[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 181 (Wednesday, November 15, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S17078-S17080]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             BUDGET IMPASSE

  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, the current budget impasse demonstrates 
the harsh and unacceptable priorities of the Republican majority in 
Congress. As the past 2 days have shown, our Republican friends are 
prepared to hold the entire Federal Government hostage to their extreme 
agenda. Their price for keeping the Government open is to abandon 
senior citizens on Medicare and families struggling to educate their 
children. Their price is too high and their tactics are irresponsible, 
and President Clinton is right to reject them.
  It is wrong for our Republican friends to sacrifice the rights of 
students and senior citizens on the altar of tax breaks for the 
wealthy. The American people did not think they were voting for deep 
cuts in Medicare and education in 1994, and they are not going to vote 
for anti-Medicare, anti-education candidates in 1996.
  Make no mistake, balancing the Federal budget is not the issue. We 
all agree that the budget should be balanced and must be balanced, but 
above all, it must be balanced fairly. The fundamental issue that 
divides Democrats and Republicans is not whether to balance the budget 
but how to balance the budget. We can debate these issues responsibly. 
It is reckless and irresponsible for the Republican majority in 
Congress to shut down the Federal Government because they cannot get 
their way. They do not deserve their way, and they will not get their 
way.
  Democrats categorically reject Republican priorities that would 
balance the budget on the backs of senior citizens, students, and 
working families to provide payoffs to the privileged and confer lavish 
tax breaks worth hundreds of billions of dollars on the wealthiest 
individuals and corporations in our society.
  In education, the Republican budget bill is a bust for students and a 
bonanza for big banks. It is wrong to dismantle the highly successful 
Direct Student Loan Program. It is wrong to prohibit colleges and 
universities from choosing and using a loan program that provides the 
best service and the lowest cost to students. It is wrong to tilt the 
playing field and funnel $100 billion in new business over the next 7 
years to the banks and guaranty agencies in the student loan industry. 
I say let competition work. Let the best loan program win.
  Whatever happened to the Republican belief in competition? The 
President had signed a law that went into effect in 1993 to provide for 
a transition and a real competition between direct loan and the 
guaranteed student loans. Republicans and Democrats alike had worked 
towards a real compromise.
  There were many who wanted to go immediately to direct loans. There 
were others who wanted the guaranteed loan. So we created a compromise 
that permitted the universities and colleges of this country to move 
gradually towards the Direct Loan Program, and they have been moving 
forward with that Direct Loan Program.
  There are more than 1,450 colleges that have that. It is interesting 
that there is not a single college in the United States that has moved 
from a Direct Loan Program back to the guaranteed loan. Not one. And 
there are scores of them that want to move the other way.
  But under this particular proposal, what we are doing is actually 
carving out a very narrow sliver of the whole loan program to the 
direct loan, some 10 percent, and giving the other part to the guaranty 
agencies. Almost $100 billion will flow through them and the profits 
will be anywhere from $7 billion to $9 billion. Those will be out of 
the pockets and pocketbooks of the parents primarily and the students 
over the period of these next 7 years, and that is wrong.
  We say, ``OK, let's leave it up to the universities and colleges.'' 
Let them make the choice whether they want the guaranteed loan program, 
on the one, or the direct loan on the other. We have offered that. Let 
the colleges make the choice. That is competition at the local level. 
But we were refused and effectively closed out from that option.
  That is only the beginning of the Republican attack on education. 
Over the next 7 years, their budget would slash Federal aid to 
education by an incredible one-third--$36 billion. A one-third cut in 
education is utterly irresponsible. We ought to be investing more in 
education, not less. That is our priority, that is President Clinton's 
priority, and I am confident the American people share it.
  The Republicans claim their budget means a brighter future for the 
Nation's children. In fact, the Republican budget will turn out the 
classroom lights for millions of the Nation's schoolchildren and no 
anti-education plan like that deserves to pass. That is included in the 
Republican program.
  What they take is the House appropriations figure, which is $4 
billion. We had just over $2 billion in the Senate. I am convinced if 
we had gone to the conference, it would have been closer to the Senate, 
given the votes that have taken place here in the Senate on the 
education issue where we had bipartisan support, 67-32, when we had the 
vote on the Snowe-Simon amendment some time ago and the other actions 
that were taken on the compromise here.
  We restored money in education, and what did the continuing 
resolution do? It took the lower figure between the House and the 
Senate, $4 billion cut and said you only have to spend 60 percent of 
what was being spent last year. That is effectively undermining in a 
dramatic way major education programs, whether it is the Head Start 
Program, the math and science programs for elementary schools, the 
whole school reform program, the drug-free school program, and many 
others, and that is basically wrong. 

