[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 81 (Wednesday, June 5, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H5823]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REPUBLICANS AND MEDICARE

  (Ms. DeLAURO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, despite what my Republican colleagues are 
saying this morning, in October 1995, last October, 233 House 
Republicans voted against a bill which contained $90 billion in 
Medicare reforms over 7 years which would have extended the solvency of 
the Medicare Program to the year 2006. Let me just tell my colleagues 
that their new plan will cut $168 billion from Medicare over a 6-year 
period of time, and what they will do with that by their own words is 
pay for a $176 to $180 billion tax break for the richest Americans.
  Speaker Gingrich has said that these are not cuts. He said this on 
Sunday on ``Meet the Press.'' But let me inform my colleagues what his 
colleague, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] the budget chairman has 
said in 1995. I quote: ``Their budget would require Medicare cuts 
unlike any this town has ever seen before.''
  Indeed, that is what they are about. Do not be fooled, American 
people. Speaker Gingrich has said in the past he wants Medicare to 
wither on the vine. We must not let him do it.

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