[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 109 (Tuesday, July 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H8100-H8101]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        REVIEW OF 104TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is recognized during 
morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I think for a moment here I would like to 
reflect on what the 104th Congress has not done. This 104th Congress, 
led by the Republicans for the first time in 4 decades, has not done 
several things. We can applaud the fact that they have not done a few 
things. For example, the Gingrich-Dole-Lott plan to cut $270 billion 
out of Medicare to provide tax breaks for wealthy people, thank 
goodness President Clinton was there to veto that effort. Because for a 
lot of senior citizens it would have meant higher premiums and for 
families it would have meant a greater economic burden. A lot of those 
families are middle-income families struggling to get

[[Page H8101]]

by. The people on the Republican side of the aisle argued that these 
tax breaks for wealthy people would somehow fuel the economy. If you 
just give the rich more money, they sense that somehow this economy 
will move forward. Well, President Clinton disagreed with that, I 
disagreed with it, and many Democratic leaders did as well. What we 
have to show for that decision to veto the Gingrich plan is an economy 
that truly is moving forward. We have seen 10 million new jobs created 
since President Clinton was elected as President. One might say, 
``Well, I'm sure every President does something like that, don't 
they?'' Take a look back at the years of President George Bush. Over a 
4-year period of time, we created 2 million new jobs in America, the 
slowest job creation in 50 years, and the slowest economic growth in 
half a century. Fortunately President Clinton's plan to reduce the 
deficit and get the economy moving forward again worked very well in 
creating jobs and bringing down interest rates.
  For a lot of families across America, my own family included, we were 
able to refinance our home mortgage which meant a lower monthly 
payment. In fact we now find that we have the highest home ownership 
rate in 15 years in the United States. If we are talking about 
realizing the American dream and moving the economy forward, certainly 
job creation and home ownership are two things that are part of it.
  Let me add one other element, reducing the deficit. The Republicans 
like to talk about being fiscally responsible, reducing the deficit. 
They tend to overlook the fact that under Presidents Reagan and Bush we 
had the most dramatic increases in the national deficit in the history 
of the United States of America. President Clinton came in and said, 
``I'm going to push a plan that's going to bring the deficit down and 
yet not strangle the economy.'' And it worked. We are now about to see 
the fourth straight year of deficit reduction in Washington, with no 
thanks to the Republican side of the aisle which did not give the 
President one single vote in the House or the Senate for his deficit 
reduction plan. Because of the deficit plan by the President, we have 
seen the deficit come down 4 straight years. The last time that 
occurred was the 1840's, over 150 years ago.

  Mr. Speaker, things are moving forward. But there are things that 
this Republican Congress has failed to do which should be done in the 
closing weeks. There will be a lot of speeches, a lot of efforts by 
Members on the other side to somehow paint a pretty picture about the 
days of Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole and Trent Lott. They want to erase 
the image out of people's minds of this gridlocked Congress with the 
two longest Government shutdowns in our history. They want to try to 
get this image out of their minds of petulance and arrogance and say 
that perhaps we have accomplished great things.
  Let us hope that beyond the speeches, they will do a couple of 
tangible things: First, pass the increase in the minimum wage. How in 
the world can we say to 500,000 people in my home State of Illinois who 
got up this morning, went to work, got the kids off to day care or to 
some summer program, went to a tough job, making $4.25, $4.50 an hour, 
that that is as good as it gets in America? Over the years we have 
increased that minimum wage so that young people starting out, so that 
families working to try to keep things together have a fighting chance. 
But the Republicans tried to stop us here in the House, they have tried 
to stop us in the Senate, and that bill even though it has passed both 
Chambers now, because a few Republicans defected and joined the 
Democrats, is still stalled. Why in the world have we not passed this 
minimum wage increase? We owe it to these working families.
  Health care. If you talk to families across this country, one of 
their biggest single concerns is health insurance. The Kennedy-
Kassebaum bill, a bipartisan bill by Senator Kennedy and Senator 
Kassebaum, passed the Senate by a margin of 100 to 0. What it says is 
you cannot discriminate against people because of preexisting medical 
conditions when you sell insurance and you ought to be able to move 
your insurance from job to job and not be afraid to lose it. Simple, 
honest principles. We should see something positive come out of this 
Congress for working families across America.

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