[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 119 (Wednesday, September 4, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H9993-H9996]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   PRIDE IN THE CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayworth). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] is recognized for 60 
minutes.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, it is my intention to use about 30 minutes, 
give or take, and then yield back time which then will be claimed by 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon].
  With that, I would like to just thank you for serving as Speaker, as 
Acting Speaker, and to tell you that I was looking forward to 
addressing this Chamber tonight, particularly more so after hearing my 
colleagues who just preceded me. For a variety of reasons, I just 
strongly disagree with their attempt to really spin what this Congress 
has done.
  Let me say from the outset I have never been more proud to be a 
Republican in this 104th Congress, to serve with so many other men and 
women who believe deeply in doing some very important lifting for this 
country.
  Preceding the 1994 election, Republicans who were in the minority 
made a determination that we wanted to present a very positive plan for 
the American people, and that this plan would be a statement of what 
we intended to do if in fact we became part of a new majority.

  We decided that we would set forward this plan in a Capitol steps 
event, and not just invite incumbent Members of Congress, but those 
that were challenging incumbent Members of Congress. We also decided we 
wanted people to have a sense that if there was this new Congress, 
there would be a major shift in policy and direction, and that we would 
promise to do much like what might happen in Britain or Canada or 
Israel, that when you had a change in government, you really had a 
change in direction.
  So we set out with what we called the Contract With America. It was a 
contract that we collectively, Republicans, both incumbents and those 
challenging, put together. When we started working on our Contract With 
America, there were things we took out because we could not sign if 
they were still in. So what remained of our contract was a piece of 
effort that really had the support of almost everyone, 390-plus Members 
and challengers who signed this Contract With America, and I was one of 
them.
  I remember when I was being interviewed by one of the editorial 
boards before the 1994 election, I was asked how could I as a moderate 
Republican sign on to the Contract With America, as if somehow this 
contract was something that I would not be proud to be associated with.
  So I thought about it a second, and I said to the people asking me 
the question, ``What do you think of the Democrats' Contract With 
America? The 8 reforms they want on opening day, the 10 reforms they 
want in the first 100 days?''
  I asked the question and waited for an answer, and I waited. And 
finally I said, ``Isn't it interesting that the majority party,'' the 
then Democrats who were then the majority, ``had no plan, didn't share 
what they wanted to do, no sense of direction?'' And here you had a 
minority party that was not sure it would be in the majority, promising 
they would do certain things.
  I said, ``Isn't it also interesting that our Contract With America 
did not criticize President Clinton or the 103d Congress or the 102d 
Congress or the 101st Congress?'' There was not any criticism of 
Democrats. It was just a positive plan of what we wanted to do.
  The reforms in the first day of Congress, those eight reforms, 
getting Congress to live under all the laws that we imposed on the rest 
of the country, Congress had exempted itself from the Fair Labor 
Standards Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities 
Act, the age discrimination,

[[Page H9994]]

the family and medical leave, the Occupational Health and Safety Act, 
Employee Polygraph Protection Act, the Worker Protection Act and so on. 
This Congress put Congress under all the laws we imposed on everyone 
else. So we are now under the 40-hour workweek. That was one of the 
reforms in our Contract With America. We also cut the number of 
committees, we cut the number of staff in the committees.
  We did something that was really monumental, though I think it is 
hard to explain, we eliminated proxy voting.

