[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 7 (Monday, January 22, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H344-H351]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1430
                           STATE OF THE UNION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Everett). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] in 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, we are about to begin the business of the 
104th Congress again, the second year of this session. Tomorrow we will 
hear the State of the Union Address from the President. I look forward 
to that State of the Union Address.
  The State of the Union Address, I think, will point us the way for 
the immediate future. The State of the Union also might certainly size 
up where we are at this point. There are a lot of good things that can 
be cited in that State of the Union Address. A lot of great things have 
been accomplished by this President. The Union is in a much better 
state in many ways and the world is in a much better state in many ways 
than it was before he became President.
  I take this opportunity to celebrate the liberation of Haiti. Haiti 
has a situation now which has moved like clockwork toward a permanent 
democracy. Everything that was promised by General Bertrand Aristide 
and his leadership has been allowed to unfold. Elections have been 
held.

  President Aristide will be resigning, stepping down next month. 
President Aristide will be replaced by a president who has been elected 
by the people of Haiti. The entire hemisphere benefits from this 
stabilization of Haiti because it sent a message to all the other 
criminals who wanted to take over. All the criminal military regimes 
that might have wanted to raise their ugly heads and try to take over 
their governments from duly elected representatives have certainly not 
done so. We have a more stable hemisphere. We can look forward to have 
democracy expanding in this hemisphere as a result 

[[Page H345]]
of the courageous actions taken by this administration in Haiti.
  Also, I want to pause at this point to congratulate General Bertrand 
Aristide on his wedding. He has recently gotten married, I think it was 
yesterday. I take time to do that because on this floor on many 
occasions I have cited the wonders of the intellect and the temperament 
of General Bertrand Aristide, and in many cases it may appear that he 
may be some kind of little god. I have cited the fact that the man 
speaks eight languages. I have cited his long campaign against the 
oppression in Haiti, how he was nearly killed three times, guns were 
pointed at his head on three different occasions.
  I have cited wondrous things that have happened to him and wondrous 
things that he has made happen. I think his marriage brought out some 
facts that shows that he is after all quite human. The announcement of 
the marriage said he was 40 years old. For the first time I realized 
that he is much younger than I am, this man that has accomplished so 
much for his country and set such a shining example for democratic 
leadership in this hemisphere.
  So we want to congratulate President Aristide and congratulate the 
people who belong to his Lavalas Party in Haiti. We hope that they will 
not flinch, that they will, regardless of the circumstances, go forward 
and insist that democracy, the principles of democracy on which this 
liberation was based, will be carried forward by that government.
  I also think it is time to celebrate the world being better off 
because of this courageous President's leadership in Yugoslavia. In 
Bosnia things are almost going like clockwork. We certainly are happy 
to see that deadlines that were set are being met. The Army of the 
United States, the military of the United States is there to assist in 
making peace happen. There is a clear framework for peace, and that 
peace is going forward.
  I am proud of the fact that our Army could have no more noble mission 
in Yugoslavia. They will be feeding the hungry. They will be aiding the 
sick. They will be clothing the naked. They will be helping to provide 
shelter for the homeless. I can think of no more noble mission for an 
army than that, no more noble mission for a nation. So they represent a 
great deal of what this Nation is all about, and we salute them for 
that. The state of the world is better, and we are proud of the fact 
that we had the leadership of a President who made that happen.
  Nineteen ninety-six will be a tumultuous year. There is no way we can 
avoid that. We hope that the Government would get back on track, that 
the legislative process will be allowed to go forward as it has for all 
the years that this Nation has existed, that there would be an end to 
the abuse of power by the leadership of the Republicans in the 
Congress, that that abuse of power we thought had sort of played itself 
out and that the common sense of the American people had indicated that 
they were not impressed and indeed they were quite upset by this 
continual abuse of power that is reflected in the shutdowns of the 
Government to obtain legislative goals, legislative ends.

  The shutdown was an attempt to blackmail the executive branch. That 
blackmail did not work. The American people with all of their common 
sense could clearly see that the blackmail was coming from one side and 
attempted to distort the democratic process. I think that the polls 
clearly show that the common sense of the American people has prevailed 
and that they clearly see what is happening. So I am shocked to hear 
that perhaps there may be a shutdown.
  The shutdown this time may go even further than the previous 
shutdown. There may be another shutdown. This time it may lead to a 
default, the Government of the United States defaulting on its debts, 
on its obligations. A shutdown is abuse of power, and a large number of 
people have been hurt by that abuse of power. A large number of human 
beings out there who did not deserve to be hurt had to go through a 
whole holiday season with no checks or only one check, weekly pay, all 
kinds of things which mean a great deal to people who are on an income 
based on weekly wages or monthly wages.
  They could not afford, they could not reach into a big bank account. 
They could not live off their investments. There are a whole lot of 
people in the Republican Party who do not understand this. But they 
created a whole lot of misery. People suffered. It is all right to 
suffer for a good purpose, but it was totally unnecessary.
  In addition to this abuse of power causing such suffering, we are now 
going to cause a hemorrhaging of our economic system here in this 
country. A default will certainly have terrible consequences. A default 
is economic suicide. I hope that the leaders of the Republican Party 
who are now waving the threat of default in order to get more 
concessions will reconsider and let the debate go forward.
  The Speaker has clearly stated that the objective of the Republicans 
in this House is to remake America. They want to try to remake America 
in 2 years. That is their goal. I think it is unfortunate that remaking 
America is a goal to begin with. I think it is more unfortunate that 
they are going to try to remake America in 2 years.
  I do not think America needs to be remade. I think we have 
institutions, we have agencies, we have programs, we have a large 
number of things that could be improved. There ought to be a process of 
refining. There ought to be a process of adjusting. There ought to be a 
process of trimming, streamlining. There are a number of things that 
can go forward without having the kind of revolutionary proposal that 
is embodied in a call to remake America. But if that is the way it is, 
the Speaker has the power and the leadership of the House has the power 
to set the parameters and determine the environment that we have to 
exist in, and that is the way it is.
  Let us go forward in 1996 and deal with the drive to remake America. 
Let us look at the vision of America projected by the Republicans who 
control the House of Representatives and the Senate. Let us look at the 
vision of America projected by the President. I think the President 
will project some of his vision of America in his State of the Union 
Address tomorrow. I think the President in his behavior, the way the 
President has handled the budget certainly is a projection of part of 
his vision of America. The President has stood fast and insisted that 
in this remaking of America we shall not dump overboard the poorest 
Americans, we shall not dump overboard the powerless Americans. We 
shall not dump overboard the helpless Americans like children.