[[Page S17079]]

  Excessive cuts like that break faith with families across America 
struggling to educate their children. Extreme cuts like that walk away 
from 30 years of bipartisan cooperation to improve education. Up to 
this year, we had bipartisan support. If you look over the last 
Congress, in 1992 through 1994, when we reauthorized the Head Start 
Program, when we reauthorized title I, $6.6 billion to reach out to 
needy children to help them with math and science, when we passed the 
Goals 2000 program to commit 90 percent of the funding to go to local 
schools and parents in local communities to enhance academic 
achievement, when we passed the School-to-Work Program, when we passed 
the Direct Loan Program, every one of those had bipartisan 
support. Only a handful of Republicans voted against it. Effectively, 
what happened in the 1994 legislation that said we have to wipe those 
programs out--I did not hear that point being made by our Republican 
friends in the course of the 1994 election, and we should not 
effectively undermine that important commitment to the young people in 
this country.

  Mr. President, over the next decade, the number of school-aged 
children will rise to 50 million. That is almost double the number in 
the Sputnik era, a generation ago, when nobody questioned that 
educating our children was an urgent national priority. We are 
increasing the total number of children and effectively seeing the 
significant cuts by a third of all of the programs dealing with K 
through 12.
  Now is no time to cut education. Education is the key that unlocks 
the American dream. Cutting education as we struggle to meet the 
challenge of the information age is like cutting national defense at 
the height of the cold war.
  Senior citizens are targeted by the Republican budget. In the bill 
vetoed by President Clinton, our Republican friends were not insisting 
that Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals be cut as their price 
for keeping the Government open. They were not insisting that fraud and 
waste be squeezed out of Medicare. They were not insisting that senior 
citizens get the preventive care for outpatient services that they need 
to keep them out of the hospital to reduce Medicare. The right way 
instead of the right wing way. The only provision our friends insisted 
on was a new tax on senior citizens in the form of higher Medicare 
premiums.
  Speaker Gingrich makes no mistake about it. He says he wants to see 
Medicare wither away. Well, with priorities like that, it is more 
likely that the Republican Party will wither away.
  Medicare is part of Social Security. It is a contract between the 
Government and the people that says, ``Pay into the trust fund during 
your working years, and we will guarantee good health care in your 
retirement years.''
  It is wrong for the Republicans to break that contract. It is wrong 
for Republicans to propose deep cuts in Medicare--three times as deep 
as anything needed to protect the trust fund. It is doubly wrong for 
Republicans to propose deep cuts in Medicare in order to pay for tax 
breaks for the wealthy. It is triply wrong for the Republicans to try 
to force the President into accepting higher Medicare premiums as their 
price for keeping the Government open.
  Over the period of the last 2 days, I have seen many of the 
Republican leaders on television, and not one of them mentions their 
tax cut for the wealthy individuals. I have yet to hear them talk about 
it on the floor of the Senate. Not one of them goes on television and 
says, ``The reason we need our program, Mr. President, is because we 
have $245 billion of tax cuts.'' Not one of them say it. They brought 
it in here just a few days before we were going to vote on that. It was 
an add-on, and once they got their commitment in terms of the higher 
premiums on Medicare, then they went ahead and got their tax cut. We 
have all known that it has been out there for some period of time. Why 
do we not, on the level, try to present that to the people and let the 
American people vote on that issue? They refuse to do so.
  So Republican leaders make the preposterous claim that their cuts in 
Medicare will only affect millionaires. Well, I have news for them. 
Eighty-three percent of the Medicare spending is for senior citizens 
with incomes of less than $25,000 a year. Almost two-thirds of Medicare 
spending is for senior citizens with less than $15,000 a year. These 
are the people who you are raising the taxes on with the increased 
premiums on Medicare. On average, because of gaps in Medicare coverage, 
already high copays, deductibles, and premiums, senior citizens must 
spend 21 percent of their total income to purchase the health care they 
need. It is unfair to make them bear the brunt of cuts in Medicare.

  The Republican attack on Medicare will make life harder, sicker, and 
shorter for millions of elderly Americans. They deserve better from 
Congress, and I believe they will get it.
  This cruel and unjust Republican plan to turn the Medicare trust fund 
into a slush fund for tax breaks for the wealthy deserves to be 
defeated. Their attempt to force a Medicare premium increase into law 
to keep the Government running deserved the veto it received.
  We can meet our budget goals without undermining education, without 
undoing Medicare, and without shutting down the Government. I believe 
that this is a battle that we should fight, rather than cutting the 
Medicare programs and the key education programs, which are so 
important for the future.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes.
  Mr. HARKIN. The Senator makes a lot of good points about the people 
that are being hurt out there and are being affected by this shutdown 
of the Government. I ask the Senator if he knows something or has heard 
what I have found out today and that I was not aware of. Right now, 
because of the shutdown in Government, I understand that essential 
workers go to work. All of our staffs are here at work; committee 
staffs are here, Senators' staffs, and Representatives' staffs are 
here. But I just discovered today that when they get their paychecks 
next week, they are not going to be paid for any days worked after the 
13th of this month. Is that the Senator's understanding?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Well, I had heard that mentioned by some of our 
colleagues, but the particular details, I am not as familiar with as 
the Senator from Iowa. I hope that he will explain that to us.
  Mr. HARKIN. Well, I just heard that even though they are essential 
workers and they have to come to work, they do not get paid. I then 
found out that it does not just apply to staffs. All the air traffic 
controllers out there right now working to guide our aircraft--they are 
working now, and they are essential, but they are not getting paid. So 
whether it is our staffs, air traffic controllers, or people working at 
the Pentagon for the Department of Defense, they are working but not 
getting paid.
  I thought we did away with slavery in this country. They have to go 
to work, but they do not get paid. Now, again, I guess they will get 
paid later on sometime, but these are people with mortgages, car 
payments, kids in college, kids in school. They have their bills to pay 
just like everybody else. But next Monday, when they get their checks, 
they are going to come up short. However, I think the Senator--I would 
like to ask the Senator, we do not fall into that category? Senators 
and Congress are going to get full pay next week when our paychecks 
come. But staff, air traffic controllers, everybody else, they do not 
get full pay.
  What an abomination. I ask the Senator, it seems to me, did we not 
pass, earlier this year, a law stipulating that all of the laws that we 
have in this country have to apply to Members of Congress and the 
Senate? Did we not pass that bill? I thought we passed a bill that said 
if we have laws out there, they have to apply to us just like everybody 
else?
  Mr. KENNEDY. The Senator is quite right, with this one exception: We 
have provided ourselves with universal comprehensive health insurance. 
We get the choice of some 200 health programs. The Federal Government 
pays three-quarters of it; we only pay a quarter of it. We have not 
provided that for the American people. We have provided very good 
health insurance for every Member here, and it is so interesting that 
so many of those that were 