                              {time}  1930

  Proxy voting was the process where a chairman would get a Member to 
sign a proxy that gave the chairman the right to cast his vote or her 
vote. And it was the reason why chairmen controlled the committees, 
because they had a fistful of proxies. And when we eliminated proxy 
voting, we brought democracy back to Congress. In fact, there were a 
lot of good Democrats who lost in previous elections, not because they 
were not trying to do the right thing, it is just they could not get 
beyond their chairman who had so many proxies in their pocket. They 
could not pass legislation that they themselves wanted to pass what the 
American people had asked for.
  What this Congress is attempting to do, and we have succeeded in a 
whole host of areas, our first is we are trying to get our financial 
house in order and balance the Federal budget, not because balancing 
the budget is the most important thing or the end result. It is the 
foundation. So in that sense it is the most important because what is 
built on top of it has to have a strong foundation. So we have to 
balance the budget and get our financial house in order so that when we 
do programs, they will be on a strong financial footing.
  The second thing we need to do is save our trust funds from 
bankruptcy, particularly Medicare. We learned last year that Medicare 
would go bankrupt in the year 2002. Now we are learning that Medicare 
may go bankrupt in the year 2000. It is going bankrupt because more 
money is going out of the fund than coming in because we are spending 
too much money. So we are looking to save Medicare.
  We had a plan and the President vetoed it. And he vetoed it when we 
thought the fund was going bankrupt in the year 2002. Since his veto we 
now know it is going to go bankrupt basically in 19 to 20 months 
sooner. And our third effort is to transform our social, our caretaking 
society into a caring society, to transform our social and corporate 
and agricultural welfare state into a caring opportunity society. We 
want to end welfare not just for people who have been on it for years 
but for corporations and for those large farms in particular that have 
become addicted to government price supports, and so on. So that is 
what our effort is.
  Now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talked about the 
cruelty of cutting the school lunch program, the student loan program, 
Medicaid and Medicare. First and foremost, I have to be direct, we are 
not cutting those programs. So the very premise on which my colleagues 
spoke is just wrong.
  Now, one of the things they talked about was the earned income tax 
credit. This is a payment made to someone who works but does not make 
enough to pay taxes, so they get something back from other taxpayers. 
It is an earned income tax credit. They are working Americans who get 
something from the government. They said we were cutting that program. 
Yet the program is going to grow from 1995 to the year 2002 from $19.9 
to $25 billion. Now, only in this place and where the virus is 
spreading, when you go from $19.9 to $25 billion do people call it a 
cut. This earned income tax credit is important and we want it to go 
for families. We want to help families have money when they are working 
poor.
  The school lunch program is going to grow from $5.1 billion to $6.8 
billion. Again, only in this place and where the virus is spreading, 
when you grow from $5.1 billion to $6.8 billion do people call it a 
cut.
  Now, what we did do is the following. The school lunch program is 
going to grow at 5.5 percent more a year. It is going to grow at 5.2 
percent more a year. We said it should grow at 4.5 percent more each 
year. So we are going to spend 4.5 percent more each year. But then 
what we did is we said 20 percent of it, State and local governments 
could reallocate. We got rid of all the Federal bureaucracy involved in 
the program, saving the money so the students could have it, not the 
bureaucracy. So we allowed the student loan program to grow at 4.5 
percent more each year. That enables it to grow from $5.1 billion to 
$6.8 billion in the seventh year.
  We allowed governments, local governments, to transform and the 
States to transform 20 percent of it, to transfer it and to transform 
it so that a child in a suburban area who comes with parents that make 
a decent income like myself would not have their daughter subsidized. 
Why should my daughter have 17 cents of her meals subsidized by the 
Federal Government when I make a nice salary as a Member of Congress 
and my wife teaches? So we were going to allow local communities to 
take that money and spend it in communities that need it more, like my 
cities of Bridgeport and Norwalk and Stanford for kids who come from 
parents who do not have much income.
  So rather than taking and slowing the growth of this program and 
giving some children less increase than they would have gotten, they 
are going to get more because we are going to take it from those who 
make a lot of money and give it to those who need it.
  The student loan program is another example of where my colleagues 
are just totally off base. Now, the student loan program, which was 
last year $20 billion under our plan, would go to $36 billion. That is 
a 50-percent increase in the student loan program. A 50-percent 
increase in the student loan program is not a cut. It is an increase. 
It is a 50 percent increase. So we are going to go from $24 billion to 
$36 billion. What did we propose? Republicans said that when the 
student graduates, they have 6 months in which they then pay the loan 
from that 6 months on. When they graduate for that first 6 months, that 
interest was paid by the taxpayer. We wanted the student to pay that 
interest from when they graduate to that first 6 months and amortize it 
over the course of a 10- or 15-year loan. That would have amounted for 
the average loan to $9 more a month to a student with an average loan 
of about $17,000, $9 more a month now that they have been out of school 
for 6 months. $9 more a month is the equivalent of, in my part of the 
country, the price of a movie theater and a small Coke or a piece of 
pizza. I have no problem telling the student for the good of the 
country that they can pay $9 more a month after they have graduated and 
are now working.
  But that notwithstanding, we still spend the same amount of money, 
$24 billion to $36 billion, a 50 percent increase in the student loan 
program.
  Medicaid, we are told that we wanted to cut Medicaid and that this is 
health care for the poor and nursing care for the elderly. That grows 
from $89 billion to $127 billion under our plan. Only in Washington 
when you go from $89 billion to $127 billion do people call it a cut, 
but they just did. They just did. Previous to my addressing Congress, 
my colleagues said we were cutting the Medicaid program.
  Medicaid is the program, however, that I want to talk about in more 
detail.
  We spent last year $178 billion, a lot of money. In the 7th year of 
our plan we will spend $289 billion. That is a 60-percent increase in 
the amount of spending that we will make in the seventh year as opposed 
to what we did last year. Now, only in Washington when you go from $178 
billion to $289 billion do people call it a cut.
  Now, people then said, well, you need more money because you have 
more seniors. If you have more seniors, you need more money. We do have 
more seniors. On a per person basis per senior we spend $4,800 on 
average per senior for Medicare. That is health care for the elderly 
and health care and other assistance for those who have disabilities.
  In the seventh year we will spend $7,100. That is a 49 percent 
increase per person from last year to the seventh year, or the year 
2002. Yet my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said we were 
mercilessly savaging Medicare. And yet it is going to grow 60 percent 
in total and 49 percent per person.
  Now, what did we do with Medicare? We did not increase copayment to 
the senior. We did not increase the deductible. We did not increase the 
premium

