[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H11366-H11372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




[[Page H11366]]



                    DEMOCRATS AND THE 104TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pallone] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to start tonight, I am going to be 
joined by some of my Democratic colleagues, but I wanted to start 
tonight by talking about how the Democrats, even though we are in the 
minority and have been for the last 2 years, have really done an 
excellent job, in my opinion, in stopping some of the more extreme 
measures that were proposed and in most cases did not succeed in 
getting passed in the last 2 years in this Congress.
  I mean particularly the Democrats success in halting what I call the 
Republican assault on Medicare, education, and the environment. 
Tomorrow is actually the 2-year anniversary, from what I understand, of 
the Republican signing ceremony on the steps of the Capitol where they 
all stepped up about 2 years ago and signed the Contract With America. 
I call it the contract on America, because of the fact that it proposed 
such devastating changes in Medicare, such terrible cuts in education 
programs, and also sought very hard to turn the clock back on the last 
25 years of environmental protection by the Federal Government.
  We are going to see tomorrow that, if you think about it, we do not 
hear too much about this Contract With America anymore. As election 
time comes near, this November 5, the Republican leadership, 
particularly the House Republicans, seem to have a very bad case of 
amnesia when it comes to the Contract With America. It has all but 
disappeared from the campaign trail and even from Congress itself. We 
really have to remind, I think as Democrats, we have to remind our 
colleagues, and I suppose the public as well, about what this 
Republican Congress set out to do. Fortunately, they were not 
successful.
  Beginning in the summer of 1995, they proposed $270 billion in 
Medicare cuts to finance tax breaks for the wealthy. We managed to kill 
that proposal, but even this year they continued to propose large 
Medicare cuts primarily to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.
  In the winter of 1995-96, we saw two Government shutdowns. Basically 
the Republicans were not able to get their way in the budget 
negotiations, even after the President committed to balancing the 
budget, so they decided to shut down the Government. And twice that 
occurred. Those 27 days when the Government was shut down cost 
taxpayers about $1.4 billion and caused hardship for thousands of 
Americans who were not able to get their veterans benefits, who were 
not able to take advantage of other programs.

  We then go from the winter, if you will, of 1995-96, when we had the 
two Government shutdowns, to the spring of 1996, when we sort of had 
this stop-and-go Government to force education cuts and environmental 
rollbacks. Basically they spent the first part of this year in 1996 
going from one short-term funding bill to another, determined to try to 
make the President accept their agenda to make the biggest education 
cuts in history and to roll back bipartisan environmental protections. 
But the Democrats were successful.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that the Democrats, even though we are and have 
been in the minority for the last 2 years, have a lot to sort of be 
thankful for because we were able to succeed in halting these radical 
Republican cuts in Medicare and education and also in environmental 
programs.
  I just wanted to spend a few more minutes and then I would like to 
yield to one of my colleagues to talk about some of the changes, the 
radical changes, if you will, that they tried to make in Medicare and 
also on some of the environmental programs. These are two areas that 
are very important to me and to many of my colleagues on the Democratic 
side.
  If you think about it, if the Republican Medicare proposal that they 
first came up with in the summer of 1995 had become law today, seniors 
would be now paying basically another $120 this year for Medicare 
premiums. That amount would continue to go up for the next 6 years. 
Seniors would no longer be able to see their own doctor because many of 
them, if not most of them, would have been forced into managed care or 
HMO's. Many hospitals would be closing their doors right now 
essentially because they were so dependent on Medicare and Medicaid, 
they would not have been able to absorb the major cuts that were 
proposed by the Republicans.
  I guess the one issue that to me shows really how out of touch the 
Gingrich Congress was and the Gingrich Republicans were with the 
American family is the environmental issue. Although the environment 
was not really mentioned at all in the Contract With America, they 
proceeded to make such an assault on environmental protection in 
various ways over the last 2 years that, if they had been successful 
and the Democrats not stopped them from doing it, we basically would 
have seen the last 25 years since Earth Day of 1970, where the Federal 
Government on a bipartisan basis was trying to protect the environment 
and improve environmental protection laws, we would have seen a 
tremendous rollback in all those efforts.

