Program that 
guarantees a good health care plan for America's seniors.
  The same thing is true for some of the other points in there. They 
are basically cutting education. They are cutting back on student 
loans. I know that in my district I have the main campus of Rutgers 
University. So many students, not only from Rutgers but from throughout 
the State, have called me and their parents have called me and said, 
``Gee, how are we going to be able to get student loans if you cut back 
on the programs?''
  They have done the same thing with some of the programs, the school 
lunches, the programs for children like WIC, and even provided an 
increase in taxes for the working poor through the earned income tax 
credit. One of the best things the President Clinton did, and I know my 
colleague from Florida has pointed to that before, is that he actually 
expanded this earned income tax credit to give an incentive to people 
who are low income, but who are working so that they get a tax credit 
or a tax break.

  This Republican budget bill basically cuts into that; practically 
wipes it out. Here we are basically giving these tax breaks for wealthy 
Americans, destroying the Medicare Program in the process, and then 
taking away the tax credits from the working poor.
  In the meantime, Speaker Gingrich and the Republican leadership keep 
talking about how they want to get people off of welfare and get them 
to work. How are we going to get them to work if we eliminate the major 
incentive they have to work, which is this tax credit? It is incredible 
to me.
  If my colleague look at this bill, the Americans who makes less than 
$30,000 a year in general are going to actually be paying more in 
taxes, and it is only the people who are in the high-income brackets 
that are actually going to get tax break.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Incidentally, that is 51 percent of the 
American people. I saw an article in the Wall Street Journal that said 
51 percent of the people would actually see a tax increase, primarily 
because of the changes in the EITC, the earned income tax credit.
  I know Representative Thurman, we talked about that earlier today. 
What kind of impact would that have in your district?
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, I heard them say that the President left 
his promise about this middle class, lower class, poorer class getting 
a tax credit or a tax break. I have got to tell my colleagues, before I 
made that vote I looked at the census within my district in 1993. Mr. 
Speaker, 4,000 people would have actually received an increase; 4,000 
out of 565,000. That is not a lot.
  But the results of that were $80 million was returned back into that 
district to families who were working through the earned income tax 
credit.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. These are people on welfare?
  Mrs. THURMAN. No, no, no, no. And I have got to tell the gentleman 
from Wisconsin [Mr. Barrett], he knows this, but it is a great question 
to reemphasize this whole issue. These are people that work every day, 
40, 50, 60 hours, whatever. They go to work, get up, have a work ethic, 
but are still making below poverty levels.
  This was a way, and that probably explains some of it, a way for them 
to work themselves out of poverty and to give them incentives to 
continue working, which is what Republicans say we ought to be doing. 
Responsibility, individual responsibility. They took the individual 
responsibility. They said, they legitimately said, ``I am going to get 
up in the morning and I am going to go to work. And if it is $4.35 an 
hour, or $5, or $5.50, no benefits, I cannot get Medicaid, I am going 
to get up.''
  And what President Reagan said was, ``We ought to give something to 
them.'' And then President Clinton expanded on it under the earned 
income tax credit. It is not a new idea; it was not a new one. But what 
it meant to my district and to the people that I represent, which is 
the second largest senior population in the State of Florida, and the 
second poorest, was that $80 million more of their tax money was coming 
back to them.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, these are people who are 
trying to support their families, trying to stay off welfare, trying to 
do the right thing for society and they are going to take it in the 
chops.
  Mrs. THURMAN. They are the working poor. Those people needed help and 
we gave it to them.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to reemphasize that point, 
because I do not think most citizens have been listening to the fact 
that all these cuts that are occurring out of the Medicare program, the 
nursing home program, the additional costs for students loans, and the 
very point that my colleagues are raising, which is tax increases for 
families who are working who earn under $30,000 a year, really add up.
  We are talking about over 8 million families in our country who are 
going to have to pay more in taxes.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a chart here that I want to reference that really 
shows that if you are working and you earn under $10,000 a year, if you 
earn under $20,000, if you earn under $30,000 a year, under their 
proposal, you are going to have to pay more.
  But, if you happen to be in the category, as every Member of Congress 
is who has accepted the pay raises, of over $100,000 a year, as Speaker 
Gingrich is, you are going to get a handsome tax break. For those 
people who earn over $200,000 a year, they will average a $14,000 tax 
break, while people who are earning under $30,000 a year are going to 
have to pay about $600 more a year in taxes and in lost benefits from 
these health programs.
  Mr. Speaker, that is really something to consider. To me it shows the 
unfairness of the Gingrich set of proposals on the vast majority of the 
American people.

