[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H15256]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  CRUNCHING NUMBERS, CRUNCHING PEOPLE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the last speaker that where 
some of those people from the State Department are is that they are at 
home or maybe they are out doing their Christmas shopping because under 
the orders of Speaker Newt Gingrich we are paying our Federal employees 
not to work again this week, just as we paid them not to work in 
November.
  You see, this is part of an extremist approach to Government that, if 
you hate Government so much, as some of these Republicans do, the way 
to demonstrate how much you dislike the Government is to pay the 
Government workers not to do any work, and so some, I think it is 9,000 
members of the State Department, are not at work today, even though I 
am confident that the vast majority of them would like to be at work 
doing their job for America, dealing on issues with Cuba and dealing 
with issues even closer to home.
  But our Republican colleagues have decided to shut down the 
Government and to pay our Federal worker not to work.
  I guess perhaps all of this is designed to focus national attention 
on the whole concept of a Republican Christmas. You know, the 
Republican Christmas, it is probably just like the Christmas that you 
celebrate in your hometown. The only difference is that the only 
stockings that Santa stuffs are the silk stockings, and that is the way 
that the Republican Christmas proposed in this Republican budget would 
be presented to the American people were it not for the steadfast 
position that President Clinton and others of us within the Democratic 
Party have taken with regard to its misplaced priorities.
  You see, it is my position that our Republican colleagues have, to 
this day, not ever come forward with a budget that is truly balanced. 
Yes; they do know how to crunch the numbers and calculate it all out so 
that that part will become even, and that is an important part of 
having a balanced budget.
  But balancing the budget is being concerned with more than just 
crunching the numbers. It is also as a set of national priorities, a 
matter of considering how much you crunch the people. And when it comes 
to crunching the people, this Republican balanced budget is way out of 
balance because it crunches a good many middle-class families in this 
country. It crunches many seniors in this country because its objective 
is to stuff those silk stockings with one tax advantage after another.

  Indeed, even that very gross tax loophole that we attempted to close 
earlier this year that lets those people who have prospered the most 
from America, who have made literally billions of dollars and who can 
celebrate this Christmas in Belize or in the Bahamas or somewhere in 
the Caribbean, having renounced their American citizenship and burned 
their citizenship card, torn it up, at the same time having burned the 
American Treasury and the American taxpayer, renouncing their 
citizenship to avoid paying their taxes, that loophole is still largely 
present under this Republican budget.
  Of course, on the eve of the elections next year, our Republican 
colleagues propose with their eat-dessert-first budget to provide the 
checks to people on the eve of the election, not unlike some old ward 
heeler passing out hams just prior to the election time, to try to sell 
the idea that the only way to get the deficit down is to make it go up 
next year, which is the approach that is taken in this Republican 
budget.
  But the vast majority of the tax breaks, though there is an 
occasional sweetener, is designed to go to those at the top of the 
economic ladder, who have benefited from America.
  We have heard that we have had nothing but horrors in this country 
for the last six decades, to hear the majority leader speak the other 
day. Well, some people have done rather well in America during those 
six decades of evil. They prospered. They have become millionaires and 
billionaires, and now the Republicans would reward them with huge tax 
breaks, tax breaks that will drive the deficit up next year, that will 
cause it to explode in the year 2002, in the last part of this decade, 
and all of that is going to be paid by the impact that it has on 
middle-class families.
  A commentator just earlier this week reported on the impact on 
middle-class families that suddenly find a parent, a loved one who has 
to go into a nursing home either because of a disability or because of 
advanced years, and it is going to be possible under the Republican 
budget as proposed to require the children to pay for the nursing home 
expenses which can run up to $30,000, $40,000 a year of the senior, to 
tap into the assets of those middle-class families at the same time 
they may be trying to get a young person through school, through 
college, trying to struggle to make ends meet themselves, but to force 
them to have to pay those expenses.
  That is the way people get crunched under this Republican budget. We 
need a truly balanced budget that is balanced to the people of America.

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