  I think we heard earlier, less than an hour ago, a message of the 
President vetoing the Personal Responsibility Act. The Personal 
Responsibility Act is one of the most misnamed acts we might consider 
in a long time.
  The President vetoed it and said: I want welfare reform; I started 
it. The President started the movement for welfare reform. I may not 
agree with all of his proposals. I certainly do not agree with the 
proposals made by the Republican majority in this House, but welfare 
reform is needed; reform, refinement, adjustment, streamlining, 
elimination of ridiculous parts of the program, making it work more 
effective administratively.
  There are a lot things we need in welfare reform that are going to go 
forward, and the President is committed to that and it will happen. But 
I thank the President for vetoing the bill that was sent to him because 
it is not welfare reform. It is a destruction of a program to help the 
poorest people in our Nation.
  Why have we used a hammer to bang on the program that provides aid to 
families with dependent children? The welfare reform program that was 
sent to the President by the Republicans was a program that was most 
cruel to children. It was a program which sought to end and still seeks 
to end the entitlement for children, the entitlement that is built into 
a part of the Social Security law.
  There is a lot of concern about, are we going to tamper with Social 
Security, is Congress going to tamper with Social Security? Are the 
Republicans going to tamper with Social Security? Is Social Security 
safe? The answer is no, because most people do not know it, but aid to 
families with dependent children is part of the Social Security Act. 
Medicare is part of the Social Security Act. Medicaid is part of the 
Social Security Act. They are all part of Social Security. The part of 
Social Security which helps the people on the 