  A very good example, and one that I have cited before on the floor of 
the House, is the Clean Water Act. Essentially in the spring of 1995, 
we saw rolled out on the floor what I called the dirty water act or the 
dirty water bill that basically tried to gut the Clean Water Act and 
make it possible to eliminate wetlands protection, to dump sewage again 
into the ocean, to do a number of things that really would have made 
the Clean Water Act essentially ineffective.
  Then we also started to see the major effort to cut back on funding 
for the Environmental Protection Agency, for the Interior Department, 
for the various agencies that do investigation and enforcement of our 
environmental laws. If they had succeeded in accomplishing those goals 
and really cut back significantly on environmental protection through 
those agencies, once again our environmental laws would not have meant 
anything because they would not be enforced.

                              {time}  2030

  So I just really wanted to take to the floor today, and I know my 
colleagues feel the same way, because we feel that as this Congress is 
coming to a close and we may be done within the next day or so, we do 
not know at this point, that we need to remind our colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle of how important it was for the Democrats to 
speak out and to basically explain to the American public what this 
Gingrich Republican agenda would have meant.
  Fortunately, we were able to stop it in most cases, particularly when 
it came to issues like Medicare and the environment.
  At this time I would like to yield to my colleague from Texas. I know 
that she has been here frequently over the last 2 years as one of the 
key people that has been trying to point out how terrible this 
Republican agenda was. It was one of the main reasons, I believe, she 
has been, and a few others that are joining us tonight, we have been 
some of the major reasons, I think, collectively, why we have been able 
to stop this assault on the environment, on Medicare, and on 
environmental protection.
  I would yield to her at this time.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. First of all, I thank you for your 
leadership. It reminds me, as a freshman, watching what we went through 
just a couple of months ago with your leadership in pursuing Medicare 
hearings. I recall you leading out, trying to give the American people, 
many of our seniors, an opportunity to be heard in the U.S. Congress 
when I believe we were denied the opportunity to have those hearings 
inside the hearing room.
  And so in listening to you I was compelled to join you because I 
reflect on those times. I believe we were out on the lawn, on the U.S. 
Capitol grounds, because there were people crying out in absolute fear 
about potential devastating cuts in Medicare as a result of the 
proposed $245 billion in tax cuts.
  I am gratified that we stayed during that time period and listened to 
our seniors and other health care providers in order for us to continue 
pressing forward, if you will, on the need to preserve Medicare. It is 
for that reason that I join you to talk, as well, about how we were 
trying to enlighten people

[[Page H11367]]

on where the Republican majority, Newt Gingrich-led Congress was going 
with education.
  I hope to salute retiring members of the Democratic Texas delegation. 
Several of our Democratic colleagues from Texas will be retiring, and I 
look forward to saluting them tomorrow. I mentioned them because I am 
reminded of us working together in the Democratic Caucus, Texas Caucus, 
on Texas issues, and one of the issues that we faced was a frightening 
prospect of the cutting of school lunches. Of course that ties somewhat 
into education, because I am reminded of a report that just came out on 
children at risk, where there were some devastating numbers suggesting 
that the children at risk had improved primarily because there had been 
a persistence of maintaining the school breakfast program and the 
school lunch program.
  I cannot fail to remember comments being made on the floor of the 
House of how irrelevant and costly school lunches would be, and here we 
have a report that statistically indicated that children were learning 
in a better way because they were being fed, and they are being fed 
because many of them came from homes that did not have the proper food.
  So we persisted in that, and I think that it is important as this 
session closes, and again we are unsure of what the status of the end 
of the session is now, to reemphasize what happened with our efforts in 
education.
  I speak about school lunch. It is not an actual tool of education, 
per se. It is not reading, writing, and arithmetic. But you cannot take 
away the opportunity for children to be nourished, for them to be able 
to be in a classroom.
  Let me cite for you that I had this afternoon the pleasure of 
visiting with almost 10 superintendents from districts around the State 
of Texas, school superintendents. Did anyone of them come to me and 
say, ``Let up''? ``Cut the funds''? ``We do not like what you are 
doing''? To a one--I did not ask them what their politics were, did not 
ask them what party they might have been associated with. To a one they 
said, ``The Federal Government must be a partner with us in educating 
our children.''
  In fact, every one of them spoke about increased enrollment in 
elementary and secondary schools in their districts. I understand that 
the Houston Independent School District is now looking at 200,000-plus 
children, up from maybe 150,000 some years ago. So all across the 
country we are seeing an increased enrollment.
  But may I ask you, what is going on in this Gingrich Congress? We 
had, as Democrats, to fight back the largest education cuts in history, 
where our Republican colleagues were voting to cut education programs 
by 15 percent, $3.6 billion.
  We find on August 4, 1995; that was at the height of the time when we 
refused to leave the Congress, refused to go home that summer when the 
House Republicans voted for these drastic cuts, and it was constantly 
reemphasizing that our folks back home, our teachers, our school 
superintendents and administrators on the ground dealing with children 
every day, pleaded that we did not undermine them more than we already 
had, a 17 percent cut in aid to local schools, the title 1 programs' 
assistance to local school districts. These are what these 
representatives came from, dealing with compensatory education. It was 
cut by $1.2 billion, denying some 1.1 million children the extra help 
they needed in reading and math.
  When we are talking about technology, when this country is moving 
toward the 21st century, we were planning on giving 40,000 title I 
teachers the pink slips. I always remember the effort that we had 
to wage, the common sense effort. It really was not at that time 
partisan to the extent that we would not have welcomed Republicans 
coming and saying, ``You know, you are right,'' when we are right on 
the precipice of almost letting off 40,000 teachers who taught the 
basics of math and science.