[[Page H9995]]

except for the wealthiest of wealthy. The premium for those who are 
single, who are seniors who make over $125,000, they will have to pay 
all of Medicare part B. And if you are married and you make over 
$175,000, you have to pay all of Medicare part B. If you are married, 
$175,000, you pay all of Medicare part B.
  So we did not increase the copayment, did not increase the 
deductible, did not increase the premium. What we also did, though, is 
we gave seniors choice. Right now a Medicare recipient has one program, 
a traditional fee-for-service. We allow them to keep that program if 
they want, but we then bring in the private sector, various HMO's, 
allowing hospitals and doctors to compete with HMO's, allowing for 
medical savings accounts, allowing for all these different programs. 
And the only way that these new programs can participate is that they 
offer something better than Medicare, because they have to draw people 
away from the traditional fee-for-service program. How do they do that? 
They do it by doing something very logical.
  There is so much money to be made in Medicare, so many people are 
making so much money that the private sector can come in and give you 
better service. They can give you eye care, dental care, a rebate on 
the copayment, the deductible or premium, and some have even in certain 
areas said we can give a rebate, actually may pay all of MediGap. So 
now we have a Medicare program that grows from 178 to 289 billion. We 
did not increase the copayment, did not increase the premium. We allow 
the private sector to come in to offer eye care, dental care, a rebate 
on the copayment or deductible or the premium and maybe even pay all of 
MediGap. What was our one mistake?
  We made a mistake. At least that is what the President said. What was 
that mistake? We happened to save $240 billion. Now, how were we able 
to do it? Instead of the program growing at 10 percent a year, we had 
it grow at 7 percent a year. How were we able to have the program grow 
at 7 percent a year? Because when we asked the private sector how much 
they would require to offer the same as the fee-for-service program, 
they said, if you put 3 percent more in the program, we can make money 
off the program and give you the traditional fee-for-service. We said, 
what happens if we give you 7 percent? They said, if you put 7 percent 
in the program, we can give better than the fee-for-service, we can 
give the eye care, the dental care, the rebate on the copayment or the 
deductible or the premium.
  So now I am thinking about a program that does not increase the 
copayment, the deductible, the premium, gives seniors choices and saves 
$240 billion. Yet the President said, that is a cut. Yet we are 
spending 60 percent more totally, 49 percent more per person. And I was 
trying to think of how I would describe this.