                              {time}  2215

  I am glad that the gentlewoman brought up the point. In my district I 
will say that the earned income tax credit helps 26,000 working 
families.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. That is about what it helps in my district, 
too.
  Ms. KAPTUR. They say they are cutting taxes. They are cutting taxes 
for their friends who can pay enough to lobby up here, but they are 
raising taxes on the people in our district who have not seen their 
wages go up, who are struggling to make ends meet and are now going to 
be asked to pay more to the piper. It is downright wrong. 

[[Page H 12338]]

  Mrs. THURMAN. I am going to draw upon two things that Mr. Pallone 
said and Ms. Kaptur said. I happen to have the University of Florida, 
which I am very proud of, in my district. I think they are wonderful 
students and they struggle just like everybody else does. But to your 
point on the education issues, we were one of the universities that got 
the direct loan program, a super program. I have got to tell you, when 
you can go to a university and talk about loan programs and their eyes 
light up because things are going well. For the first time, they got 
their money on time. They got things, they go to be able to pay their 
tuition. They were able to buy their books. They were able to get their 
utility bills done because the money was actually allocated and they 
could go get the check. The university got their tuition money, which 
allows them to continue to pay this bill as well. So I went to talk 
about this, because that has been abolished in this plan.
  Mr. Pallone's issue was the direct loan. For the earned-income tax 
credit, there was a young man who is enrolled in law school. He has a 
young child that is about 18 months old. He asked me, this is 
interesting, what was going to happen. I said, You are going to see a 
cut in that. It meant $1,800 to him. So he works while he goes to 
school. This is a young man with a family who gets earned-income tax 
credit that gets a benefit from this, will graduate from law school. 
And do you think that he is going to be a productive citizen in this 
society? Do you believe that he is going to pay his fair share of taxes 
back into this society? Absolutely. That is why he is in college. He 
wants to better himself. He wanted to do something for him and his 
family.
  If he loses these two programs, he could be back doing less because 
he was not given the opportunity to go further because these programs 
were cut and they were cut to give to the very people that Ms. Kaptur 
talked about who do not need it.
  Mr. PALLONE. I just wanted to follow up on that. Rutgers, again, was 
one of the universities that was chosen to do the pilot program with 
the direct student loans. And just following up on what you were 
saying, it is so true. I have talked to the people at Rutgers 
University. They have been down here taking to both Democrats and 
Republicans representing the State. They have been able to expand the 
number of students that receive the student loans because of their 
direct loan program. There is absolutely no justification at all to 
eliminate that.
  Basically what it does is to eliminate the banks as the middle person 
so that you get the loan directly from the university. And using the 
banks as the middle person, so to speak, drove up the cost, make it 
possible to give out less student loans. And there is absolution no 
reason to go back to that old system other than the Republican 
leadership on the other side has some association, I assume, with the 
special interests and the banks and wants to go back to the old way of 
doing things.