  The elimination of the Goals 2000 program, a reform package that was 
touted by then President George Bush who raised up the specter of the 
Goals 2000. I think it was his call that we must elevate the 
achievement levels of our children around the Nation. They would have 
cut it, and therefore they would have denied some 85,000 children in 48 
States across the Nation to raise up the levels of their education. 
That, I think, is key.
  And if I might just add several other points, and let me correct 
that. That would have been 85,000 schools in 48 States with 44 million 
children, a 57 percent cut in safe and drug-free schools.
  Might I just say to you and maybe query you on this as I mention two 
other things, and I might just query you on this, if you do not mind, 
because I am confused about hearing one thing and seeing another.
  In addition to the Safe and Drug-free Schools, the 57 percent cut, 
that is over 50 percent, that is almost 100 percent, if you will; they 
cut, eliminated, 48,000 children from Head Start; that is $137 million, 
when Head Start has been a program that has been touted by educators 
from both sides of the aisle; and a 16-percent cut in vocational and 
adult education. That is cutting adult education by $220 million.
  Might I say that many in my community pleaded with me. Some of that 
adult education was for the physically and mentally challenged 
individuals that did not want to be on welfare, did not want to be at 
home, wanted to be gainfully employed, those who were dislocated 
workers, women coming into the work force for the first time, denying 
the opportunity for them to get a hand up.
  But I wanted to ask you this question because it disturbs me. 
Tomorrow we will be dealing, and maybe Saturday, maybe we will be here 
Sunday or Monday, with the omnibus appropriations or a CR to ensure 
that we do not shut the Government down, and I know that we will be 
certainly pushing that issue.
  But I have been hearing some addressing of a particular theme now of 
a 15-percent tax cut. We do not even hear that any more as we listen to 
the national debate. I am not sure whether that was 15 cents, a dime 
and a nickel; I do not know what that was.
  But we hear about the drugs. I have heard a referral back to, ``Just 
say no,'' and I do not think any of us would step away from going to 
our children, our schools, and profoundly and affirmatively saying no. 
I have heard a new title called, ``Just do not do it.''
  And then I have here documentation of the Gingrich Congress voting to 
cut the Safe and Drug-free School program by $266 million, the same 
thing that my teachers, my principals, my administrators are telling me 
that really gets to the children about the importance of not taking 
drugs.
  You know that we have been trying to research this terrible issue 
about Contras and drugs and drugs flowing into the inner city, inner-
city neighborhoods, all over America, but here is where they are 
cutting 23 million students off of these services.
  If you can, help me understand this and tell me what the impact of 
Safe and Drug-free Schools has been in your community in terms of what 
it does in getting right where our children are, in the school where 
their peers are, where they could hear police officers, role models, 
come in and look them in the eye. Then we reinforce it as a parent, as 
a church, as a religious community.

