[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 182 (Thursday, November 16, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13139-H13140]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                A TURNING POINT IN THE NATION'S HISTORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Duncan] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I do not believe I will take the full 5 
minutes, but I want to rise tonight to say that I believe that most 
people across this country realize that we are at a real turning point 
in the history of this Nation. I believe that most people realize that, 
if we do not bring Federal spending under control and put our fiscal 
house in order now, that we are going to face very severe economic 
problems in the near future. If we do not do this now, we will never do 
it unless probably it is too later to make any real difference.
  Mr. Speaker, in that regard we often hear speakers say that we are 
doing this for our children and grandchildren and certainly that is 
true, but I think it is also accurate to say that we are doing it for 
the people who are in the prime of their lives right now because we are 
going to have extremely difficult economic problems and financial 
problems in the next 6, or 8, or 10 years, if not sooner, if we do not 
act now.
  Mr. Speaker, already the President's own Medicare trustees have said 
that Medicare will be broke in about 6 years if we do not make major 
changes now., so that is why we passed a bill a few weeks ago allowing 
or giving huge increases in Medicare spending but which does slow the 
growth of Medicare to about twice the rate of inflation, instead of 
three or four times the rate, in which it does more to fight waste, 
fraud, and abuse. Even President Clinton said in his meeting with 
Speaker Gingrich in New Hampshire, one of the first things he said was 
that we have to slow the rate of growth in Medicare.
  One of the most fascinating things though, Mr. Speaker, that I saw, 
and I wanted to call this to the attention of my colleagues tonight, 
appeared in the Washington Post today. Now all of us know that the 
Washington Post at times acts or seems to act as the house organ for 
the Democratic Party, and so that is what made it so, I think, amazing, 
even that they wrote the lead editorial that they had today, and in 
that editorial the Washington Post said this. The budget deficit is the 
central problem of the Federal Government and one from which many of 
the country's other most difficult problems flow, and then the Post 
went on to say this:

       Bill Clinton and the congressional Democrats were handed an 
     unusual chance this year to deal constructively with the 
     effect of Medicare on the deficit, and they blew it. The 
     chance came in the form of the congressional Republican plan 
     to balance the budget over seven years. Some other aspects of 
     that plan deserved to be resisted, but the Republican 
     proposal to get at the deficit partly by confronting the cost 
     of Medicare deserved support. The Democrats, led by the 
     president, chose instead to present themselves as Medicare's 
     great protectors. They have shamelessly used the issue, 
     demagogued on it, because they think that's where the votes 
     are and the way to derail the Republican proposals generally. 
     The president was still doing it this week.

  In addition I have a couple of other things I would like to call some 
attention to that also appeared today. Dan Thomasson, who is the vice 
president for Scripps-Howard, an editor of the Scripps-Howard news 
service, wrote 

[[Page H 13140]]
this, and I think this is very accurate, and once again Mr. Thomasson 
is not known as any conservative or Republican columnist. In fact he is 
considered, I think, very moderate, and he said that, and in fact he 
frequently says things that criticize both the Republicans and the 
Democrats, and he said this. He said:

       ``The so-called Republican revolution is being undermined 
     by a political ineptness hard to match in modern history. The 
     result could be a derailing of the best opportunity in three 
     decades to win control over runaway entitlements and to put 
     some sense back in the congressional spending process.''

  But he goes on to say this, Mr. Speaker, and I think these words are 
so important for many people to hear. He said:

       ``For 30 of the 40 years Democrats controlled Congress 
     before last year's GOP takeover, the majority displayed a 
     constitutional inability to deal with the building budgetary 
     crisis. Any effort to stabilize Social Security, Medicare, 
     Medicaid, pensions and welfare was not only rebuffed; it was 
     labeled as mean-spirited and used to defeat its proponents.
       So politically volatile were these issues that few members 
     of Congress from either party would dare to whisper publicly 
     what everyone knew: that unless something was done to control 
     the costs of these huge programs, our economic future was in 
     grave jeopardy.''

  Mr. Speaker, I think those words are so very important as we consider 
the debate that we are going through at this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I will have more to say about this later on. I see that 
my time has expired.

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