  Rutgers and all the university people have been down here and said 
that that is the wrong way to go. It will limit the amount of loans 
that are available for Rutgers students.
  The other thing that they did in terms of the student loan program, 
is they are charging the students interest for the first few months 
that they get out of school. So in other words, right now you do not 
pay interest for a period of time, 6 months, I guess, after you 
graduate as you are trying to find a job. And now they are going to 
charge you the interest during that period. And again, it is all these 
things are done to discourage people from being able to find a job, 
from working, whatever. It makes no sense.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. We have literally hundreds of people in 
this institution who went through college on the basis of student loans 
or the GI bill. It is almost as if they are pulling that ladder of 
opportunity up behind them. What is also interesting is none of us have 
talked about the issue of student loans with each other, but I 
represent the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. And just 2 weeks ago, 
the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee published in 
our local newspaper an article extolling the virtues of the direct 
student loan program and the problems of taking it away.
  I would also like to comment on the tax cut that primarily benefits 
the wealthy and make reference to one of our colleagues, Congressman 
Stenholm from Texas, who is a real battler in fighting the deficit and 
spending. And one of the things he says, I cannot say it as well as he 
can, when you are standing in a hole, you do not get out of the hole by 
digging deeper. And earlier tonight we had a number of Republicans 
here, one of them very candidly said that even under their plan the 
deficit or the debt, the national debt would grow by a trillion dollars 
over the next 3 or 4 years. I cannot recall the years he used. But I 
find it amazing that they are trying to sell a tax cut to the American 
people that primarily benefits the wealthiest people in this country at 
a time when we are still running deficits.
  In reality, you have to forget that you are in Congress, you have to 
forget that you are dealing in politics and try to think about it in 
the most basic terms. We are still running a deficit this year of $164 
billion. This would be the third year in a row where it has gone down, 
the first time that has happened since Harry Truman was President. I am 
very proud of that. But frankly, it is still a deficit.
  They are going to give a tax cut and we are running a deficit. In the 
second year of their plan, I think their deficit is actually going to 
increase. In order to give a tax cut, in the most basic terms, if you 
are at home, what you are going to do is you are going to go out and 
borrow more money from my 3-year-old son, my 1-year-old daughter. They 
are going to borrow more money from them in order to give a tax cut 
this year to people who make $200,000 a year, people who have 
investment income who are doing very well.
  I have nothing against them, but I think there is a moral question 
there. Why are they borrowing more money from our children in order to 
give a tax cut to the people who are doing very well in this society? 
Again, I am not saying they are bad people. I am saying, I think we 
have to look at the bigger picture and the bigger picture is, yes, we 
have to sacrifice. I frankly think as Democrats we are making a mistake 
and we lose the political battle if we say we should not balance the 
budget. I agree with Mr. Pallone, I think we should balance the budget. 
But I will tell you where I think we win the battle is by saying 
candidly to the American people, yes, we should balance the budget, but 
you are going in the wrong direction. You should not be having the cuts 
and the hits because many of the things are actually cuts in the 
growth. We should be candid about it. They are cuts in the growth of 
these programs. But they are in education, they are in Medicare. They 
are in Medicaid. They are in programs that affect children like WIC and 
Head Start. And those are investments for the future. Why do owe take a 
hit there?

  Ms. KAPTUR. I just want to say, we were talking about universities 
and the importance of student loans. I am someone who personally was 
able to have the work study program available to me as a college 
student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. And I was able to 
work my way through school along with some scholarship assistance. I 
think that all of us who have struggled hard to get an education 
understand what the students of today, whose bills are even higher than 
ours were, are facing.
  I do have to say on the Record that the University of Toledo is in my 
district. They are on their way to the Las Vegas Bowl. We are very 
proud of them for that. We have over 22,000 students at that particular 
institution.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. They are ranked right now right, are they 
not?
  Ms. KAPTUR. You knew they were from our community. We are very proud 
of them. In December they will be traveling down there, and we know 
they are going to win. We also have Bowling Green State University 
where we have about 18,000 students and then Lords College with about 
2,500 students. These student loans for many, many thousands of 
students are life and death. It is their future or nothing.
  And to add to their burden, they are our future, really, is the wrong 
way to go. I would say to certain executives in our country, like the 
gentleman who heads up Walt Disney who made $50 million last year, that 
is a substantial sum of money. I am sure that he would 

[[Page H 12339]]
admit, if he were given the chance to speak out on this floor, that he 
does not need an additional $500 in a tax credit for his family, that 
he would rather have some student in California be able to go on to 
school. And if you multiply that by the thousands and thousands of 
students in our country, there are just better ways to spend these 
dollars. It seems such a tragedy to me that we are here late in the 
evening while the Government is essentially stopped and we cannot seem 
to find accommodation with Mr. Gingrich simply because he is being 
unreasonable about where to cut and where not to cut.
  I do not understand what he is after. I think all of the mail we have 
gotten, the phone calls, the communications from our constituents, give 
us a sense of where we need to make changes in the budget. I do not 
know why he is taking such an extreme position. I do not think it 
yields anything for the country. I do not think it yields anything for 
him or his allies in this Congress. I do not understand why the 
rigidity, what is the rigidity all about.
  I am just proud to be here with our colleagues here this evening 
because we are from all different parts of the country. And we very 
much want to continue on the path of deficit reduction. I think we have 
all been a part of making tough choices.
  All we do on the Committee on Appropriations now is cut. It is just a 
matter of what you hack next. We have eliminated programs. We have had 
hundreds of thousands of people that have left the service of 
the Federal Government, both on the civilian side and the military 
side. We have got base closings all over this country. We as a Nation 
are begging foreign countries to invest in space research. It is 
somewhat embarrassing at times to be a beggar. On the international 
front, we have cut foreign aid.