  Can you understand why my colleagues are joining in with a national 
theme: ``Just do not do it,'' and they have got this kind of cut?
  Mr. PALLONE. I think the gentlewoman is bringing up a very good 
point, and it is simple. What Democrats have been saying and what you 
are saying is that you have to, you know, put your money where your 
mouth is, so to speak, I think is the best way to explain it.
  The reason why we, as Democrats, want to prioritize education 
funding, why we have been supportive of, for example, putting 100,000 
policemen on the streets, the reason why we support environmental 
protection, if you will, is because we realize that if you prioritize 
these programs, that they can make a difference for the average 
American.
  And I think what we see on the other side of the aisle is, they talk 
about the drug problem, for example, but then they do not want to fund 
a program of safe and drug-free schools which will make a difference. 
They talk about how they want to solve the drug problem, but then when 
we put up legislation that would add 100,000 police in many communities 
around the country, they vote against it.
  So, you know, if you look at the drug problem, I guess you can look 
at it

[[Page H11368]]

from the point of view of prevention, which is what Safe and Drug-Free 
Schools is; you can look at it from the point of view of enforcement, 
which is what the Cops on the Beat Program is about; but, you know, if 
you do not spend money and prioritize your budget in those areas, then 
the drug problems are going to get worse.
  I think what the President has been saying and what the Democrats 
have been saying is, you have to put money and you have to prioritize 
these programs if you want to get a handle and you want to stop the 
drug problem. And they do not do it. They talk about it, but then they 
will go and, you know, pass legislation that will give all these tax 
breaks to wealthy people rather than worrying about selectively 
spending money in ways that will solve the drug problem, or will 
protect the environment, or will deal with the need to pay for higher 
education.
  And that is what we have been saying for the last 2 years. We want to 
balance the budget.
  I think you mentioned already that in the last 4 years, the deficit 
has gone down every year. The President is making more of an effort to 
balance the budget and reduce the deficit than any President in the 
last 20 to 30 years. But he wants to prioritize, as Democrats in 
Congress do; we want to prioritize spending where it is going to make a 
difference.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. I thank the gentleman, and as I close, let 
me just simply say that I thank the gentleman and my colleague from 
Connecticut, who has persisted in educating and explaining that this is 
not a self-serving effort as we come to the floor of the House.
  The best of all worlds is that we all, collectively, do what is best 
for all of America, and I cannot imagine a more valuable resource than 
our children going into the 21st century.
  But over and over again, what I am trying to explain is that when I 
hear national rhetoric or a suggestion that we pride ourselves on our 
children, and I can give you now this litany of cuts that deal with the 
Goals 2000 and Drug-Free Schools and Head Start, then we have a problem 
here; and if we close down the Office of Juvenile Prevention at the 
Department of Justice, we have a problem; if we close down adult 
education, we have a problem.
  Mr. PALLONE. You mentioned Head Start, and I just wanted to say I 
have two young children; one is 3, and the other is a year and a half; 
and I do not spend a lot of time, but I spent a little time reading 
about childhood development and all that, and everyone tells you that 
those formative years; you know, whether it is 2, 3, 4, before they go 
to school, which is what Head Start is primarily about, those are the 
years that make the dffernce.
  That is why I think it is so important that you mentioned the Head 
Start program and it is such a tragedy that they have wanted to cut 
that. I remember President Bush talking about how successful a program 
it was. And, you know, here we are again with a tremendous prevention 
program, that does not really cost a lot of money, that they have tried 
to cut severely.
  I did not mean to interrupt.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Not at all.
  All the education experts say that in the early years of schooling 
our children are amazing, they are sponges, that in fact what they 
learn in those early years is so much a part of how successful they may 
or may not be. This ties into everything the Democrats have said about 
welfare reform.
  None of us have disagreed that the Nation wants to move toward real 
welfare reform.

