[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 1 (Wednesday, January 3, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S26-S28]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
CHANGING THE SYSTEM
Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I wish to say that I think we have had some
very useful discussions today, although obviously the substantive
discussions and negotiations are, we hope, going on elsewhere. But I
wish to begin by reemphasizing what my distinguished colleague from
Ohio has just said in the past few minutes about the importance of
changing the system.
I had the privilege of serving as chief executive of the State of
Missouri for 8 years, and I was convinced, as were almost all of my
other colleagues who were Governors at the time, Republicans and
Democrats, that we could do a far better job in handling many of the
programs partially funded by the Federal Government if we did not have
all of the strings and restrictions and red tape put upon us. That is
why we have moved in this session of Congress to change the programs
themselves, to make them more effective and efficient, not just to save
money. Obviously, we cannot continue to spend, particularly on
entitlement programs like Medicare and Medicaid, at the ever-increasing
rates of growth, without destroying these very programs, bankrupting
the Government, and destroying our economy. But it is not enough, as
has been pointed out by my colleague from Ohio, merely to cut the
amount of money that we are turning over to the States. If we tell
them, ``You have to keep spending the money the way we tell you but we
are not going to give you as much as you have been getting, or not as
much as an increase as you have been getting,'' then we risk disaster.
We need fundamental changes--allowing the States to develop responsive
and responsible, effective and caring programs to meet the needs of
those who are recipients of the programs, within these budgetary
constraints.
Mr. President, in my second term as Governor, we fought and fought
and fought to get waivers from the Department of Health and Human
Services, now HCFA, so we could start a managed-care program for
Medicaid, so we could give the providers selected by the Medicaid
recipient the opportunity to do the best job they could of keeping that
recipient healthy.
It made a tremendous amount of difference. More emphasis was placed
on keeping people healthy, on preventive health care, on regular
checkups, on routine well-baby care that kept the recipients well, kept
them out of the hospital, kept them from lost time. The result was that
we saved some money but people on Medicaid in my State were a lot
happier, and healthier, with the program. And those examples, those
experiments are being carried out in every State in the Nation. If we
only could change the program so that State legislators and Governors
who are just as concerned as the Members of this body about taking care
of those in need could make those innovations, I am convinced we can do
it.
Now, we have had, as I have said, much discussion about differences
in policy, differences in policy that lie at the base of this balanced
budget debate, but part of the problem is, I think, some of the facts
are being misstated. We have heard earlier today about how Federal
employees are being held hostage; that it is an unheard of shutdown of
the Federal Government.
It seems to me, Mr. President, in the time I have been here when
there was a Democratically controlled Congress and a Republican
President, there were shutdowns in the Federal Government when Congress
and the President did not agree. To say that it is unheard of is not
true. I believe even during the period of the Carter administration,
when there was a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress, there
were a number of periods of time when there was no budget or continuing
resolution in place. As a matter of fact, some of my colleagues, on a
bipartisan basis, today were talking about how the Democratic majority
in Congress in 1990 toughened up the Anti-Deficiency Act to make it
more painful, more painful for the executive branch to try to continue
to operate in the absence of a continuing resolution, and, yes, it
appears that some of those chickens have come home to roost now.
But let us make clear one thing. Part of this responsibility, the
responsibility that some of the agencies of Government are shut down,
is on the back of the President. I can speak from personal experience,
having managed the bill that funds veterans, housing, environment,
space, emergency management, and other areas--the VA-HUD and
independent agencies appropriations bill. We passed the bill. We passed
the bill that made over 12 percent cuts from last year's original
appropriations.
Now, during the summer of last year, in a rescission bill, the
Congress, with the President's signature, rescinded some of those funds
from the previous year because that bill, VA-HUD, was making too many
promises that could not be kept in out-years. When you make a promise
in housing, for example, to provide housing over a number of years, you
have to appropriate the budget authority up front, but then each year
as you carry out that commitment, the expenditure of that authority--
the outlays--are scored against the aggregate budgetary limitations for
that year.
So we have had to cut back significantly, and the President agreed
when he signed the rescission bill that we would cut back on the
commitments in VA-HUD. So it was with surprise that when we tried to
negotiate with the White House to find out how we could change the
fiscal year 1996 appropriations bill to accommodate their needs and
their desires, the only thing we got from Mr. Panetta, who was up here
on the Hill, was a statement that, well, we just need to spend $2
billion more, just give us $2 billion more.