  When you look at where we have cut, all the agriculture programs, we 
are losing thousands and thousands of farmers, dairy farmers, vegetable 
farmers, tomato farmers, cattle growers. We have got people all over 
this country who are going out of business. We know cuts have been 
severe. We know that we have been about the task of putting the 
finances of the Government in the proper order. But I do not understand 
why Mr. Gingrich cannot be a partner with us and help us to balance the 
budget responsibly rather than hurting people who need the help the 
most.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I think has been 
left out in this debate, and I think it is not our debate but this 
overall debate, is something that all of us came in to try to do, and 
that was to create new jobs so that we could put people back to work so 
that we could grow this economy, because not only is there the ability 
to just cut, cut, cut, but there is also the ability to grow ourselves 
out of this, to put people back to work so they are not dependent on 
this Government.
  My guess is, from listening to the folks at home, the cuts just in 
the health care alone, we are going to be losing $15,000-a-year jobs to 
$30,000-a-year jobs. Not the $250,000-a-year jobs, but the ones in 
between. Because when you cut that and take that kind of money out of 
your economy, there is going to be an effect. And one of those areas is 
going to be in jobs.
  Let me tell you about an issue that I watched on this floor. I only 
raise this because I think there is another attack going on in these 
appropriation bills with some of these riders. That really has a lot to 
do with undoing what was done in the last 2 years under President 
Clinton.
  There was an issue called the Office of Technology. Do you remember 
that 2 years ago when we debated that and that was when we were 
supposed to bring public and private together so that we could take our 
inventions here in this country and actually manufacture and market 
them. That was the purpose of that, was for the Office of Technology to 
build that, because we knew that we had to grow. We had to do 
manufacturing. We had to do that.
  What we found in everything that we were seeing across this country 
was we would come up with all these ideas like the VCR and that 
technology that we had gained would be sent to another country. It 
would be manufactured and then sent back to the United States. And we 
said we have got to stop this.
  One of the first amendments that I watched during the appropriations 
bill was to take the Office of Technology out. It stops the growth. It 
stops the promotion of jobs.
  I have to tell you, I am like you, Ms. Kaptur, I do not get it. I 
just do not get it.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Maybe Mr. Pallone can help us out.
  Mr. PALLONE. I wanted to comment, I was listening to what the two 
Congresswomen said. One of the things I think they are getting at, 
which is so important, is the whole interrelationship with all these 
things and what it all means for our economy and the future of the 
country.

                              {time}  2230

  One of the things that bothers me about Speaker Gingrich is that he 
always seems to get involved in class warfare, age warfare, putting one 
group or pitting one group against the other, and these things are all 
so interrelated.
  Now we talked tonight about the Medicare cuts, and I know to some 
extent the leadership, the Republican leadership, tries to get the idea 
out, well, you know, maybe the seniors are getting too much, you know, 
that they need to pay a little more, and you know, try to get into this 
thing that it is seniors against young people, almost a generation gap, 
and what they fail to tell us and fail to explain is that these 
Medicare cuts and the Medicaid cuts have a terrible impact on 
hospitals, for example.
  In my own area almost every hospital that is in any district is, a 
majority of their funding comes from Medicare and Medicaid. If these 
draconian cuts are put in place in order to finance the tax cuts for 
the wealthy, a lot of those hospitals will close, a lot of them will 
cut back on services. That affects everyone, not just the senior 
citizens. It affects everyone in the community.
  The same thing is true with the student loans. I do not understand 
how you can talk about cutting back on student loans. I remember I 
think there was a rally a couple of months ago in New York City, and 
Mayor Giuliani, I think it was him or it was some other Republican, 
made some statement about how, you know, why do not these students, why 
do they not just go to work, why are they looking for a student loan 
handout? They can work like I did for, you know, 15 to 20 years, and 
then they can go back to school and pay for their college education. 
Well, that is such a waste of energy.
  In other words, we are competing with other countries. We have got to 
have a productive work force. We have got to have people who are 
educated in their younger years so they can go out, and work, and 
compete with others abroad. We cannot defer their education for 10, 15, 
20 years because they are competing with people elsewhere in the world.
  The same thing is true with the earned income tax credit. We cut back 
on the earned income tax credit, what is going to happen? More people 
will be on welfare, and who is going to pay when they are on welfare, 
and how much does that cost to society?
  So many of these Republican initiatives that are in this budget just 
make no sense in terms of the future of this country, the future of the 
work force, and even dollars. Dollars are not going to be saved in the 
long run. It is going to cost us more, and you brought that out, I 
think, in various ways tonight.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. I think your comments on age warfare 
deserve a little bit of discussion because I find that the arguments 
that the Speaker and his followers make in terms of raising the monthly 
premiums on older people sometimes resonate quite well, frankly, with 
younger people in their twenties because they are frustrated, they do 
not see that they are going to have the jobs that are going to allow 
them to support their families, they do not feel as though they can buy 
a home immediately, so they feel trapped, many young Americans, and 
think, well, this might be it, and especially when they are told there 
is going to be this tax cut. But what I find interesting, because I 
thought about this, and I talk to younger people, and they say, some 
younger people unfortunately say, ``Yeah, fine let the seniors pay more 
because I'm going to get a tax cut.'' 