                              {time}  2045

  We have disagreed with the tools that the Republicans have taken away 
from us. So I just simply say, $3.6 billion in education cuts, 15 
percent, is not the way of the future. It is not priding the most 
precious asset of this Nation, and that is our children.
  I am going to be part of the fight to maintain these programs, but as 
well, I hope we will presevere and the American people will join us in 
recognizing a tribute to our children will be supporting the efforts to 
educate them.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Connecticut 
[Ms. DeLauro].
  Ms. DeLauro. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding to 
me, as well as the gentlewoman from Texas who, in my opinion, more than 
anyone else has delivered the message about the Democrats and how we 
wanted to prioritize education, Medicare, and the environment, and how 
we have really succeeded in the last 2 years in halting the changes and 
the drastic cuts that the Republican leadership proposed in these 
programs.
  I am pleased and proud to join with my colleagues tonight. It has 
been an unprecedented 2 years. When we take a look at, quite honestly, 
the natural instincts of the Gingrich leadership in this House, what 
their natural instincts were, I think it is sobering, it is 
frightening, and in fact it really threatened what working families in 
this country have tried to achieve for themselves and their families 
for so many years. That really is the story of this Congress.
  To my colleagues who have taken the floor almost every day and almost 
every evening, I feel good about the role that we have played, about 
the role we play with the American people, because it truly was the 
American people who said, ``No, we do not want you to do these kinds of 
things.''
  In the final hours of this Congress, it is the opportune time to take 
a look at some of these things that happened and what the gentleman 
from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] and his Republican team have pursued. It 
has been characterized, and fairly characterized, as an extremist 
agenda, a hurting of hardworking middle class families.
  When Newt Gingrich and the other Republicans took power in this House 
in 1994, they came here promising revolutionary changes. I think we 
would all admit, as Democrats, that the public was looking for change. 
They looked for change in 1992 and they looked for change in 1994. We 
have to acknowledge that.
  But what they did was they endorsed and initiated an extreme agenda 
that really was in no way the kind of change the American public was 
looking for. Their manifesto, as we all recall, was the Contract With 
America, and if we just take a look today, what is happening is the 
Republicans are running away from the contract, running from their 
leadership, and running, quite honestly, for their political lives. So 
they are engaged in trying to rehabilitate themselves on some of these 
issues.
  Mr. Speaker, I read in the papers in the last few days that Newt 
Gingrich is trying to strong-arm Republican Members to come to a pep 
rally celebrating the Contract With America, and there is one 
newspaper, and I quote the newspaper, it said, ``One month before 
election day the contract is so aborted that some of the very freshman 
who campaigned on it have been less than enthusiastic about the 
rally.''
  They cannot run away from it fast enough, given what it tried to do. 
Quite frankly, if you do take a look at the contract, it wound up 
hurting American families and particularly working families in this 
country. Their jewel, and self-proclaimed jewel, was the tax cut. As we 
saw, they were willing to jettison Medicare, education, environmental 
efforts, Medicaid, in order to provide a tax cut for the wealthiest in 
this country.

  Quite frankly, it was the American people who said to the President 
of the United States, 60 percent, veto this madness, veto it, which he 
fortunately did. We see Republicans running from their record to try to 
bury the truth, but I will tell you, who can blame them, who can blame 
them from trying to run from the truth?
  The litany is there. My colleague, the gentlewoman from Texas, talked 
about education. We have talked about what they tried to do with 
Medicare and Medicaid, education, and the environment. I will just say 
this about American families. What they essentially want is a shot at 
the American dream. That is what they work for.
  It is like your folks and my folks who worked hard all their lives to 
provide their families with an opportunity for the future. What has 
been the great equalizer in this country? It is education. That is the 
way that, despite what your income is, despite what your social status 
is, public education has been the great equalizer in this country, so 
what your God-given talents have given you, you can develop your 
potential and you can succeed.

[[Page H11369]]

  What they tried to do was to pull that rug out from under public 
education for working families. As I said, my colleague, the 
gentlewoman from Texas, catalogued some of the information in Head 
Start programs, in safe-and-drug-free schools, in reading and 
mathematics programs. I will tell you that finally what they tried to 
do is dealing with the colleague loan program.
  I would think that if we polled 435 Members of this Congress, we 
would find that they achieved what they did in education through 
college loans or through some sort of financial assistance, most of 
them. I could not have gone to college without the benefit of financial 
assistance. My family just could not have afforded that.
  I might add that the gentleman from Texas, Dick Armey, and the 
gentleman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, went to school with college 
loans. What they tried to do then is pull the ladder up after them. 
That is wrong.
  Let me just make a couple of comments here. They voted to slash 
student loan funding by over $10 billion and eliminate entirely the 
direct student loan program. That is the program that, as my colleagues 
know, takes the banks out of the equation and says to the family, you 
do business with the college, and decreases the costs of that loan to 
that family. They tried to entirely eliminate the direct student loan 
program.
  The $10 billion cut included a $3.5 billion cut of the Stafford 
student loan program. They have also voted to cut Pell programs and 
loans, denying loans to 750,000 students. This is the way we succeed in 
this country. The college loan program works.
  Why do they want to deny people the opportunity, working families the 
opportunity to be able to send their kids to school, to have that 
opportunity to succeed and compete? That is wrong. That is why the 
American public moved away from it.
  Let me just say, if we think that this was a one-shot deal, and that 
they do not have these kinds of thoughts in mind for the future if they 
happen to come back here in the majority, if we take a look at the Dole 
economic plan, a $568 billion tax cut, where are they going to go, 
again, for that money? They are going to go to Medicare, education, 
Medicaid, the environment, the same kinds of programs.