I explained to him, as every Member of this body who is familiar with
the appropriations process knows, we cannot give $2 billion more. We
have to stay within the budget. But I suggested that if they were
willing to work with us, we could make adjustments within the dollars
available and send the President the bill, he could sign that bill, and
then to the extent he is able to reach a later agreement which might
put more money into the various appropriated accounts, we could come
back by a supplemental appropriation or a continuing resolution to add
money to the Veterans' Administration, Housing and Urban Development,
Environmental Protection Agency, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, the National Science Foundation, and all of those
agencies.
What happened? Well, frankly, the President vetoed the bill. The
President vetoed the bill because we did not spend as much money as he
wanted. That is understandable. Everybody who likes government likes to
spend more money. But if you don't want to cut spending in domestic
appropriated accounts, you have to find someplace else to take it. You
could, for example, cut back on the money going into entitlement
programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Actually, we have a very good
example of that. The President and Mrs. Clinton back in 1993 and 1994,
as my colleagues will recall, came before the Congress--you probably
have seen film clips of them recently--and said we really must slow the
rate of growth of Medicare to 6 to 7 percent a year.
Mr. President, they were correct because as the Clinton trustees of
Medicare and Social Security have said, if we do not reform part A of
Medicare, it is going to go broke, it is going to run out of money in
the year 2002.
The President was right when he said we have to slow the rate of
growth. But not only do we have to slow the rate of growth, just as my
friend from Ohio said, we have to change the structure of Medicare; we
have to change the structure of Medicare because a top-down Government
price-fixing program in health care has not worked.
[[Page S27]]
It is important that we give senior citizens choices, choices so they
can choose from among private plans which will have to manage the costs
effectively and give the recipients, the Medicare recipients, the kinds
of services they need if they are to compete.
The President and Mrs. Clinton were very clear when they came before
the Congress and said it is not a cut when you say we are going to slow
the rate of growth to a reasonable amount of 6 to 7 percent. How
interesting it is to hear now representatives of the President, the ads
run by their supporters, saying Medicare is going to be slashed because
the Republican Congress proposes to let it grow by 7.2 or even 7.4
percent.
Mr. President, we have to save Medicare. If you are talking about
just cutting a little bit of money out of Medicare, you are not going
to really save it; you are just going to squeeze it down and make it
more difficult for Medicare recipients to get doctors and hospitals and
other health care providers to give them the kind of services they
need. You need to change the program and you need to slow the rate of
growth in the program. You tell me how much you want to slow the rate
of growth of the Medicare Program, and we can probably tell you how
long past 2002 you will keep the program healthy, how long before it
will go bankrupt.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may be granted another
5 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BOND. I thank the Chair.
Mr. President, as I was saying, how long do you want to keep Medicare
healthy? Personally, I would like to see Medicare kept healthy, not
only for those who are on Medicare right now, but those who will be
coming on, people my age and people younger.
We are going to have to make changes to slow the rate of growth. One
proposal to save $70 to $80 billion was estimated only to save it for
maybe 2 more years. I do not think, Mr. President, we ought to go
through all this battle and all this heartache and say that Medicare
will not go bankrupt in 2002, it will go bankrupt in 2005. We can do
better than that. We have to implement real reforms which will assure
the financial solvency of this critical program well into the
foreseeable future.
I hope we would stop the posturing and stop the ads and stop the
claims that Medicare is being savaged. It begins to appear to me, Mr.
President, that there is something else at work here. The President of
the United States told the American people in the campaign and told us
in the State of the Union Message in 1993 he wanted a balanced budget.
Then just a month and a half or so ago, before Congress sent him a
continuing resolution, he agreed that he would sit down and develop
with the Congress a balanced budget reaching balance in the year 2002
on the basis of Congressional Budget Office scoring.
If he is willing to do that, and if he is willing to take a hard look
and a responsible look at how we keep entitlement programs from going
bankrupt, and how we keep it from destroying us, then there is plenty
of room to negotiate as far as I am concerned. If I were a negotiator,
I would say, we put it all on the table. I would not put more taxes on
the table because we tried the taxes and that did not work. Jacking up
taxes in 1993 got only about a third of what we expected out of it.
