[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 69 (Thursday, May 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5266-H5267]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      EXPLANATION OF BUDGET PROCESS AND VOTES ON BUDGET PROPOSALS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from West Virginia [Mr. Wise] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, I rise to talk a little bit about the budget 
process that has just passed, to put on the record the reasons I voted 
the way I did. I voted for the Coalition budget; I voted for the 
President's budget, both designed to get us to a balanced budget within 
a 6-year period, the same as the parameters set in the Republican 
leadership budget. I voted very strongly against the Republican budget.
  Why did I vote for two and not the third? Well, basically the reason 
is, Mr. Speaker, because the first two at least recognized the 
importance of investment in the future for our young people, for our 
economic growth. Because those budgets, while they did balance in a 6-
year period, the same as the Republican leadership budget, at the same 
time those budgets did not attempt to give tax breaks to the wealthiest 
individuals in this country.
  The coalition budget had no tax cuts in it, recognizing that we have 
contradictory goals if we are trying to reduce the revenues coming in 
by cutting taxes and at the same time balancing the budget.
  The President's budget, while it did have a tax cut in it, was a 
limited tax cut targeted for middle income working families and low 
income working families.
  Neither of these budgets tried to take it out of the hide of low-
income working people, such as the Republican leadership budget did, 
particularly because the Republican leadership budget sought to greatly 
reduce the earned income tax credit. That is the tax cut that was 
greatly expanded only 2 years ago, that gives tax relief to working 
families earning under $26,000 a year.

                              {time}  1730

  I was also concerned because the Republican leadership budget would 
cut education again, and that is a battle we had just fought. It would 
eliminate the Department of Commerce. If anyone can tell me why, at a 
time when we have got a department that is actually generating jobs, 
generating contracts, has brought in $80 billion of contracts and 
developed a national export strategy for the first time, why we seek to 
eliminate it. It seems to me it is simply a matter of ideology, and 
that is not a satisfactory reason.

[[Page H5267]]

  I was also concerned, Mr. Speaker, because of the cuts that are 
proposed in Medicare and Medicaid. I have great problems in the 
Republican budget with the assumption of balanced billing. In other 
words, a senior citizen may now be charged more by the provider and the 
senior will be billed directly for that, as opposed to the senior 
paying out of pocket being limited, as is presently the law.
  I am concerned about the cuts in Medicaid, because I think what that 
is going to mean is that it will go to the States in a block grant, but 
not satisfactorily enough to meet the needs. At the same time the needs 
will expand, the funds will decrease.
  Those are a lot of the reasons, Mr. Speaker, that I voted against the 
Republican budget but for the coalition and President's budget. I have 
heard a lot of talk, Mr. Speaker, about the need to, and certainly we 
all agree that there is a need to make sure that our young people are 
not burdened by debt. At the same time, there is also a compelling need 
to make sure they are not burdened by ignorance through lack of 
educational opportunities.
  Mr. Speaker, there is a compelling need to make sure that our young 
people are not burdened by lack of opportunity because we are not 
investing in our economy. There is a compelling need to make sure that 
our young people are not burdened by the problems of crime because we 
are not investing adequately enough in crime control and putting police 
officers on the street. There is a compelling need to make sure that 
our young people have a future, and you have to invest in order to make 
that future.
  So I have thought that the two budgets that I did vote for balanced 
the budget over 6 years, what they did was to seek to keep those 
domestic investments up and growing, and at the same time, to reach 
that goal of a balanced budget within a 6-year period.
  One concern I have, Mr. Speaker, is that none of these budgets 
adequately addresses the need of domestic infrastructure investment, 
that none of these budgets addresses the need to increase the growth 
rate in this country. The problem is that, if you accept the growth 
rate in any of the budgets, Republican or Democrat, and say that that 
is all we are going to grow, that is a ticket to economic stagnation 
over a period of time.
  However, having said that, certainly the coalition budget and the 
President's budget, I felt, certainly offered much more satisfactory 
blueprints for the future than the Republican leadership budget. So I 
offer that as my explanation of why I voted the way I did, and why I am 
going to keep pressing for domestic investment so that our economy can 
grow.

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