[[Page H346]]
bottom, those who are deemed to be the least powerful, who are not 
voting, who do not vote, certainly, for Republicans when they do vote, 
that is the part that we have bludgeoned already with a hammer.
  Aid to families with dependent children, $16 billion is the amount of 
money estimated for this program, aid to families with dependent 
children. That is less than we give to the farmers. The subsidies that 
go to farmers in various ways, cash subsidies, home mortgages and all 
kinds of various programs that go to farmers, those subsidies total far 
more than the aid to families with dependent children. The farmers do 
not have to pass a means test. People who get welfare, aid to families 
with dependent children, they must prove first that they need it. They 
must prove first that they are poor. So why are we bludgeoning them 
with a heavy hammer, when we refuse to touch these subsidies that 
farmers get who do not pass a means test? We tried to pass a bill on 
the floor of this House. I joined with the gentleman from New York [Mr. 
Schumer], on two occasions, a simple bill which said farmers who have 
income from whatever source of $100,000 or more per year should not 
qualify for the cash subsidy program. I think we got about 60 votes the 
first year we tried to pass that and about 57 or 58 the second time we 
tried to pass that. So the overwhelming sentiment, Democrats and 
Republicans, was do not touch the cash subsidies for the farmers 
whether they are in need of it or not. But let us go after the people 
on welfare. It is not because they are getting more than anybody else. 
It is not because they are unworthy really. It is because they have no 
power. It is because they do not vote for Republicans. It is because in 
too many cases they do not vote for anybody, and that is a message I 
hope that the people who are, the parents of those poor children who 
get the aid will understand.
  In America, in the final analysis, you have a weapon. In the final 
analysis, the fact that you do not vote is the critical action that you 
take. By not acting, you act. So every person out there who is an adult 
responsible for receiving the benefits for children who are in the aid 
to families with dependent children, you owe it to the children, you 
are neglecting the children when you do not vote. You are neglecting 
the children when you do not participate in the political process. If 
you start voting and you vote blindly for anybody who gives you some 
kind of divergent argument, you are also neglectful of the children. 
Vote for the people who say that they are interested in children and 
back that up with their votes on programs like aid to families with 
dependent children.
  I hope that as we go forward for the rest of 1996, there will be an 
election, you are aware of it, in November 1996. Before we get to 
November, of course, there are many other elections that are taking 
place. In Iowa, in New Hampshire, et cetera, this is an election year. 
So I hope that in this election year, we can continue to discuss the 
budget. I would like to see a budget agreement reached. I think the 
President has gone as far as he can go, however, I would not cry, if we 
do not reach one, if it is going to have to be reached at the expense 
of the people on the bottom and the President is going to have to give 
even more. I think the President has come a long way, and I am not 
happy and a lot of Democrats are not happy with the compromise that he 
has offered, which I think goes too far. But I admire him for stepping 
out there and trying to meet the Republicans halfway. I think he has 
gone more than halfway.
  I hope that we do work out an agreement whereby we have a budget this 
year. The principle of a balanced budget, I do not agree with that, but 
it seems that most other people agree with it. So we will have a 
balanced budget.
  I serve as the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus alternative 
budget task force. We put a balanced budget on the floor of this House. 
We had to do it. In order to bring our budget and be able to discuss 
any of our ideas and our proposals, we had to come forward with a 
balanced budget. So we came forward with a balanced budget. The 
balanced budget we have submitted for the Record. It is in the Record.
  We balanced the budget without cutting Medicaid. We balanced the 
budget without cutting Medicare. We balanced the budget and we 
increased education expenditures. We increased expenditures for job 
training. What we did was we cut defense, and that is a very reasonable 
proposition to cut defense, when the United States of America is 
spending more than all the other industrialized nations in the world 
put together, we are spending more than they are put together on 
defense. So it is possible to cut defense. This does not in any way 
hamper us in conducting noble missions like the liberation of Haiti or 
a mission to save the people of Bosnia from ethnic genocide.
  There is still plenty of room for that, even if you cut the defense 
budget. So we cut the defense budget. But most of all we raised the tax 
burden of the corporations. We did two things. We closed corporate 
loopholes and we insisted that there be an increase in the taxes in 
certain places on corporations because corporations have steadily paid 
less and less of the income tax burden over the last 20 years. From 
1943 to 1995, they have dropped from a corporate tax burden percentage 
of nearly 40 percent to a corporate tax burden now of about 11 percent, 
while individuals have gone up from their percentage of the tax burden 
being 27 percent to 48 or 49 percent in 1983, and now it is still as 
high as 44 percent. So we balanced the budget by implementing what I 
call revenue justice.
  Let us have the revenue flow from the place where the most revenue is 
being generated. Corporations are making enormous profits. That sector 
of the economy is booming. Individuals and families are suffering. 
Their incomes have stagnated. They are not making as much in terms of 
real terms when you look at inflation as they were making 10 years ago. 
Minimum wages are far too low, way behind inflation. With all those 
factors under consideration, we hear tax cut. For families and 
individuals starting with the families and individuals at the bottom of 
the scale, in our Congressional Black Caucus budget we started at the 
bottom of the scale with families and individuals who are working 
families. We started by giving them some tax relief.
  What is being proposed now by the Republicans is just the opposite. 
They are proposing to change the earned income tax credit which the 
Congressional Black Caucus fought very hard to expand 2 years ago. They 
want to change the earned income tax credit which means they are 
increasing the taxes on the poorest people. At the same time they want 
to give huge tax cuts for the richest people. They have their opinion. 
The Republicans in the House and Senate, they have a position. It is a 
clear position. I want to congratulate them for clearly enunciating and 
setting forth exactly what their vision of America is. They think 
America should provide more and more for the rich who have gotten more 
and more out of our economy over the past 20 years. They want to give 
them even more. They are clearly willing to state that. They are not 
hedging. They are not fudging. So there is a clear choice being 
presented to the American people.
  I hope that we will keep our eyes on this process and keep the debate 
going. If they insist, if they want the tax cut at the same level that 
they have it, let us keep focused on that. Let us not back away 
from the argument about the level of taxes. Let us talk about the flat 
tax. Let us talk about the possibility of a national sales tax, value 
added tax. Let us talk about changing tax rates. Let us take a hard 
look at the tax policies across the board, because what has often 
happened in the 13 years that I have been here, I am in my 14th year, 
is that the tax policies and whatever dealt with taxes was discussed 
behind closed doors, was decided behind closed doors. They had some 
hearings and long lines of people would line up to go, and you could 
barely get into the Ways and Means meetings. And then when they made 
the final decision, of course, they had closed meetings.

  Then they would come to the floor and you would have 1 or 2 hours to 
debate the most important issue in the country; that is, how are we 
going to get the revenues to run the fiscal affairs of the Nation. The 
shortest period of time to debate the most important topic.

[[Page H347]]