[[Page H 12340]]

  And I say, ``Wait a minute, wait a minute. How old are you; 23 years 
old? Have you made a lot of money on capital gains in the last year?''
  And they generally say, ``No, what are you talking about? I don't 
know what capital gains are.''
  They do not know what they are. I will tell them stocks, or you made 
money selling expensive art or something like that, and they said, 
``No, of course not,'' and they may have children.
  So they say, ``What about the $500 credit?''
  And I say, ``How much is your income a year?''
  They will say, ``$20,000,'' and I will say, ``Well, it is a 
nonrefundable credit, so, if you don't have enough tax liability right 
now, you're not going to benefit from this $500 credit.'' In fact, 
studies have shown that 46 percent of the kids in this country do not 
benefit from this $500-per-child credit.
  Now, if you make $200,000 a year, and you have got two children, you 
get a thousand-dollar credit; so, on the one hand you have got the 
couple that makes $200,000 a year that gets a thousand-dollar credit, 
and at the exact same time, in the exact same bill, you have got an 80-
year-old widow on a fixed income of $8,000 a year, and her Medicare 
premiums are going to go from roughly $550 a year to close to $1,100 a 
year. So you have got a $1,000 tax credit to someone making $200,000 a 
year here and a doubling of her Medicare premiums, or almost a doubling 
of her Medicare premiums, to someone on a fixed income here.

  Again I stress we should balance the budget, but we are going in the 
wrong direction. The priorities are wrong. Let us do it right.
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I remind us 
of what that grouping is of when you talk about the seniors. These are 
the numbers that have come out, and help me if I remember this. Eighty-
five percent of the seniors make less than $25,000 a year; 63 percent 
actually make less than $15,000 a year. That is who you are asking 
about doubling on that end with their premiums which do not go into the 
trust fund to help Medicare anyway as compared to the one over here at 
$200,000, and I have to tell you that blew my mind when I got those 
numbers. I did not realize that 83 percent of our seniors were in that 
level.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. It is surprising.
  Representative Kaptur.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I thank you very much, and I wanted to follow on points 
that you have all made.
  The gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Thurman] talked about how do we 
get our economy to grow, which is what I really enjoy talking about the 
most----
  Mrs. THURMAN. I know you do.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Not sort of treading water, and I wish we could spend 
more time as a Congress debating that whole subject, and then the 
gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] talked about the 
interrelationship and how, what kinds of programs do we need to 
decrease, which ones should be increased, and the gentleman from 
Wisconsin [Mr. Barrett] also talked about that, where would we make 
investments for the future, where does it make the most sense, and I 
think it is important to point out that, if you look at the whole 
economy of our country, 80 percent of it is the private sector, so the 
growth has to come on the private side. Twenty percent of our gross 
domestic product is the Government. So, as hard as we might try to cut 
and move toward a balanced budget, the truth is, if we make the wrong 
choices and we stifle growth on the private side, we have all done a 
disservice to the Nation, and I think that some of the cuts that are 
being talked about are, in fact, ones that will inhibit growth on the 
private-sector side because, if you do not have an educated work force, 
if you are throwing more people into poverty who are nonproductive 
people, if you are robbing students of a bright future in the next 
century, and, I think, if you defile your environment, you are going 
to, you know, pay a very heavy price for it down the road, and I think 
one of the problems with the proposals, the way they have come out of 
that committee, is that they do not help the middle class to grow. I 
think that in fact they make people who are trying to earn a living and 
keep a household together, make it much more difficult for them to stay 
in the middle class, and we have seen enough people drop out of or keep 
hanging on with their fingernails at this point, and you cannot solve 
the whole problem just on the Government side, on the deficit side. You 
do have to look at choices that you make that will create growth.

