[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15278-H15279]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            DO NOT PLAY POLITICS WITH MEDICARE OR THE BUDGET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WELDON of Florida. Mr. Speaker, prior to coming to the U.S. 
Congress, I used to practice medicine. I practiced internal medicine 
and half of my patients were senior citizens. I do hope someday to be 
able to go back to my practice and resume taking care of senior 
citizens because I very much enjoy that type of practice. I have always 
like caring for seniors.

                              {time}  1745

  They are all in the Medicare program. The Medicare Program has been a 
tremendous success. I think it has been instrumental in prolonging 
lives of seniors. And one of the key components of our balanced budget 
plan that we put on the President's desk is maintaining the solvency of 
the Medicare plan that makes sure that it will be there for seniors, 
and all we have done with this plan is we have done exactly what the 
President and the First Lady said needed to be done in 1993 when they 
were pushing their health care plan. They said, and if I may paraphrase 
them if I do not quote them exactly right, is that all you need to do 
is lower the inflation rate in the Medicare plan from where it is right 
now, 10 or 11 percent down to about 7 percent, and the plan comes into 
balance.
  Now there has been a lot of stuff said about the Medicare Part B 
premium. The GOP plan is going to double the Medicare Part B premium 
over the next 7 years. Well, guess what, my colleagues. Under the 
Democrats who have controlled this House for 40 years, guess what? Over 
the last 7 years the Medicare Part B premium doubled, they doubled the 
premium the last 7 years. Under the President's proposal it is going to 
much double. But, you know what? Next year, in the election year, under 
the President's proposal, he wants to reduce the Medicare Part B 
premium, and then he will increase it steadily every year thereafter 
once he is firmly ensconced in the White House for another 4 years.
  I believe this is wrong, that you should not play politics with a 
program as important as Medicare which provides health care for our 
seniors. I also think you should not be playing politics with an issue 
as important, as crucial, as balancing our budget in 7 years.
  Mr. Speaker, I ran on a campaign that says you must balance the 
budget in 7 years, and there was a very, very high degree of 
frustration amongst the voters in my district because they heard about 
Gramm-Rudman, they heard about the budget deal of 1987, they heard 
about the budget deal of 1990, and the tax increase of 1990 and how 
that was going to balance our budget, and then they heard again about 
the 1993 program, how this was finally going to do it.
  Here we go again in 1995. We have got $200--$180 billion deficit, and 
the budget that the President presented to us scored by the CBO, an 
agency that the President himself said is the group that should be 
scoring the budgets, says that his budget is going to be in debt, show 
deficits $200 billion a year out of 5 to 7 years into the plan. He 
finally produced a slightly better budget that was only going to have a 
deficit of about $100-120 billion a year.
  Now what we are saying, what the Republican freshmen are saying, is 
enough is enough, no more smoke and mirrors. We want a budget that is 
going to balance in 7 years.
  Now there are a lot of people getting up here and saying, ``Oh, we 
need to do a continuing resolution and get the Government open.'' I 
have got a lot of Government workers in my district. I have got Kennedy 
Space Center. I have got engineers who are furloughed, and guess what, 
my colleagues on that side of the aisle? They call me up, and they send 
me letters, and they say, ``Don't give in. I know I'm laid off, I know 
I'm not working, but you have got to balance the budget. We cannot 
continue to run these deficits.'' Mr. Speaker, they tell me it is 
immoral, they want me to hang tough, they do not want me to cave in. 
They want the budget balanced, and they want the budget balanced in 7 
years.
  Indeed I got a phone call yesterday from a Democrat who told me that 
everything we are doing is right. He said, ``Don't give in.''
  Now I am not going to vote for another CR. We signed a CR 3 or 4 
weeks ago, and what happened? That gave the President the chance to 
waffle for 3 or 4 weeks and the AFL-CIO 3 to 4 weeks to run million-
dollar-a-day ads trying to get us not to balance the budget.

[[Page H15279]]

  I will tell you what I think we need to do. Half of your conference 
over there agrees we need to balance the budget in 7 years, and what I 
say is the President will not come around, let us forget about the 
President, let us sit down with the conservative side of the Democratic 
Caucus with us and come to terms on a 7-year balanced budget so we can 
do a veto override, and we can reopen the Government, and we can all go 
home for Christmas.
  But I bought a Christmas tree, and I brought my wife and daughter up 
here, and I am willing to stay as long as it takes.

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