  I understand that one of my colleagues in the Democratic Party has 
proposed that special orders be taxed, that every Member who makes 
special orders should pay the cost of special orders, that whatever it 
costs to keep the staff here and the guards and the light bill, 
whatever, we should be charged that, each Member should have to pay 
that out of his budget.
  My first reaction to that proposal--it came from a Democrat that I 
respect a great deal, it is not trivial. I understand her concern. My 
first reaction to that is that I would gladly, I would gladly advocate 
that there be no special orders of any kind if you will give every 
Member of Congress the right to speak for 5 minutes on any issue that 
is on the floor that they want to speak on. When the important issues 
come to this floor, if I had the right to speak for 5 minutes, I would 
surrender any other compensatory arrangements like 1-minutes and 5 
minutes and 60 minutes, who needs it? The problem is that we are 435 
Representatives of this Nation, people from across the Nation, and we 
seldom have a chance to speak on the most important issues. The 435 
people in this House of Representatives spend less time talking on this 
floor than the 100 Members of the other body. The 100 Members of the 
other body spend more time debating on the floor than we spend for 435 
Members in the House of Representatives.
  The time is so tightly controlled. We have a Committee on Rules. And 
the amount of time spent on the floor here debating issues is in direct 
proportion to the importance of the issue as perceived by the 
leadership. If the leadership perceives an issue to be really 
important, they shorten the time greatly. You can check this with the 
records. This can be verified. It is not an empty statement that I am 
making.
  On issues that they do not consider very important, we have open 
rules, unlimited debate. But never has a Ways and Means bill come to 
the floor in the 14 years that I have been here where there was an open 
rule, an unlimited debate.
  If I had that privilege and that right to have at least 5 minutes to 
speak on a Ways and Means bill, at least 5 minutes to speak on a 
defense bill, by the time, if you have only 1 hour for each side, and 
there have been some times when there is only 30 minutes for each side, 
but if you have 1 hour for each side, by the time you get through the 
committee, the committee of jurisdiction and any Committee on 
Appropriations members who also relate to that particular item, the 
time is used up. If you are not on defense, if you are not on Ways and 
Means, on those important issues you cannot say, you cannot even get 1 
minute. So those who propose that we eliminate special orders, I am 
with you if you will join me in a fight to guarantee the right of every 
Member of Congress, which it ought to be taken for granted, we are 
elected by the people, we should have 5 minutes, just 5 minutes on any 
issue that we deem to be important. If every one of the 435 Members 
want to speak for 5 minutes, I assure you if you look at the calendar, 
it will not lengthen the session of Congress. We have a lot of down 
time, a lot of waste of time where nobody is doing anything on this 
floor. The Senate spends more time, as I said before, on the floor than 
we spend here. The other body, in terms of per Member time on the 
floor, is way ahead of us. So I pause to say that that is very 
important.
  I would like to have us keep our eyes on the budget/fiscal debate. 
Let us go forward and talk about taxes and where they come from. Let us 
talk about revenue. Let us go forward and talk about expenditures. Let 
us keep the debate going.
  I would like to see a pledge to avoid lapsing into diversionary 
issues. As we look forward toward November 1996, let us not back away 
from a discussion of revenue, taxes, programs, budget cuts, balancing 
the budget, et cetera. Let us keep the debate going. It is a very 
complicated nation that we have. It is a complicated budget. These are 
complicated times. We should not try to oversimplify.

  For the first time I think many Americans are getting some indication 
of what it is all about. For good or ill, regardless of whether you 
agree with the position taken by one party or another or one individual 
or another, the debate is very healthy. Can we keep this debate going? 
I hope we will.
  I hope that the President's State of the Union Address tomorrow will 
be a statement which allows us to go forward and consider his vision of 
America and what America would look like when he remakes America, if he 
had the opportunity to remake America, versus the vision that is 
envisaged in the Contract With America that was set forth by the House 
Republicans. Beyond the Contract With America, the House Republicans 
have done a lot of things that are not in that contract. The attack on 
organized labor, the attack on workers safety, the refusal to even deal 
with minimum wages, all of that was not stated in the contract, but 
some terrible things have happened. But those are worthy items.
  If you want to debate the budget and talk about the fact that the 
Republicans, because they could not get certain things through the 
authorization process, because they are frustrated by the fact that the 
Senate will not approve some of the measures that they have passed 
because they are not reasonable, because the Senate wants to stay 
closer to the common sense agenda of the American people so they have 
reverted to the appropriations process.
  They do not like the fact that we have an agency called OSHA, which 
is responsible for the occupational health and safety of workers. They 
want OSHA out of business. They have made a compact with some of the 
worst kinds of business people who want to avoid having to meet their 
responsibilities to provide a safe workplace. Ten thousand workers died 
last year; 10,000 workers died in the workplace. We can debate about 
other workers who died as a result of conditions in the workplace. They 
contracted illnesses and then they died later or they had an accident 
and it led to complications and they died later. But on the job, on the 
job 10,000 workers died.
  This is not a trivial matter. It is a critical matter. Yet because 
they do not want to disturb the business community, which unreasonably 
insists that OSHA is a bother, OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health 
Administration has enough employees to inspect the businesses of 
America. And when you take the number of businesses of America that are 
in the category that need to be inspected and you divide that by the 
number of people who are employed by OSHA to do the inspections, it 
will take 87 years, given the number of employees that OSHA has before 
the budget cuts, it would take 87 years for each one of the business 
sites in America that are supposed to be inspected to be inspected by 
that group of inspectors, 87 years.
  They are going to cut OSHA drastically. So that means that it will 
take 100 years to get around to inspecting each business. So the 
argument that the businesses are being harassed and OSHA is a 
regulatory burden and that an attempt to provide safe workplaces for 
workers results in empowering or hindering the economy, these arguments 
are ridiculous. But they go forward.

