[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 188 (Tuesday, November 28, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13710-H13711]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    BOSNIA, MEDICARE, AND THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Chrysler). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 60 
minutes. 

[[Page H 13711]]

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, having just returned from a series of 
meetings in Georgia and meeting with a number of constituents during 
the work recess period, there are three predominant things that people 
have on their minds back home, and I think this is probably true all 
over America, and that is Bosnia, Medicare, and the budget.
  I would like to speak very briefly on Bosnia, because we are now in a 
new phase where the President, our Commander in Chief, has officially 
decided to embark in a new phase of the debate by sending and 
committing to send 20,000 of our troops over there. We all want to 
support troops who are anywhere fighting in the world at the order of 
the Commander in Chief, and yet certainly in Bosnia we have a lot of 
questions.
  The questions that we had debated 2 weeks ago when we had a very 
critical vote on Bosnia, which in that vote Congress decided against 
sending troops over there, and our questions were at the time: What is 
our peril? What is the timetable that we will be there? What is the 
plan? Who are our allies? How long will we be there? How will we get 
out of being there? And what is the exact mission?
  These questions need to be answered. I think within the next couple 
of weeks the President will be answering these through his staff 
members to Congress. Senate hearings, I believe, began today, Mr. 
Speaker. So I think it is appropriate that we look at this and continue 
this debate.
  Mr. Speaker, as the previous speaker, the gentleman from Minnesota 
[Mr. Ramstad] said, clearly the people of America at this point are not 
in support of sending troops to Bosnia; and I think, because of that, 
we need to define what the American peril is, and I have yet to hear 
what that peril is. It is very important for us to know before we send 
our sons and daughters over there.
  Mr. Speaker, I was in Italy in August and had the opportunity to be 
briefed by NATO on the Bosnian situation. In August, when one talked 
about Bosnia, it was years and years away in terms of everything that 
has happened; and yet, in that discussion, one of the things that 
struck me was who are our allies. It is not just Bosnians and Croatians 
and Serbians. There are all kinds of subgroups and countergroups and 
local warloads and so forth.

  I know often when we try to take humanitarian supplies into one 
section another group down the road or up the road from them would 
block the supply trucks, even though they all had the same label as 
being Bosnians. Yet they were different, because they were from a 
different territory. So one of my main questions is going to be that I 
hope to find out in the next couple of weeks who will our allies be.
  Then a question that has come up more and more lately as we debate 
balancing the budget is what is this going to cost us? Will we really 
be able to get out of there in a year or is it going to be like so many 
other peaces that we have won worldwide?
  The peace that we got in Somalia, the peace that we got in Haiti, the 
peace that we got anywhere is really purchased peace. It is a matter of 
the United States of America pulling out the checkbook and buying off 
the warring factions. I would like to know what those costs are. I know 
our taxpayers back home would like to know also.
  Mr. Speaker, we are going to have debates and we are going to have 
hearings, and this is a good process. The War Powers Act has been 
debated since the inception of our great democracy, and yet the 
Congress and the President still view these things differently. Again, 
we do want to support the troops individually. It looks like at this 
point they are going to go over there, yet at the same time we have 
congressional duties of our own and we will begin immediately in due 
diligence to answer some of the questions that we have been asking on 
the floor of the House.
  Mr. Speaker, on Medicare let me just say this. The gentleman from 
Connecticut [Mr. Shays], who is the budget expert, is down here. Our 
colleague, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson] was able to 
come to Savannah this weekend and found the time to meet with a lot of 
our hospitals and nursing homes and home health care professionals and 
other health care providers, and we talked about the fact that in April 
the Medicare trustees said Medicare is going to run out of money in 2 
years, it will be bankrupt in 6 years; it is the obligation and duty of 
the Congress to act to preserve and protect Medicare, which we have 
been doing.
  We are trying to slow down the inflation rate of Medicare, the growth 
of it. It is right now at about 11 percent; regular medical inflation 
is more in the 4 to 6 percent range. We believe if we can get Medicare 
costs in that 4 to 6 percent range, we can save it. Yet at the same 
time, we are committed to increased spending per recipient from $4,800 
to $6,700.
  As I said that to the people back home, they said, well, that is not 
a cut. We said, well, yes, it is true. We are going from about $178 
billion to $278 billion.
  Mr. Speaker, let me yield back the balance of my time, and maybe the 
gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] would yield a few minutes to me 
to complete that thought.

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