  Mr. Speaker, I think this is important. I want to talk about a 
comment that I read today in something called the Texas Monthly, 
September of 1996. I think this is extraordinary. I think the public 
knows that the Republicans were so desperate to advance their extreme 
agenda that they were willing to shut the government down not once but 
twice.
  Now, you would think there would be some sense of the hardship of 
shutting the government down, what that means in terms of people's 
lives for people who work at Veterans Administrations and so forth, 
what happens to them when they are not sure they have a job, when they 
are not sure they are going to get a paycheck, what happens to their 
kids, what happens to mortgages, what happens to college loan payments, 
what happens to putting food on the table.
  You might think that the Republican leadership was chastened in some 
way by shutting the government down. This is a September, 1996 quote by 
the person who is third in charge in the House of Representatives, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay]. If the gentleman will bear with me a 
second.
  Quite frankly, we have entitled this, Let Them Eat Steak. You will 
understand this when I read it.
  This is a quote: ``Our biggest mistake was backing off from the 
government shutdown. We should have stuck it out. The worst moment was 
November 19. I was cooking steaks for five or six Members at my condo. 
The TV was on, and all of a sudden there's Newt and Dole and the 
President, and everybody is shaking hands and saying they've reached an 
agreement to reopen the government. I'll never forget it as long as I 
live.''
  This is a quote from the gentleman who is third in charge of the 
House of Representatives; let them eat steak.
  Let me tell the Members, I went to the Westhaven Veterans 
Administration during the Government shutdown. You want to be 
chastened, when you saw people who did not know whether or not they 
were going to have a job. The stayed on the job, because they felt they 
had an obligation to those sick veterans in that hospital. They did not 
know if they could pay the bills. They did not know if they could put 
food on their tables.
  This gentleman says we should have continued to shut the Government 
down. And these are the folks who want to come back and who want to 
lead this House of Representatives. The American public needs to know 
what they are about.
  Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate what the gentlewoman said. Really, the 
gentlewoman says very well and explains very well the dire consequences 
of the government shutdown. I think the fact of the matter was that 
there were a lot of people who really suffered tremendously during that 
period.
  I want to yield to other colleagues here, but I just wanted to say 
one thing when you were talking about the student loan program. That is 
one of the many aspects, but the one that I hear the most these days 
from my constituents, and I think the reason is because, and I do not 
have the statistics here tonight, but the reason is because of the 
disparity, if you will, between how income has not grown, if you will, 
in the last few years, or in the last decade, but the cost of college 
tuition and going to college has grown so much.
  I know when I was in college I had help from my parents, but I also 
had a student loan and I had a scholarship from the school. I had the 
work study program. It was possible for your parents to help you to 
some extent.

  But if you think about it, over the last 20 or 30 years, income has 
not kept up, if you will. The cost of college has gone up so much that 
more and more families and more and more students need larger amounts, 
if you will, of student loans in order to pay for college education or 
graduate education.
  That is why we have seen the President, with the help of Democrats, 
when we were in the majority, try to expand some of these programs; why 
we had the AmeriCorps program, why they tried to expand the direct loan 
program, to give more students and make more money available, because 
it is a lot harder to pay for that college education today than it was 
5 or 10 or 20 years ago. For some reason, our colleagues on the other 
side of the aisle never understood that, and I do not know why they did 
not.
  I yield to the gentleman from North Dakota [Mr. Pomeroy].
  Mr. POMEROY. I thank the gentleman for yielding to me, Mr. Speaker, 
and I appreciate very much this retrospective look at the 104th 
Congress. I do think that, as Congress rushes to complete its work, it 
is an appropriate time to evaluate the true record of this Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I would speak about, in particular, three shortcomings 
of this Congress. The first is the shutdown, the second is student 
loans, and the bulk of my time is going to be spent talking about a 
near miss, a raid on workers' pension security.
  On the shutdown, this new crowd, the 104th Congress, the Republican 
majority, said they wanted to run government like a business. Yet, when 
they got in a fight with the President, they felt shutting down the 
government was the appropriate response; leaving the workers home, only 
to be paid for every day they stayed at home, with the subsequent 
enactment of the appropriations bills.
  It occurred to me, as I evaluated that ridiculous stunt, that there 
is not a single business in North Dakota that gets so mad at itself 
that it sends its workers home on salary, but that is precisely what 
this crowd did to the Federal Government, disrupting service, costing 
taxpayers millions, and what is more, making a total debacle of the 
legislative appropriations process.