  So I think you pointed out important aspects that we need to think 
about as we make these choices, that they are the proper ones and they 
do not create more harm on the private-sector side, and we have heard a 
lot of talk about capital gains and who will benefit from that, and I 
think one of the issues there really is perhaps indexing of capital 
gains as opposed to just giving money away, and there is no, no 
requirement in the bill that is in that committee today that, when 
those dollars are given, they have to be invested in the United States 
of America. So we could be giving another freebie away and have more of 
our jobs taken to Mexico, or Taiwan, or wherever, and who is really 
benefiting? Not the society, not the middle class, not the growth of 
wealth in this country, but rather the frittering away of scarce 
resources to people who already have pretty big boats to float in.
  So I just want to commend you for your comments.
  Mr. PALLONE. If you would just yield for a second, I just wanted to 
follow up on what you said about capital gains. I actually support the 
concept of capital gains, if it is geared in the right direction, but 
you have hit on the two points. In other words, you know, capital 
gains, it is going to help the middle-class person, the home owner, OK. 
Capital gains that is going to help the corporation that reinvests in 
the United States, but that is not what we have in this bill, those 
types of investments, those sort of directed investments that are going 
to improve the economy or help the middle-class person. That is not 
what is in this bill.
  One of the worst aspects, Congresswoman Kaptur, that--and I 
understand that the conference between the House and the Senate has not 
corrected this, is the proposal to take pension moneys in the House-
passed version, and I understand the Senate is going to go along with 
this. They have actually allowed the corporations to dip into workers' 
pension funds and to use that money for investments. You know, they 
could use it for a hostile takeover of another corporation.
  Again you know I do not even like the idea of being able to take the 
pension funds at all, but, if you are going to allow that, at least do 
it in a way that you know is going to benefit the local economy or the 
American economy, and they do not even to that. So there are all kinds 
of things that benefit the large corporations, benefit the wealthy, 
that do not benefit the average person or even encourage investment in 
the United States.
  Ms. KAPTUR. I am glad the gentleman brought up those points because 
the $40 billion that they want to take out of workers' pensions is 
double the amount that was taken out during the 1980's, before the law 
was changed, and, if we think back to the 1980's, all the workers that 
have been put out on the streets of this country; 3-M announced today 
they are laying off 5,000 people, 3,000 of them here in the United 
States. Those jobs are gone. Add those to Fruit of the Loom 2 weeks 
ago. I mentioned yesterday that even Hershey's kisses in Pennsylvania 
has decided to make its giant kisses in Guadalajara, Mexico, so it is a 
giant kiss of death to all the Hershey workers in Pennsylvania who will 
no longer be employed, and all the dairy farmers who supply the milk 
into that plant and so forth.
  But it is a massive hit on workers' pension funds, and I would be 
proud to serve here during a day when we talk not just about changing 
capital gains, but helping worker gains and helping our workers benefit 
from their hard labor across this country so they can have a more 
secure economic future, but that $40 billion is a gigantic amount, 
double what we experienced back in the 1980's, and we all remember what 
happened then.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. What is even more amazing about that hit on 
the pension fund is that it was presented to us as corporate and ends 
part of the corporate welfare, that they were going to take care of 
corporate 

[[Page H 12341]]
welfare by changing the pension law and making it easier for companies 
to raid their pension funds. That money can be used right now under 
current law essentially only for health care benefits and maybe some 
employee stock ownership plans, but under their proposal it can be used 
for executive bonuses, it can be used for hostile takeovers, and just 
to paint two scenarios here because it is going to make it very 
attractive for companies to go out and try to find other companies to 
raid in order to bleed down that pension fund, and let us assume that 
you are not someone who is hostile and wants to take over other 
companies, but that you own a medium-sized company, you have been good 
to your employees, you have got your pension fund built up above what 
the law requires because you want to maybe increase the health care 
benefits for your retired people as they get older.

