[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 204 (Tuesday, December 19, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15168-H15169]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                REPUBLICAN BUDGET LACKS ADEQUATE FUNDING

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hastings of Washington). Under a 
previous order of the House, the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. 
OLVER] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, exactly 1 month ago today we adopted a 
continuing resolution which was a commitment on the part of the 
President and the Members of Congress by a vast majority in both 
parties to achieving a balanced budget by the year 2002. That was 1 
month ago today.
  In the intervening 1 month, we have seen not a single one of the 
budget bills which is necessary to run the government for fiscal year 
1996, not a single one of those bills has been signed into law. Indeed, 
three of them have actually reached the President's desk and he has 
vetoed them, including the Commerce-State-Justice bill, for which you 
just heard the veto message read. That veto message gives very profound 
and good reasons for why it was vetoed; and the other two, similarly.
  However, the other three budget bills, including the major 
legislation for the Labor, Health and Human Service Departments and 
Education Department, all of those have never even been taken up by the 
Senate; they are not even close to being passed.
  Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution that was adopted 1 month ago 
said that the President and the Congress shall agree, and agree to 
working toward a balanced budget that must, ``provide adequate funding 
for Medicaid and education and agriculture and national defense and 
veterans and the environment,'' and continuing the quote, ``Further, 
the balanced budget will adopt tax policies to help working families.'' 
That is a section of the quote from that continuing resolution.
  Here we are 1 month later and what has been the progress on providing 
adequate funding? Let me take just a couple of these areas that have 
been so specifically spoken of in the continuing resolution that 
Members of both parties and the President agreed would guide how we 
would go about creating that balanced budget for the year 2002.
  What about adequate funding for Medicaid? Well, what we know, Mr. 
Speaker, is that the Medicaid budget, as passed by the Congress and 
sent to the President, has $133 billion worth of cuts in Medicaid. That 
is revised by the latest CBO numbers. Now, is that adequate funding for 
Medicaid?
  Well, let us examine what it is that Medicaid provides for. It 
provides long-term care, Mr. Speaker, Long-term care is mostly for 
elders, for senior citizens in this country who have used every bit of 
their resources and are now destitute and need to be in nursing homes, 
need long-term care. So that $133 billion cut comes out of long-term 
care for destitute elderly people in this country.
  Number 2, it covers the safety net for poor families and where there 
may be no sympathy for poor people on the Republican side here, the 
legislation does provide health care, Medicaid does provide health care 
for children, for little children, little children who happen to be 
growing up in low-income statuses and surely deserve to have health 
care, as good a health care as my child, as good a health care as any 
child of any Member in this Congress has. But that, with the $133 
billion of cuts in Medicaid, is jeopardized.
  Then the other major thing is disabled Americans, the most tragic 
cases of people that we have to deal with as members of Congress and 
among our constituents, people, mostly younger people, who have 
crippling birth defects or have debilitating or progressive diseases 
and need again the assistance from Medicaid that is provided to people 
who are disabled; and again, that $133 billion of cuts in Medicaid 
taken from them.
  What about the question of adequate funding for education? Well, the 
budget that the Republicans keep pushing as the correct budget is one 
that continues to take money from financial aid for college students, 
$5 billion over 7 

[[Page H15169]]
years from financial aid for college students, including the 
elimination of the direct lending program.
  The Speaker is telling me that my time is up, so I can assure my 
colleagues that the list goes on here, but we need to follow the 
continuing resolution and provide for adequate funding for Medicaid and 
education and the environment and make certain that that balanced 
budget will indeed adopt tax policies to help working families.

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