[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H15311-H15312]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          FAILURE TO PASS CONTINUING RESOLUTION A REAL TRAGEDY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is recognized for 
17\1/2\ minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to use my time tonight to point 
out what I consider to be a real tragedy in what has happened here 
today in the House of Representatives. This morning when we began the 
session, I was particularly upset because the gentleman from Texas, who 
is part of the Republican leadership, got up and made a point of the 
fact that it was incumbent, if you will, on the Republican majority to 
shut down the Government until they were able to get agreement on the 
budget.
  I strongly disagree with the message that was sent in that regard. As 
the day went on, we saw speaker after speaker on the Republican side 
get up and say basically the same thing, which is that if the 
Republicans cannot get their way on the budget, if the President and I 
guess the Democrats in the House do not agree on the policy of the 
budget that the Republicans have put forth, then we should simply shut 
down the Government and it should not continue to operate until that 
agreement is reached.
  That is totally the opposite of what I believe we should be doing 
here and what I believe the obligation of the majority is.
  The majority that was elected in this House of Representatives in 
November of 1994, like any majority, has the obligation to govern. The 
obligation to govern means that the Government continues to operate 
while you work out your differences with the minority or with the 
President about what the budget should be.
  Speaker Gingrich actually articulated a few weeks ago exactly what 
the position is that the Republicans represented today. He said, ``I 
don't care what the price is, I don't care if we have no executive 
offices and no bonds for 30 days, not at this time.''
  It is totally irresponsible in my opinion to hold the Government 
hostage, in essence, and say that unless we get our way on this budget, 
unless our priorities are met, we are going to keep this Government 
shut down. That is exactly what we have in front of us.
  This evening there was a continuing resolution passed, a continuing 
resolution, which is what allows the Government to continue to operate, 
only on one aspect of the government shutdown and that was with regard 
to veterans' benefits.
  But it should be pointed out, as it was today by many of the 
Democrats, that the price of the Government shutdown is not only 
millions of dollars that are lost because Federal employees will get 
paid for doing nothing, and also the fact that the Government has to 
keep certain essential services going, but also that many Americans who 
have paid taxes all along simply do not have the benefit of Government 
services that for many of them are very important or are very 
necessary.
  We only dealt with one aspect of that this evening, and that was with 
veterans' benefits. Thankfully the Republican majority was willing to 
bring up the provision that would allow veterans' benefits to be paid 
starting tomorrow. But for whatever political reasons they saw fit to 
do that so as not to offend the veterans, the same should be done for 
every other Government agency and every other Government program. They 
should be allowed to continue to operate.
  Just as an example, we have as of day 5 of this shutdown, this second 
shutdown now, almost 2 million people who have been turned away from 
National Park Service facilities. Four hundred thousand people have 
been turned away from the Smithsonian museums and the National Zoo just 
here in Washington. Sixty thousand students and parents applying for 
Pell grants or student loans have not had their applications processed 
and may not be able to pay for college. Over 780 small businesses have 
not received SBA guaranteed financing totaling over $120 million in 
loans. And about 720 calls made to the EPA, the Environmental 
Protection Agency's hot line for drinking water contamination 
outbreaks, have gone unanswered.
  I could go on. There is a long list of the various Government 
services that are not functioning now with the shutdown. Again, I would 
say, what is the reason for this? What possible reason is there to hold 
the government hostage and to not allow the taxpayers who have paid for 
these services to receive them and thus be inconvenienced?