                              {time}  1500

  Let them keep proposing that and saying that we need to save money at 
the cost of risking more lives of workers. Let them say that between 
now and November. Let us keep that going. Let us debate it. You decide. 
Let the American people decide.
  Let them continue to tell us that school lunch programs are not being 
cut; it is the rate of growth that is being decreased. Let them keep 
telling us that, and we will tell you that if you are cutting, putting 
money to cut the rate of growth of the program in dollar terms, you are 
not looking at the rate of growth in terms of youngsters, the number of 
children who are enrolled in school.
  They ignore the fact that the number of children enrolled in school 
is increasing. You cannot cut the rate of growth of the program without 
reducing what is available for the children who are there unless you 
take into consideration the fact the number of children is increasing.
  They tell us immigrant children should not be given free lunches and 
that the schools should go and search out the immigrant children and 
create an atmosphere of terror within certain schools while they search 
for immigrant children to deny them the school lunch program.

[[Page H348]]

  Let this debate go forward. It is about saving money on the one hand, 
but if you look at it closely, there is more to this than just saving 
money. There is more to this than just saving money; there are some 
attitudes.
  I think President Clinton made it quite clear in his budget message. 
The President had a veto message, and then the President has also sent 
a message down with his new balanced budget. Let us look for a moment 
at what is happening here, and again, it is going to be a long year. It 
is going to be a long debate.
  Please do not lose faith. Keep the faith. Keep listening, because 
this is all about the remaking of America; and your faith is involved 
here, your children's faith is involved here.
  The President was accused of not being sincere about a balanced 
budget. He submitted a balanced budget one time and then he said, 
according to CBO estimates, it is $400 billion out of balance; over a 
7-year period, the President is still spending $400 billion too much.
  So the President has come back with a budget that balances in 7 
years, and it also has a surplus at the end of the 7 years; and now we 
are being told that is totally unacceptable. We are going to shut down 
the Government because we do not like the way you balanced the budget.
  Now, was the call to balance the budget in the beginning, when they 
asked the President to submit a balanced budget, did they say, submit a 
balanced budget that we like; submit a balanced budget that is good for 
America; submit a balanced budget that you like? The President 
submitted a balanced budget he thinks is good for America, and in his 
message he says the following: His balanced budget upholds our values, 
upholds America's values.
  We want to balance the budget to limit the debt, the burden of debt 
on our children. We want to protect Medicare and Medicaid to honor our 
duty to our elderly, to people with disabilities and to children. We 
want to invest in education and training to honor our duty to our 
children and families. We want to protect the environment and public 
health so our children grow up in a clean and safe world. We want to 
reward work by not raising taxes on working families. We want to 
provide tax relief for middle-class families.
  Now, that is the message that came back with the newly balanced 
budget of the President, which, as I said before, ends in 7 years with 
a surplus.
  By the way, the Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget, which 
I put forth on the floor of the House, the Congressional Black Caucus 
alternative budget also had a surplus at the end of 7 years. We had a 
surplus of $16 billion at the end of 7 years. I told you we balanced 
our budget without cutting Medicaid, without cutting Medicare, and we 
increased the amount of money for job training and education, and we 
did this using assumptions and figures that were certified by the 
Congressional Budget Office.
  The Republican majority would not let us bring the budget to the 
floor if we had not used assumptions that were set forth by the 
Congressional Budget Office. So we balanced the budget. The 
Congressional Black Caucus alternative budget is a long way from where 
the President is right now.
  I am not happy with the President and the fact he is going to cut 
Medicare far more than we stated in the Congressional Black Caucus 
budget it should be cut. Let us forget about that. Later on there was a 
bill introduced by Democrats that said, OK, a commission study showed 
that there are problems with the Medicare program, and by the year 2002 
you may have a real problem, so let us cut the budget by $90 billion. I 
think the study said it would be a problem of $89 billion.
  This bill proposed cutting the budget by $90 billion over a 7-year 
period. The $90 billion cut would be focused on waste, streamlining 
more administrative efficiency, and cutting waste, $90 billion. The 
President is far beyond that $90 billion.
  There is a group called the Blue Dogs who have a proposal that also 
goes beyond the $90 billion. The President does not please me by 
cutting more than $90 billion, but I congratulate him on making the 
effort. He is stretching as far as he can in order to accommodate and 
reach a compromise with the Republicans. But this compromise, this 
stretch, has not impressed the Republicans.
  They say we are going to shut down the Government, and go even beyond 
shutting down the Government; we are going to tamper with the economy 
of the United States and maybe the economy of the world by going into 
default if you don't give us what we want.
  Now, clearly, understand, you out there with your common sense, the 
American people should clearly understand the power that is being 
wielded here. The Republicans are saying, we will threaten to shut down 
the Government, we will throw the Nation into default if you do not 
give us what we want. And even after you do that, if you meet us part 
of the way, we are going to do something selective. We are going to 
reach in and provide funding for only those programs that we approve 
of; we are going to strangle, through the appropriations process, those 
we do not like.
  We do not like funds for education. We have a cut. Republicans are 
proposing to cut Head Start about $300 million. They will reach in and 
strangle Head Start a little bit.
  We do not like title I, which is the largest Federal program 
providing aid to elementary and secondary schools. Ninety percent of 
the school districts across America get some portion of the title I 
program. They do not like it, so they will reach in and strangle that 
by cutting it $1.1 billion. That is about \1/7\th of the total. That is 
a huge cut; out of $7 billion, they are going to cut $1.1 billion.
  So these are horrendous actions, but at least they obvious, open. The 
CIA is not involved here, so they are not hiding what they are doing. 
It is an open position. It is up to the American people to go forward 
and look at what they are doing and come to some conclusions.

