[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 55 (Thursday, April 25, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H3842]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   SUCCESSFUL END TO 1996 FISCAL YEAR

  The Speaker pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Riggs] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. RIGGS. Mr. Speaker, I simply want to stand before the House and 
point out that we are on the verge of a truly historic vote here over 
the next couple of hours. I believe that this body, in a bipartisan 
manner, will vote later this afternoon to approve House Resolution 
3019, which is the omnibus appropriations spending bill, and that that 
legislation will mark the end, the successful end to the 1996 Federal 
fiscal year.
  What makes this such a signal event and such a historic occasion is 
the fact that this bill, coupled with the spending cuts that were made 
last year in fiscal year 1995 combined, will equal savings to the 
taxpayer of $32 billion, resulting in the lowest projected deficit in 
14 years and the single largest cut in Government spending since World 
War II. So I think it is safe to say that this legislation reverses 
decades before of runaway Federal Government spending.
  I want to point out that this legislation follows what we could have 
considered to be setbacks last year, the defeat in the other body, the 
U.S. Senate, by one vote of the constitutional balanced budget 
amendment; the President's veto last year of the House-Senate passed 7-
year balanced budget plan. But we did not let those temporary setbacks 
deter from us our primary goal, which was to put the country on the 
path to a balanced budget in 7 years or less.
  As I look down at my fellow appropriator, the gentleman from New York 
[Mr. Forbes], I recall that going into these budget negotiations last 
year we really said a couple things. One, we said the Social Security 
trust fund would be off-budget, now and forever. No more borrowing from 
the Social Security trust fund to pay for other Federal spending or to 
mask the true size of the Federal budget deficit.
  Secondly, we said in the negotiations themselves, between the 
principles, we would have two conditions and two conditions only: 
first, the budget would have to be balanced in 7 years; and, second, we 
would have to balance the budget using honest numbers provided by the 
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. No more budget gimmicks or 
smoke and mirrors.
  So we have done that. In this legislation that we will be taking up 
within a matter of minutes now, we will have achieved and then some the 
first-year spending reduction targets, the first-year deficit reduction 
targets to put the country on a path to a balanced budget in 7 years.

  But remember, colleagues, that that only deals with the one-third 
side of the Federal budget which is discretionary spending. We have 
this other two-thirds over here which is called mandatory spending, and 
it is the entitlement programs which have been on automatic pilot for 
years and growing as a result at an unsustainable rate.
  Mr. Speaker, I simply want to conclude my remarks by saying that the 
problem with the Medicare trust funds is not going to go away. I 
introduce for the Record today two editorials that have appeared in 
northern California newspapers, one appearing in The New York Times' 
own Santa Rosa Press Democrat saying, ``Politics As Usual Won't Save 
Medicare,'' and the second appearing on the more liberal editorial page 
of the San Francisco Chronicle, ``Medicare Trust Fund Needs Swift 
Attention,'' with the excerpt, ``Medicare's Hospital Trust Fund is in 
even worse shape than officials projected last year.''
  It is very clear from these editorials, from The New York Times 
article on February 5 of this year and then just earlier this week, 
April 23, that the Medicare trust fund is losing money at an alarming 
rate. There is clearly a trend developing here. We know from the media 
really, not from the Clinton administration but the media, that the 
Medicare trust fund lost $35.7 million last year and so far this year, 
in fiscal year 1996, has lost $4.2 billion.
  So the point and the message here to my colleagues and to the 
American people is that Medicare is going broke faster than expected. 
The President did the wrong thing when he vetoed last year the only 
serious plan to reform Medicare. That is the plan that we put forward 
in this body and in the Senate which would have increased Medicare 
spending per Medicare recipient from $4,800 today to $7,300 7 years 
from now, increased Medicare spending, increased Medicare health care 
choices for Medicare recipients, and save the program from bankruptcy.
  So this is a problem that is not going to go away. The program is 
continuing to head towards bankruptcy because the congressional 
Democrats and the President himself are choosing politics or playing 
politics instead of joining with us in a bipartisan fashion to address 
this very real problem.
  The President should not have vetoed the Medicare Preservation Act. 
He should have in fact signed it. I dare say that if Bob Dole was 
President, he would sign this very important legislation.

                          ____________________