  What does this do? It says to you, as the owner of that company, 
``You better take the money out of that fund because, if you don't, 
you're going to become a sitting duck for a hostile takeover,'' and 
they are going to come in, and they are going to take the money out of 
that fund. So you have got two full problems. First you have got the 
problem that you have got the hostile people who will come in and want 
to bleed the funds, and then you got the good companies, the companies 
that want to take care of their workers, the companies that want to 
take care of their retirees, and you are creating what is almost a 
mandatory incentive for them to take the money out of the fund so that 
they are not the subject of a hostile takeover.
  So I think that there is a multiplier effect there that is going to 
make it more and more difficult for people who have put money in their 
pension funds to see the fruits of their labor in their later years, 
and I think it is wrong, wrong, wrong for us to be going in that 
direction again. It is another example of the wrong direction.
  Ms. KAPTUR. If the gentleman would yield, I cannot tell you how many 
companies we have in Ohio where workers work let us say for 30 years, 
and when their pension funds went belly up, they said to the workers, 
``Oh, gee, sorry, we don't have your pension dollars,'' or, ``You 
worked 30 years? Well, we can only pay you 10 years.''
  I just met a gentleman the other day who worked for Eastern Airlines 
for over a decade on the east coast and who had to move to Florida to 
completely change his occupation. He is now in his fifties, enrolled in 
a 5-year program in environmental agriculture, a highly skilled 
airplane mechanic who, if he is lucky, will get maybe $300 a year when 
he reaches 65 from that company for his years of employment there, much 
less than he would have expected to have gotten in his retirement 
years. So we have got people all over this country who have been robbed 
of their pension benefits.

  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. OK. In closing let us figure out now we are 
at the end of the night, we are still in the stalemate. Congressman 
Pallone, what should we do to get the ball rolling?
  Mr. PALLONE. Well, I think that the only answer is that there has to 
be recognition on the Republican side that they are just not going to 
be able to take money from Medicare and also from Medicaid in these 
large amounts, these cuts, and use them for a tax cut for the wealthy.

                              {time}  2245

  I think it would be very easy to come to agreement between both sides 
of the aisle, as well as with the President, by simply cutting back on, 
or I should say putting back a lot of the cuts on Medicare as well as 
Medicaid, not increasing premiums as much as has been proposed here, 
and, as a consequence, also cutting back on this tax cut for the 
wealthy. That is the basis for an agreement on the budget I think we 
can all live with.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentlewoman 
from Florida, what is her constructive analysis?
  Mrs. THURMAN. Mr. Speaker, I think tomorrow we are going to have an 
opportunity to do either a 24-hour or 48-hour clean resolution and then 
allow them to continue to do the work on the appropriations. My 
constructive part on this would say, ``I came here to do the job, I am 
willing to stay here, I voted last Friday to stay here over last 
weekend so we could avoid this kind of train wreck we have come to.'' I 
am willing to stay here again and work on this, but all I would ask is, 
I don't know that I was ever a part of what some would like to look 
back over the last and blame all the rest of us for, but I am really 
ready to sit down and work in a bipartisan manner to come up with a 
program that we can take care of people within this country, and I am 
not ashamed of the fact that I am a Democrat and believe that people 
need to come first in this country.

  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentlewoman 
from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] her constructive comments on how to get the ball 
rolling.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, first of all we need a clean continuing 
resolution. We ought to have one similar to the one that was passed 
about 1\1/2\ months ago, without all the bells and whistles on it, that 
brings us below last year's level of spending, but without all these 
riders and everything else they have been trying to stick on.
  I think also we should go back to regular order. And I have to say to 
the former Speaker, Jim Wright, if he is listening tonight, thank you 
for being a great Speaker. Thank you for clearing your bills on time. 
We should be doing the same with the appropriation bills.
  I would say to President Clinton that I hope he keeps on his balanced 
budget target and hangs strong on Medicare.
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Thank you all very much.

                          ____________________