  They are not interested just in saving money or balancing the budget. 
The argument that every family balances its budget and so forth, the 
Nation therefore should balance its budget, that argument makes a lot 
of sense on the surface, but that is really not what it is all about.
  In the first place, very few families balance their budget in a year. 
In a year's period, your family's budget is not balanced and you know 
that too. You have not paid for your home fully. Rich people can, but 
we are talking about 10 to 15 percent of Americans who can go out and 
pay cash for a car and cash for a condominium or for a house. That 
number of people is very much in the minority in America.
  Most Americans have to get mortgages. Most Americans have to get 
loans to buy cars. So very few families have a balanced budget where 
exactly what they take in during a year is what they spend during a 
year. They have debts that are carried over, long-term investments and 
items, and it is just ridiculous to insist we have to have a balanced 
budget. But that is where we are.
  I will not bore you anymore by explaining the weaknesses in the 
argument that we have to have a balanced budget. That is accepted. Let 
us start out, that that is an assumption.
  Everybody now is basically agreed that we will have a balanced 
budget. The President has agreed that we will have a balanced budget. 
The President has moved to put forth a balanced budget which the 
Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office and 
everybody who has to sign off, they all agree the numbers and 
assumptions are correct.
  Nobody can accuse the President of not following the assumptions of 
the Congressional Budget Office regardless of whether they are sound or 
unsound or how uncomfortable the White House may feel about it. They 
have gone forward and done that. So, now, let the debate go forward and 
let the American people make judgments about the arguments that are 
being made.
  The President says that his budget reflects the values of the 
American people. One of the latest polls taken, I think there was a 
poll taken by the Washington Post, which shows that 50 percent, 
according to the poll, 50 percent of the American people agree that the 
President's position is a sound position and they want to support that 
position. I think this was January 7, not too long ago. The poll finds 
that 50 

[[Page H349]]
percent approve of how Clinton is handling this dispute, and 22 percent 
approve of the way the Republicans are handling it. 50 percent.
  So we are not talking about what Congressman Owens and the Members of 
the Congressional Black Caucus, the members of the Progressive caucus, 
the liberal Democrats, we are not talking about their position at this 
point. We are talking about the position of the President, which is 
consistent with the position of 50 percent of the American people. They 
approve of his tremendous effort to stretch and meet the Republicans.
  I just hope that he understands that they do not want him to go any 
further. I hope the President does not disappoint the American people 
by stretching further, because any further stretching would be 
disastrous, any further stretching. Because if you stretch further, 
what you are doing is abandoning the values of the American people and 
moving to the values of the Republican elite.
  The Republicans do not value the same vital commitments in Medicaid. 
The Republicans want to eliminate the guarantee of quality nursing home 
care and meaningful health care benefits for older Americans. They want 
to eliminate it for individuals with disabilities. They want to 
eliminate it for pregnant women and poor children.
  All this is not necessary to balance the budget, we are saying, but 
they want to do that. They want to leave a lot of their dirty work to 
the States. They want to say, well, let the States make the decisions. 
People have come up with this argument, of course, that States can do a 
better job. The closer you get to the people, the more likely you are 
to have effective government.
  There is nothing in the history of government which shows that State 
governments are more effective than the Federal Government, or that 
local governments are more effective than the Federal Government. Some 
of the worst corruption and the worst mismanagement and the worst 
incompetency you find in America can be found at the local level.
  In New York State right now, at this very moment, we have Governor 
Pataki, who sits in the Governor's mansion of New York, a Republican 
Governor, who has turned the State government into a clubhouse 
patronage meal. Never before in the history of New York State 
government has any Governor so blatantly used the treasury, used the 
State apparatus, the administration of government, to bolster partisan 
concerns.
  He has openly said he will pick up certain parts of the government in 
the capital; Albany is the capital of New York State. He is going to 
move certain programs out of Albany into Poughkeepsie, where he lives, 
and into other areas where he got large amounts of votes.
  This Republican Governor is not pretending to be a good-government 
advocate. He is openly doing this. He is openly allowing certain 
members of his cabinet who are responsible for certain contracts to 
solicit in fundraising.
  There are all kinds of things happening that Democrats might have 
done, but they never were so blatant about it; and some things, 
Democrats have never done in New York City.
  We have a Republican mayor, Mayor Giuliani, and we have had some 
strong mayors in the history of our city. One of the most famous ones, 
who was accused of being arrogant, many times he behaved like an 
emperor, he was a former Member of this House, Mayor Koch. But Mayor 
Koch insisted on a merit system for the selection of judges. Whether he 
liked it or not, there were judicial panels that appointed judges, and 
he lived with those appointments. He followed the recommendations of 
the panels.