It is time that we cut. If the President would come forward and deal
in good faith, we could reach that agreement in a very short time. But
what I am hearing from the press, some of my colleagues who have
friends in the White House, the political advisers are saying, ``Great,
don't move. Don't move, Mr. President. You've got it just where you
want it. You have talked about a balanced budget, but then you can come
out and be against all the cuts. You don't have to agree to any of the
cuts, just say you're for a balanced budget and then trash anybody who
tries to put the details of a balanced budget together. And so long as
you don't have to present one, then you're not going to be caught.''
As one of my friends, a Member of this body on the other side of the
aisle, has said--and obviously I will not identify him--he said it
makes for great campaign rhetoric. It is great political fanfare, but
it is a darn poor way to govern.
Mr. President, I suggest that if the President wants to have a
balanced budget, if he wants to carry through on his promise, then it
is time, as we say in Missouri, to show me, come forward and say where
you are going to make these necessary cuts. The White House is not
doing that.
I mentioned earlier that with respect to the small little
appropriations bill I handled, veterans, HUD, independent agencies,
they originally requested $2 billion, about $1.9 billion-plus. We have
just received their latest request. Guess what? That latest request
goes up to $2.5 billion. This is not negotiation. This is moving in the
opposite direction.
Mr. President, if anybody is negotiating with somebody who keeps
taking steps farther and farther away from agreement, you will find out
that is not negotiation, that is political game playing. Unfortunately,
until we see any movement in the other direction, I have to say that
this President apparently does not want a balanced budget.
Dismiss all the rhetoric. His requests are for more spending in
domestic areas. His requests are for less cuts in entitlement programs.
Frankly, every time that the Congressional Budget Office has scored his
proposal--and the Congressional Budget Office is the one who he said
must judge those proposals --it shows that he misses in the
neighborhood of two to three hundred billions of dollars.
Mr. President, there is some talk about adding a few billion dollars
more to domestic discretionary. Unfortunately, under the congressional
budget resolution that will achieve a balanced budget by the year 2002,
have to cut nondefense discretionary from $270 billion in 1996 to $258
billion in 1997. That is a 4.4-percent decrease--a $12 billion
expenditure reduction. If you are going to be putting more money in
this year, you are going to make it a bigger cliff to fall off of next
year.
I would caution our negotiators not to go down that path of building
in more spending now when we are going to have to have greater cuts
next year and more program disruption.
We could come to an agreement. I think there are lots of areas where
we could agree. I will tell you that I am beginning to think that the
only place that we can make an agreement is working with our colleagues
in Congress. I have had the pleasure of working with the Senator from
Maryland, Senator Mikulski. We have some policy differences, but those
policy differences can be accommodated.
I know that there are groups working together on a bipartisan basis,
Senators Breaux and Chafee and others, Senator Nunn and many others,
who are working to come up with a balanced budget, because I believe
there are people in this body on both sides of the aisle who believe it
is in the best interest of this country to get the Government back to
work, to get the employees of the Federal Government doing what they
are supposed to do, and put forward a responsible bipartisan plan to
move this country toward a balanced budget in the year 2002.
The Kerrey-Danforth commission, headed by Senator Kerrey from
Nebraska and my former colleague, Senator Danforth from Missouri,
pointed out how difficult the entitlement problems are. Unless we start
dealing with those entitlement problems, we are not going to reach that
result.
So, Mr. President, it has been with only a slight degree of hope and
a great deal of concern that I have watched the proceedings today. We
have to find some areas of compromise. Unless we see the President
willing to come forward and tell us where cuts are going to be made--
real cuts; not phony cuts, real cuts--then we are going to have to work
within this body, and I hope we can find bipartisan cooperation in the
House, to come to agreements on how to get spending under control, how
to provide the vital services that are necessary, that must be
provided, but to do so in a responsible way that does not cost our
children and our grandchildren another $1 or $2 trillion worth of debt.
Mr. President, this is a vitally important issue. The issue of the
budget is going to define not only what our children face in the
future, but our economy in the short term. I look forward
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to working with Members of this body and ultimately Members of the
other House in seeing if we cannot fashion what the President has been
unwilling to come forth and produce, and that is a balanced budget.
Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. COCHRAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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