                              {time}  2330

  We could talk about passport offices, we could talk about many other 
things that are not being accomplished here.
  The problem is that the President and the Democrats in Congress 
together have a very different sense of a priority for a balanced 
budget than the Republican majority, and what I have maintained all 
along is, if there are those differences, and there are, we should 
continue to operate the government while we work out the differences, 
and do not misunderstand that the Republican majority, because they 
control the Congress, they are the only ones that can bring up a 
continuing resolution and send it to the President so that government 
can continue to operate. So, if anyone suggests to you that somehow the 
President is shutting the government down, it is simply not true. The 
legislative responsibility for passing the continuing resolution exists 
with the Congress and with the majority party that governs the 
Congress.
  Today it was my understanding actually that the leadership in the 
Republican Party, both Speaker Gingrich and the House, as well as the 
Senate leadership in the Senate, were willing to go along with a 
continuing resolution to reopen the government, and the President 
articulated and said that that was the case, and they, both of the 
gentlemen who lead the House and the Senate, indicated to the President 
that they were willing to go along with that. But our understanding is 
that when Speaker Gingrich went back to the Republican Caucus, he was 
told mostly by the less senior members, the freshmen and some others 
perhaps, that that was unacceptable, that the government should not 
continue to operate until the budget is signed by the President.
  I think that those on our side who have characterized many of the new 
members of the Republican Party as extremists because of their position 
on the budget realize now that those extremist elements, if you will, 
within the Republican Members of Congress are now controlling the show 
and that even the Speaker, who has the responsibility, if you will, to 
represent the majority party, does not have the ability any more to 
control those extremist elements within the Republican Party, the less 
senior members who want to hold the government hostage because they 
cannot get their way on the budget.
  Now in the time that I have left I would like to talk about these 
priorities that the President has set forward and that he insists must 
be maintained in the context of a 7-year balanced budget before he 
would sign the bill, before he would sign a budget bill, and I want to 
stress that these are important priorities, these are priorities that 
effect every American in some way.
  One of the most important, of course, is Medicare.
  The problem is that the Republican budget would take so much money 
out of Medicare that Medicare as we know it essentially would not be 
able to continue to operate. And for those who doubt that that is the 
case I will go back to a statement that Speaker Gingrich made awhile 
ago on Medicare where he said, ``We don't do not get rid of it in round 
one because we don't think that's politically smart, and we don't think 
that's the right way to go through a transition period, be we believe 
it is going to wither on the vine because we think people are 
voluntarily going to leave it.'' He said that; it was quoted in the 
Washington Post on October 26 of this year.
  This is the problem. So much money is cut out of the Medicare program 
under the Republican budget, and the way that the Medicare program is 
transformed essentially so that those who now have a choice of doctors 
are essentially pushed into managed care 

[[Page H15312]]
or HMOs where they do not have a choice any more, the changes to the 
Medicare program are going to be so radical, if you will, and the money 
is going to be so much less in terms of what is needed to operate a 
quality Medicare program that Medicare will essentially wither on the 
vine and eventually cease to exist. That is the major reason why the 
President and the Democrats in the Congress are so concerned not to go 
along with this Republican budget.

  And, secondly, there is also the Medicaid program which is the health 
care program for low income individuals, mainly again seniors, the 
disabled, children, and, in many cases, pregnant women. The Medicaid 
Program under the Republican budget, $163 billion is cut out of it 
essentially making it so that it cannot cover all the people that are 
now eligible for Medicaid, and then it is block granted or sent to the 
State, that money that is essentially cut back is block granted and 
sent to the States, and the States have to decide whether or not those 
who are now covered by Medicaid will continue to be covered. And so 
Medicaid, like Medicare, essentially withers on the vine, it does not 
have adequate funds, it is block granted, it is no longer guaranteed, 
and many of the people who now receive it will probably end up with no 
health insurance because many of the States, with the less money that 
is involved, will not be able to cover the seniors, the disabled, the 
children, the pregnant women who are now covered by Medicaid.
  Now in the context of this, one of the most egregious, if you will, 
problems that the President sees and that the Democrats in Congress 
see, and one of the reasons why they are most unwilling to go along 
with this Republican budget plan, is because the money that is being 
taken away from these two health care programs is primarily going to 
tax breaks for wealthy Americans and wealthy corporations, and one of 
the main criteria or one of the main concerns that we have is that the 
Republicans have so far been unwilling to, if you will, eliminate or 
take back most of these tax breaks in order to finance Medicare and 
Medicaid.
  It would be fairly easy for the Republican leadership to say, ``OK, 
we won't provide these tax breaks to wealthy Americans, we won't 
provide these tax breaks to wealthy corporations, and we'll use that 
money that we were going to use for those tax breaks and put it back 
into Medicare and Medicaid in order to keep those programs viable.'' 
But so far there has been no willingness on the part of the Republican 
leadership to go in that direction, which is one of the reasons why the 
President can simply not support the Republican budget the way it has 
been laid out.
  Now I have one more chart here that I wanted to, and I only have 
another 5 minutes, and the gentleman can use his time, so let me just 
finish this, and if I have a few minutes left, I will yield, but I just 
wanted to show this chart that gives you some indication of the 
exploding costs of the Republican tax breaks.
  The tax breaks are not only the wrong way to go because they are 
financing tax breaks for mostly wealthy people in order to cut Medicare 
and Medicaid, but they also do exactly the opposite, if you will, of 
what the Republicans say they want to do with this budget. They say 
they want to balance the budget, they want to eliminate the Federal 
deficit, and that is certainly a noble goal that both Democrats and 
Republicans in Congress, as well as the President, want to accomplish. 
But how in the world do you manage to balance the budget if you provide 
more tax breaks for wealthy Americans, or for anybody for that matter, 
and, as you can see, the cost of the tax breaks in the 7 years that the 
Republican budget sets forth beginning from 1996 into 2002, you can see 
what that means in terms of the overall budget. It makes it much more 
difficult to balance the budget, and many of us maintain that by the 
time the year 2000, or 2001, or 2002 comes around, the effect of giving 
out so many tax breaks will mean that ultimately the budget is not 
balanced.