  Mayor Dinkins, who followed him, did the same thing, merit 
appointments.
  And the newspapers, the good-government organizations, applauded all 
this. Along comes Mayor Giuliani, Republican mayor, and he ignores or 
challenges the findings of the judicial review panels and appoints two 
people, who, in the opinion of many of the judges, the legal people who 
sit on the judicial review panels, are not qualified. He boasts about 
it, and he is going to do more of it.
  In New York City the remaking of government is already going forward, 
the harassment of people who want to get on welfare. If you apply for 
welfare, there are all kinds of extra roadblocks thrown in your way, so 
that if you want to cut the welfare rolls, one simple way to do it is 
to make the paperwork more difficult. No matter how poor you are, if I 
insist that I am not taking your application unless you sign on just 
the right line, unless you answer every question, unless every ``T'' is 
crossed, and every ``I'' is dotted, I can keep you off welfare for 
months just through those technicalities.
  In other words, if you have a system of values where you do not want 
to feed the hungry, you do not want to provide housing for the homeless 
or clothe the naked, you are totally out of sync with the Judeo-
Christian values of this Nation, then you can proceed at the local 
level even with present regulations in place.
  At this moment, people are still entitled to Aid to Families with 
Dependent Children. They are still entitled. The entitlement has not 
been taken away yet. It has been proposed by the Republicans in this 
House; it has been passed by the Republicans in the Senate, and a lot 
of Democrats in the Senate voted for it. So entitlement probably is 
going to be gone this time next year; the people who are poor families 
with children qualifying for Aid to Families with Dependent Children 
will not have a Federal entitlement. That will probably be gone next 
year.
  I fear that that is one of the concessions that the President will 
make. I hope he will not, but I fear that will be a concession he will 
make. But it is not gone yet. It is still there.

  At the local government level in New York City, we have a mayor who 
has gone ahead and is already doing the kinds of dirty work you can 
expect once that entitlement is gone. He has taken it upon himself to 
come up with tricks and various means to keep people off the welfare 
roll and deny them even when they have great needs. So that process is 
going forward.
  Medicaid. The Governor has proposed, and then he backed away, that 
the standards for nursing homes in New York be watered down, that the 
requirement that every nursing home has to take a certain percentage of 
poor people be eliminated. He has backed away temporarily, but those 
proposals are coming back, if the States are going to have an 
opportunity to administer Medicaid without the guarantees.
  Let us understand States already administer these programs, 
localities already administer these programs. What they are trying to 
do is take away the Federal guarantees that if you are eligible, you 
should get it. They want to take away the Federal appeal procedures. 
They want to take away the Federal guidelines. They want to take away 
the Federal oversight. They want to be free to take taxpayers' money 
and use it the way they want to use it toward their own ends.
  An example is being set by Mr. Pataki in New York State and Mr. 
Giuliani in New York City. Those are examples of the kind of thing you 
can look forward to: abuse of power, abuse of the poor, balancing the 
budget on the backs of the people who do not have political power.
  So the President says the Republicans do not value these vital 
commitments, and between now and November 1996, November of this year, 
keep watching. Do not lose your gaze. Keep your eyes on the prize.
  Where are the American values? Do they say, we want to cut Medicaid 
and leave the poorest people without health care, leave the people who 
are disabled without health care, leave pregnant women and poor 
children without health care? Are those American values?
  In Medicare, the President says the Republicans want to charge 37 
million Medicare recipients higher premiums and change the system so 
that it benefits the healthiest and wealthiest while allowing the 
traditional Medicare Program to wither on the vine. That is a quote 
from one of the great leaders of the Republican Party, even though it 
is not necessary to balance the budget.

  The Republicans want to charge 37 million Medicare recipients higher 
premiums and change the system so that it benefits the healthiest and 
the wealthiest while leaving those who need it most in a state of 
stress. I know the stress because I get more questions in my district 
about Medicare and Medicaid than about any other programs. 

[[Page H350]]
People are feeling the stress already as they contemplate what is being 
proposed.
  In education, the Republicans call for cuts in aid for smaller 
classrooms, cuts for Head Start. They call for cuts in basic skills and 
higher standards while ending the direct student loan program. What 
does the direct student loan program have to do with balancing the 
budget? Almost nothing. In fact, just the opposite. We will end up 
spending more money by ending the direct student loan program, but that 
is an activity which is offensive to the banking community, certain 
favorite communities that support the leadership, and they are out 
there making arguments that the student loan program, the direct 
student loan program is some kind of evil when it has obvious benefits.
  Environment. They continually put the special interests over the 
environment and they want to take the environmental cop off the beat. 
These are Republican values versus American values.
  The American people indicate that they are with the President. They 
are with the President. Let us keep our eyes on the two sets of values, 
the President's values versus the Republican values, as we go forward 
toward November 1996. Do not take your eyes off the prize. The budget 
debate, the fiscal debate, the tax debate, that is it; that is what we 
have to focus on.
  I keep insisting that we ought to keep our eyes on the prize and 
Americans ought to welcome the opportunity to remake America or to 
refine America or to adjust America and make it a better America, 
because I know the surprise that is coming. The Republicans are 
planning to back away from these very important issues and move into 
diversionary tactics. They are going to try to ambush the voters with 
the usual diversionary issues.
  What are the diversionary issues? Prayer in the schools, gun control, 
affirmative action, set-asides, voting rights, gays in the military. 
Those have nothing to do with the remaking of America in terms of 
fiscal and budget and tax issues, but they are going to switch to those 
and we have to be aware that as we go forward in 1996, these are very 
important issues.