[[Page S17080]]
against any kind of health care coverage were the quickest ones to sign 
up. You can go down in the office of the Secretary of the Senate, and 
they have a blue sheet down there, and you can go down and check off if 
you do not want your health care coverage. Every Member in this Senate 
now has checked that and said that they do want it.
  So the Senator is right. We have applied laws to ourselves that cover 
others, with the important exception that we have not given the 
American people what we have given ourselves in terms of health 
insurance, which is another issue at another time. But I think it is 
always important to mention that, particularly when the total number of 
uninsured is going up through the roof, particularly children in my 
State and around this country, and where the cost of health care 
continues, particularly in prescription drugs, to rise.
  Mr. HARKIN. The Senator is our expert on health care. My question was 
dealing with the staff right now who are not getting paid in the Senate 
and the House, the air traffic controllers, and the people who work for 
the Department of Defense. But we do. I thought we passed a law that 
says that Congress has to live by the laws that the rest of the people 
do. You pointed out one in health care. Is it not true also that 
Congress is not applying to itself the very laws that say that those 
staff people, air traffic controllers, people working for the 
Department of Defense, essential Government workers, they do not get 
paid?
  But guess what, Senators and Congressmen? We get our pay.
  Mr. KENNEDY. That is certainly the way that I understand it, the way 
that the Senator explained it. I think it is one of the reasons why I 
think the American people are so frustrated and should be frustrated.
  This did not have to happen, does the Senator agree with me? This did 
not have to happen, to work through this whole kind of a situation 
where they are halting the Government and effectively blackmailing the 
President of the United States for the first time in the history of 
this country, and also loading up the debt limit with similar kinds of 
activity to try to halt full faith and credit when we ought to be able 
to, as individuals, be able to work out an accommodation. That is the 
way it is done around here.
  Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield?
  It seems funny, since Congress has not applied this law to itself--
that is, Senators and Congressmen continue to get paid but other 
Government workers will not get paid.
  They are the ones who have mortgages to meet, car payments, kids in 
school. Does it not seem fair to the Senator that perhaps we ought to 
take up the Boxer bill and pass it here, that would say that Senators 
and Congressmen and the Speaker of the House and everybody else, that 
we put ourselves in the same boat, that we do not get paid either 
during this same period of time? Does that not seem reasonable?
  Mr. KENNEDY. It certainly seems reasonable to me. It would make a 
great deal of sense.
  Mr. HARKIN. I hope that the other side, the Republicans, would agree 
to bring this up and put ourselves in the same boat as all the other 
Government workers who are not getting paid and see how long this 
foolishness will go on if Senators and Congressmen are not getting 
paid.
  Mrs. BOXER. Will the Senator yield?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am happy to yield to the Senator.
  Mrs. BOXER. My question is----
  Mr. NICKLES. Mr. President----
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, who has the floor?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts has the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I will yield briefly and then I will yield the floor.
  Mrs. BOXER. I wanted to ask the Senator if he was aware, because the 
Senator from Iowa raised the subject, that in fact the U.S. Senate did 
pass the Boxer amendment which said no budget, no pay.
  It was bipartisan. Senator Daschle and Senator Dole helped me get it 
through. It passed twice. But it is, in fact--and I ask the Senator if 
he is aware of this--Speaker Newt Gingrich who refused to allow it to 
be voted on on the House side.
  Is the Senator aware of that?
  Mr. KENNEDY. I was not aware that very sound and worthwhile, valuable 
suggestion which I supported was sidetracked--Speaker Gingrich, in 
other words, sidetracked that measure.
  Mrs. BOXER. Yes, I say to my friend, that is true.
  Mr. KENNEDY. And as a result of that, we have the inequity which the 
Senator from Iowa pointed out.
  I yield the floor.

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