  The only way I can describe it, and it seems somewhat ludicrous, but 
it is really. I mean, I guess what I have to say is I never thought the 
President would veto the Medicare plan. Why would he do it when we did 
not increase the copayment or deductible or premium and gave seniors 
choice and saves $240 billion? I do not understand why he would have 
done that. There is no explanation for it.
  It is just about as stupid as if I had said to my daughter, which I 
will not do, but if I said to my daughter, honey, I want you to buy an 
automobile and I want it to be full size because I want you to be in a 
big car. And I only have $16,000, and I want it to be a full size car. 
And I say that means you cannot, you can only get a cassette radio, you 
cannot get a CD and you will not be able to get a sun roof and leather 
seats. It is going to be a big size care and it is going to be stripped 
down. And give her this $16,000, and she comes back all excited and she 
says, Dad, I got the car. And Dad, you will not believe it; it has a 
sunroof and it has a CD and it has got leather seats. And I say to her, 
Jeremy, I told you you could not do that. You were not supposed to do 
that. I get mad at her because she did it because I wanted here to get 
a full sized car. And she said, I bought that full sized car. And by 
the way, Dad, here is a thousand dollars back. It only cost me $15,000.
  Would it not have been stupid of me to say, you did something wrong? 
You got a better car with more things and you saved $1,000 and I say 
you cut $1,000? I think that is pretty stupid, but I do not think it is 
any different than what the President did. He basically vetoed a bill 
that had no increase in copayment, deductible or premium, gave seniors 
choice and saved the country, the taxpayers $240 billion.
  Now, when I look at this program and I look at what we have been 
doing, I am trying to think of what happened in the first 2 years of 
the Clinton administration when they had their own Congress. There was 
talk that we were forced into passing a minimum wage bill. Some on our 
side supported it. But it is not lost on any of us that they did not 
attempt to pass the minimum wage bill when they controlled the House 
and the Senate and Congress. But when we passed the minimum wage bill, 
we did something more. We provided $8 billion of tax cuts for 
businesses that employed people who make the least amount of money, who 
in some cases need to be trained, who are on welfare. We are giving tax 
credits for small businesses so they can compete in a very competitive 
work environment.

  We passed the welfare reform bill. That is a bill that the President 
said he wanted to pass and yet he could not pass it under a Democrat 
Congress. We passed it in this Chamber. He said it was too harsh. He 
said he did not like it and he signs the bill.
  Now my colleagues on this side of the aisle have got to be careful 
when they talk about certain things they think are harsh and then sign 
onto them. They cannot have it both ways. We passed 13 budgets this 
past year. Our colleagues on the other side of the aisle said that some 
of them were harsh. I am not quite sure why they think that, but they 
were signed into law by the President. The President cannot sign them 
into law and then say they are too harsh, nor can my colleagues vote 
for it and then act like they did not vote for it.
  What have we tried to do? We tried to get our financial house in 
order by cutting, truly cutting discretionary spending, making 
Government smaller.