  Prayer in school is important. It is important to talk about guns. I 
am all in favor of more gun control. I understand the position of those 
who want less; I understand their position. I disagree with it 
thoroughly.
  The murder rate has gone down in general, but among young people the 
murder rate, the rate of people being shot with guns, is dramatically 
increasing. So you have a young population using guns, and that young 
population is coming to the point where they are going to be a greater 
percentage of the overall population. So the decrease in crime we are 
watching now will be accompanied by an increase in crime later on as 
these young people using guns reach the critical teenage ages. That is 
where we are going.
  So we have to keep our eyes on the prize and beware of the 
diversionary issues. We have to keep our eyes on the prize and not let 
introductions of arguments about people being subhuman be introduced.
  I was shocked that one of our leaders commented on a brutal crime in 
Chicago, indicating that a woman would not have been murdered and had 
the baby ripped out of her stomach if it was not for the welfare 
culture. That really shocked me greatly. I did not see any connection 
between the welfare culture and a brutal crime like that.
  There are a lot of brutal crimes taking place in our country and 
across the world where people are not on welfare. Immorality has 
nothing to do directly with whether or not a person is on welfare or 
not. Nobody has commented on the fact that Princess Diana and Prince 
Charles have chosen not only to commit adultery, but to go on 
television and discuss it. That is being done by people who have never 
been on welfare, and it is the kind of horror that there is no excuse 
for.
  It is bad enough that people have sins, and all of us sin, but to go 
on television and parade your sins, especially when you know you are a 
role model. They are role models for people in Britain. They insist on 
having this royal family, and sometimes Americans envy the fact that 
Britain has a royal family and we do not; but I think that is one great 
example why we do not need a royal family.
  But Americans use the Royal Family of Britain as role models. 
Children use them as role models. Princess Diana, I am sure a lot of 
teenage girls identify with her, and on and on it goes.
  So if welfare determines people's morality and we must get rid of 
welfare in order to have people become more moral, then how does the 
Royal Family behave this way, and they have never been on welfare? They 
have never worked for a living either.
  Maybe they have it too easy. Maybe we are talking about decadence at 
a level which may be something that sociologists and psychologists and 
psychiatrists can deal with, but I just do not see why that has any 
bearing.
  We are going to be talking about morality. We are going to be talking 
about sin versus nonsin. We are going to be talking about Whitewater. 
Nobody wants to talk about the real crime involved in the savings and 
loan association debacle. We talk about Whitewater having something to 
do with the savings and loans crisis. Occasionally they mention that. 
Most people just think it was invented by the Clintons. The Clintons 
lost money on a savings and loan venture in Whitewater; they lost 
money.
  Let us look at Silverado in Colorado. I have a whole book here. I am 
a student of the savings and loan swindle, because the savings and loan 
swindle was the greatest swindle in the history of civilization. In the 
economic history of civilization, nothing like this has ever happened 
before. And yet in America we do not even talk about it anymore. It is 
nearing a close, as far as the people who want to cover it up are 
concerned.
  The greatest crime in terms of economic thievery was committed right 
here in this country through the savings and loan association swindle 
and the accompanying banks swindle.
  Other banks that were not savings and loan associations did the same 
things, the misuse of the public trust. They took out deposits backed 
by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which meant that if 
anything happened, you, the taxpayer, stood behind it. They took that; 
they abused and misused that, and billions of dollars were lost. In 
fact, one estimate by Stanford University said we are talking about a 
loss of $500 billion, a cost to the taxpayers eventually of $500 
billion.
  There has been a process of going through the Resolution Trust 
Corporation and cleaning these things up, and negotiating out various 
arrangements, and it is all coming to a quiet close.
  That is real criminality. That is real dishonesty. That is real 
thievery.
  I have two reports. I read about them and I called for them. One is 
from the Department of Justice, Financial Institution Fraud, Special 
Report, Special Counsel for Financial Institution Fraud. That report I 
have looked at, am still looking at it.
  Another is called ``Attacking Financial Institution Fraud.'' It is 
from the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Office of the Attorney 
General. It is a report to Congress that is required.
  As I look at both of these reports, what strikes me is that they are 
deliberately confusing. They deliberately do not ever state clear 
facts. It is very hard to find out exactly how much money have the 
American taxpayers had to pour into bailing out the savings and loan 
associations. It is very hard to find out exactly how much.
  I know on the floor of this House, when we appropriate in one bill 
$50 billion for this, it is $70 billion for that, and yet they do not 
talk in those kinds of numbers here. They talk about bringing this 
whole thing to a close; and you are not talking about hundreds of 
billions, you are talking about a few billion here and a few million 
there, and I cannot make them add up.
  They have deliberately not reported anything in a summary fashion. I 
am still studying these reports to find out more about one of the 
greatest swindles that ever took place.
  So if we get into discussions of morality and discussions of 
swindling, if we are going to continue the Whitewater discussions, then 
I think it is only fair to talk about the savings and loan association 
swindle in all of its dimensions and talk about the Silverado, 
$2,286,901,934. That is the figure that they have said they ordered to 

[[Page H351]]
be recovered. We were talking about $150 billion. Why has only $2 
billion been ordered to be recovered?
  You will hear more about this later. This is the kind of morality 
discussion, if we are going to have a morality discussion, that we 
should get into.
  But my final comment is, Mr. Speaker, let us keep our eyes on the 
prize, continue to focus on the budget, taxes, and expenditures. It is 
a discussion that the American people deserve.

                          ____________________