  So you can really see, I think it should be clear, why this battle 
that exists, if you will, between the Democrats and the Republicans, 
between the President and the Republican majority in Congress is so 
important for the future of the country. In order to truly balance the 
budget over 7 years, in order to protect Medicare and Medicaid, in 
order to protect some of the other priorities that the President wants 
to maintain such as education, direct student loan programs, 
environmental protection to make sure that our air and water quality 
does not deteriorate, all these things are crucial, and it is not just 
a question of people getting together and saying, you know, we can go 
along with what the Republicans have proposed because, if the President 
does and if the Democrats do, there are going to be some major negative 
impacts on the lives of the average American whether it be their health 
care, their education, or the quality of their life.
  This is important; this is not something that should be trivialized. 
But I would stress again, and I think in closing, if I could, that the 
most important thing is that the Government should not be held hostage 
to the differences between the two parties or between the President and 
the Republican leadership over the budget. The Government should 
continue to remain open. A commitment was made when we passed the last 
continuing resolution a few weeks ago that we were all going to let the 
Government continue to operate while we negotiated and while we worked 
out a 7-year balanced budget that would protect the priorities such as 
Medicare, Medicaid, education, and the environment, and I was really 
outraged, and I really do not know where we are supposed to go the next 
few days when so many in the Republican Party in Congress now insist 
that the Government should remain shut down and that unless the 
President simply signs on the dotted line what the Republicans want in 
the budget, that we are going to continue to have this impasse.
  This impasse is having a terrible effect on our country. Many of you 
saw that the stock market once again plunged today. It is going to have 
a major impact on the economy during the Christmas holiday and beyond, 
and I think that it is really tragic that so many of my colleagues on 
the Republican side got up today during the various times of the debate 
and said that they were insistent on closing the Government down in 
order to accomplish their goal.
  If I have some time left, I would be glad to yield for a question.
  Mr. KINGSTON. What I would like to ask you in particular, but not 
necessarily--I mean you and a lot of other Democrats:
  If the Republicans said, ``OK, forget the taxes,'' then would 
Democrats then say, ``OK, we'll balance the budget in 6 years instead 
of 7?''
  Mr. PALLONE. My understanding, and I think that it was brought home 
to you very clearly today with the coalition--you know the coalition, a 
group of more conservative Democrats who want to bring up their 
budget--that one of the things that they have in their budget is that 
they say we will use the 7 years that the Republicans have asked for, 
we will eliminate all the tax breaks, all the tax cuts, and we will 
take a lot of that money and put it back into Medicare and Medicaid in 
order to preserve those programs.

  I think that it is not possible to accomplish the goal. It would be 
very difficult to accomplish the goal of protecting Medicare and 
Medicaid if you reduced your time frame to less than 7 and made it 6 or 
5.
  I would like to see the money from the tax break used to be put back 
into Medicare and Medicaid and keep the suggested 7-year time limit.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And does the gentleman believe that the tax breaks for 
the working people of America, that, you know, most of it goes to 
people with a family earning less than $75,000, that that would not 
help stimulate the economy and, therefore, increase the number of jobs 
and, therefore, increase the revenues?
  Mr. PALLONE. I will say this first of all. I do not agree with the 
gentleman that the majority of the tax breaks go to middle-income 
people. I think that I can show, and I do not have the chart here, but 
I can read some documents to you that show the majority of the money 
actually goes to wealthy Americans, but I would say to you, just 
respond to your question, if I could, and I forgot what your question 
is.

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