                                  1945

  We want to return the power and the money and the influence, take it 
away from Washington, give it back to States and local governments, and 
the reason we want to do that is we think the Federal Government has a 
one-size-fits-all mentality. We think the Federal Government basically 
says, adds up all the people in the room, adds up their collective shoe 
size, divides the number of people and their collective shoe size, and 
says there is an 8\1/2\. I do not care if you wear a size 12, I do not 
care if you wear a size 6. Wear it. One size fits all no matter what 
part of the country you come from.
  We believe that States and local governments can do it better. We 
also think that they can do it better without the Federal Government 
setting up a whole great deal of regulation and rules and a bureaucracy 
that siphons off 10, 20, 30 percent of what we choose to spend for the 
people who we are ultimately trying to help.
  I look back and think of my 22 years in public life, and this 
summarizes what I think government ultimately should do because it is 
what we want to do for our own children.
  I have a dad who passed away recently, but he used to come back from 
New York City because I was on the commuter line. My dad worked in New 
York from Darien, CT, and he would come home every night, and I was the 
last of four boys, and all my brothers were off in college and out of 
college, and we would read stories that he had read in the newspaper, 
and he would sometimes bring home an Ann Landers column that he thought 
was interesting, humorous, or instructive.
  And Ann Landers said something that I think summarizes the feelings I 
have about what we are about in this 104th Congress. She wrote: In the 
final analysis it is not what you do for your children but what you 
have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful 
human beings.
  I believe a caring society has to teach people how to grow the seeds, 
how to farm the land, how to fish, not give them the food, not give 
them the fish. When we give them the food or the fish, that is a short-
term effort; but when it goes from one generation to another 
generation, as it has both in terms of individual lives, in terms of 
corporate write-offs, in terms of agricultural subsidies, we make 
people dependent, we make them less efficient,

[[Page H9996]]

and frankly we have done something very cruel. There is nothing caring 
about constantly giving people the food without ultimately teaching 
them how to be independent.
  And so what we would like to do for our own children and for our own 
families and the people we love, it seems to me ultimately we should do 
for those in our society who need the most help.
  I believe this is the most caring Congress that I have ever, ever 
seen. I believe it is the most caring Congress because we are dealing 
with big issues; we are not sweeping things under the rugs as had been 
swept under the rugs for years and years and years under previous 
Congresses. We are trying to make our country self-sufficient, we are 
trying to make our constituents self-sufficient, we are trying to bring 
the money and the power and the influence back home where it belongs.
  With that Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield back the balance of my 
time. If my colleague is here, I am not yet about to give it up, but I 
do not see him, but when I do I will yield it back, but just continue 
by saying that as a moderate Republican I take some real interest in 
the fact that this Congress that is deemed to be a conservative 
Congress is dealing with some very important issues, whether it is 
health care reform which we passed and the President signed into law, 
whether it is welfare reform, whether it was the tax cuts found in the 
minimum wage bill, whether it was the telecom bill that passed 
recently. We have a major agenda, some of which has been passed into 
law by President Clinton, others which have been vetoed. Sadly, he 
vetoed 2 welfare bills. Sadly, he vetoed our Medicare reform bill. 
Sadly, he vetoed our Medicaid bill, which was an attempt to allow State 
governments the opportunity to manage health care for the poor because, 
frankly, that is where you have seen the greatest reforms.

  One of the things I am most proud about as a Republican is that 31, I 
think 32, of the 50 Governors happen to be Republicans. They represent 
75 percent of all the American people, and the faith that I have in our 
plan to bring the money and the power and the influence from Washington 
to local communities, the satisfaction that I have, is the knowledge 
that we have had Governors, Republican Governors and Democrat 
Governors, who have made Medicare work on a State and local level, who 
are making welfare reform work on a State and local level.
  The State of Connecticut has welfare reform, and one of the things we 
have done, which is a very caring aspect of this effort, is that in our 
welfare reform bill in the State of Connecticut, while we are pushing 
people off of welfare, when they work they are allowed to keep their 
welfare health care, and by their keeping their health care they are 
able to protect their families while they are working in a job that 
does not yet provide that. So our State is saving money as well by 
having welfare health care be under managed care, and the logic was if 
the average man and woman in this country has managed care for health 
care, why should it not also apply for those who have it as seniors who 
would take it by choice, not by requirement, or those who have it as 
welfare recipients who pay no taxes, who are getting health care at the 
taxpayers' expense; why should they not have managed care, and why 
would they not have better health care, and the fact is they have 
better health care by it being managed.

                          ____________________