[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 189 (Wednesday, November 29, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H13768-H13769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         BALANCED BUDGET DEBATE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, Members on both sides of the aisle feel 
very passionately about their positions in the budget debate, and we 
should feel passionately about this issue because in fact what we are 
debating is the future of our country. The debate is about far more 
than numbers. It really, in essence, is about the values and the 
priorities of the American people.
  Democrats are concerned about the level of cuts that this budget 
makes in Medicare, in education, and in environmental protection. We 
believe that the cuts that are currently there, the cuts in this 
budget, go too far and too fast and will hurt too many people.
  We are also very concerned about the tax package that is contained in 
this budget. Because of that tax package, we think that it is wrong to 
impose higher taxes on those who can least afford it while lowering the 
taxes on those who can in fact most afford it. That seems to have the 
priorities of this Nation out of whack.
  We are not alone in thinking that the budget has its priorities 
upside down. If you take a look at what the American people are talking 
about, and there are recent surveys that have discussed this issue, the 
surveys indicate that 60 percent of the public today would like to see 
the President veto this budget as it currently stands.
  I think that there are a number of us here who concur that that is 
what the President should do if Republicans refuse to lessen the blow 
on our seniors, our students, and on our environment.
  Congress should not force its priorities on the American people. It 
is time to start to listen to them, to compromise on a balanced budget 
that protects the priorities of the American people. No one disagrees 
about getting our fiscal house in order, about achieving a balanced 
budget. There is a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it.
  What we want to try to do is to protect those principles and those 
priorities that the American public has asked us, in fact, to protect. 
That means protecting educational opportunity, environmental 
protections, and it means protecting Medicare.
  As it currently stands, the Republican budget, and this number has 
not budged in all these months, cuts $270 billion from Medicare to help 
to finance a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. Over 50 percent of 
the tax cuts go to the richest 1 or 2 percent of the people in this 
country.

                              {time}  1400

  The cuts go too far too fast and will devastate a health care system 
that is serving 37 million seniors.
  It is not only the seniors who are going to be hurt, and it is not 
just Democrats who are warning about the impact of the deep and the 
dangerous Medicare cuts. The most recent issue of Money magazine, there 
is an article. It tells families, actually, in the article, to hold on 
to their wallets because health care costs are going to go up if this 
budget passes. In fact, because of the cuts in Medicare payments to 
hospitals under this plan, administrators say that they will have to 
raise health care costs for the rest of the population in order to have 
to make up the difference.

[[Page H 13769]]

  According to a recent article in the New York Times, the Medicare 
cuts will shift more than $11 billion in costs onto small businesses 
and American workers. That is because if people wind up having 
additional people wind up with not having insurance, once more, as our 
current situation indicates to us, that those people who are without 
insurance, if they do get health care, and they will, that those costs 
do not just fall into an abyss, into a vacuum. Those costs get picked 
up by all those who, in fact, are currently paying health care costs. 
We will just add to the number of those who are uninsured, and those 
additional costs will have to be borne by those who are currently 
picking up health care costs today.
  That is a burden on individuals, and it is a burden on our businesses 
today and our workers that they simply cannot afford.
  The GOP Medicare proposal is fundamentally flawed by controlling 
spending, but, by not controlling costs, it ensures seniors will be 
forced to pay more out of pocket while health care costs continue to 
rise. That would mean a giant step backward for America's seniors. That 
is not the way to balance the budget. That is not the American way.

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