[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 114 (Tuesday, July 30, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H8799-H8800]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1730
         REPUBLICANS INCREASE SPENDING ON MEDICARE AND VETERANS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaTourette). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Stearns] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. STEARNS. Mr. Speaker, our efforts to balance the budget by the 
year 2002 have been a long and hard-fought process. As a party, we did 
not choose this fight, Mr. Speaker. The American people sent a message 
in the 1994 election. They made it perfectly clear that they wanted to 
change business here in the House, the business that has been going on 
for 40 years.
  This weekend I held town meetings back in my district, in the State 
of Florida, central Florida. There were two issues that came up 
continually. The first, of course, was Medicare. We have a lot of 
seniors there, and a lot of the seniors were confused. They thought we 
were cutting Medicare. Of course, that is false. I will tell the 
Members later on why that is false.
  They were also concerned about the veterans budget. Of course, we 
have increased the veterans benefits and the budget for the Record. We 
are not cutting Medicare, and we are not cutting veterans benefits. In 
both cases, they are going up over last year. President Clinton finally 
admitted this in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN that Republicans 
are not cutting Medicare. He is right about that, because spending on 
this program will increase at twice the rate of inflation, which means 
that spending will rise from

[[Page H8800]]

$5,100 this year to $7,000 in the year 2002. So how could spending, 
which increases from $5,200 a year in 1996 to $7,200 a year in 2002, be 
a cut? Nowhere also but in Washington.
  Perhaps more than any other issue, President Clinton has hammered 
away at the GOP's reform proposal by falsely accusing us of cutting 
Medicare.
  It is interesting to think about it that the President, when he was 
talking about his health care bill back in 1993, this is what he said? 
``Today, Medicare and Medicaid are going up at three times the rate of 
inflation. We propose to let it go up at two times the rate of 
inflation. This is not a Medicare or Medicaid cut. We are going to have 
increases in Medicare and Medicaid, but a reduction in the rate of 
growth.''
  On April 3, 1995, the Medicare Board of Trustees, which includes 
three of President Clinton's Cabinet Secretaries, concluded that the 
Medicare hospital insurance fund will be running out of money in 1996 
and will be bankrupt in the year 2002.
  In its 1996 report released on June 5, it showed a $4.2 billion 
shortfall in this trust fund. This means that the program will be 
bankrupt in the year 2001 instead of 2002, so that should be a concern 
for all Americans.
  Congress and the President are very close now on the level of 
increased spending on Medicare. In fact, the Republican proposal and 
the Democrat proposal are practically the same. So for the President to 
talk about cuts is incorrect, when he and I and the Republican Party 
have proposed practically the same thing in the amount it increases.
  Not only have our efforts to preserve, protect, and strengthen 
Medicare been totally misrepresented, but the Speaker has been vilified 
for a statement which was falsely attributed to him. We hear this 
repeated on the House floor over and over again. They said he said, 
``Now we don't get rid of it round one because we don't think that's 
politically smart. We don't think that's the way to do it through a 
transition, but we believe it's going to wither on the vine.''

  He was not talking about Medicare, he was talking about the Health 
Care Financing Administration. This is more precisely what he said: 
``Okay, what do you think the Health Care Financing Administration is? 
It's a centralized government bureaucracy. It's everything we're 
telling Boris Yeltsin to get rid of. Now, we don't get rid of it in 
round one.''
  ``We don't think that's politically smart. We don't think that's the 
way to do it through a transition, but we believe it's going to wither 
on the vine.''
  So you see, they took the statement of the Speaker out of context. He 
was not referring, of course, to the Medicare Program. He was talking 
to Big Government, a Big Government bureaucratic machine that processes 
the laws around here that deals ultimately with health care in America 
but not the Medicare Program.
  In fact, this is so true that 19 television stations have pulled or 
refused to air the AFL-CIO ads that deal with this quote. So I think we 
should realize that now the media, both the television and radio media, 
has decided to pull these ads because they are false and totally 
misleading.
  Mr. Speaker, when we look at what the Clinton administration said 
back when they were running for the Presidency, let us look at their 
book, ``Putting People First.'' Remember that book? In that book, 
President Clinton and Vice President Gore said in 1992, ``We will scrap 
the Health Care Financing Administration and replace it with a health 
standards board made up of consumers, providers, business, labor, and 
government.'' That is interesting.
  Somehow the press seemed to neglect to report that fact in the book, 
``Putting People First.'' The Clinton and Gore team said the same thing 
which the Speaker said about the Health Care Financing Administration, 
that ultimately we would like to scrap it. So I do not see how they can 
actually criticize the Speaker when they said the same thing in their 
book, ``Putting People First.''
  There is another program in the budget which they have attempted to 
politicize and misrepresent. I might add, some of the colleagues on 
this side of the aisle have indicated that we are cutting veterans 
benefits. This is also false. We have increased veterans benefits. I am 
a former veteran, my father was a veteran, and I believe that it is 
important to represent veterans. That is why I am on the Committee on 
Veterans' Affairs.
  There is some talk about cutting veterans back in the district, but I 
have pointed out to them that we have actually increased the funding 
for the veterans, and in fact, the VA budget that the Committee on 
Veterans' Affairs submitted was higher than the administration's 
budget. That was brought out in a hearing, during the hearing in which 
I talked to Secretary Brown about the veterans budget. I said to him, 
``What do you think about your VA budget compared to our VA budget?'' 
And he said, ``I just want to be put on the record, Mr. Chairman, that 
this committee,'' the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, ``is proposing 
more than the VA is offering.'' I think the Committee on Veterans' 
Affairs has shown its integrity even beyond what the Secretary has 
proposed.
  I think it is admirable that he would go on record pointing out that 
the Committee on Veterans' Affairs has proposed and ultimately passed 
more money than the administration proposed.
  I think that is a credit to the Secretary for being so honest. I 
thought it was important, Mr. Speaker, to bring these words to the 
House floor and to present the truth to clear up the misrepresentation 
on this side of the aisle with talking about reducing Medicare and 
veterans benefits when actually, in fact, the Republican majority has 
increased in both cases the amount of money spent on these two 
programs.

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