                              {time}  2100

  To have a quote published in a major Texas magazine where the 
majority whip, Mr. DeLay, to this day, believes that their greatest 
single error was reopening the Federal Government shows just how 
reckless and irresponsible the leadership has been on the other side 
and what we might expect more of should they return after the next 
election.
  The second point I would address was student loans which as I sat on 
the

[[Page H11370]]

Budget Committee fighting the proposals that would take $18 billion 
from the funding of loans, student loans, I evaluated the consequences 
for those who would pay the tab, the students of this country. They 
proposed to wring $18 billion out of student loan funding, having 
students accrue interest on their loans from the moment they took them 
out. The 18-year-olds sitting in college in freshman English class 
today just as it has been for many, many years, including certainly 
when I was in college and way before that, they do not have interest 
accruing while they are still in class. What would be the point? They 
cannot pay the loan back. They are in school. That is why they took the 
loan out. And so they have that interest deferred. That is just how 
student loans have worked.
  Well, they wanted to change that. They wanted to have interest 
accruing from day one so the freshman student is not just sitting there 
trying to learn, he is also worrying about interest accruing and this 
growing student loan debt.
  You mentioned the rising cost of college and the resulting impact on 
student loans. In fact, student loan borrowing is up greater than 50 
percent. Student loan borrowing in this country has more than doubled 
since 1990. We are having an explosion in student loans because the 
costs are beyond the reach of families to pay, or beyond the reach of 
students to make it with working while they are not in class. This 
would have impacted the costs on payback to the students of this 
country in the following ways: Eliminating that interest deferral would 
have hit an undergraduate coming out with a 4-year degree 25 percent. 
It would have hit a graduate student something in the range of 30 
percent upon completing their graduate degree. And someone obtaining 
either a medical doctor or perhaps a Ph.D. in history would look at a 
full 50 percent greater student loan obligation than they would come 
out with today.
  As if that was not bad enough, I will tell you that student loan 
obligations today are shocking. My student loan payment was $90 a 
month, I paid it faithfully for 10 years and remember and will always 
remember walking that last payment to the mailbox. It was a happy day 
in my life. Well, now they are paying several hundred dollars a month. 
In fact, whereas that student loan payment used to fall somewhere after 
your rent payment and after your car payment in terms of your monthly 
outflow, it now rivals or exceeds mortgage payments these people are 
making, so great is the indebtedness. And this Republican budget would 
have increased it at least 25 percent for the graduating undergraduate, 
because they wanted to take the money from student loans to pay for 
that tax cut primarily benefiting the wealthy. That was a very, very 
low point in this session. And thank goodness that budget plan was 
vetoed.
  There was another, and the final low point that I would mention 
involves the attempted raid on workers' pensions. In this country this 
year, the first wave of baby boomers turned 50 years old. One in three 
baby boomers is saving enough for retirement, but the first wave of 
baby boomers turned 50 years old. We have a national growing, serious 
problem with people not saving enough for their retirement. One in 4 
workers in an employer of under 100 has an opportunity to save, 3 in 4 
do not, to save for their retirement. Now in the larger employers, it 
is better. Seventy-eight percent employed in employers over 1,000 have 
retirement savings programs. So this is the one part of the whole 
country where workers are actually on track and saving for their 
retirement. And what did the Republican budget do? It pointed a gun 
right at that one area where retirement saving is on track and wanted 
to blow it apart.

  In the 1980's, we saw savage abuse of workers' pension funds as 
corporations raided the paid-up workers' pension funds to fund such 
things as leveraged buyouts or just even for an easy access to a line 
of credit for those corporations. In the 1980's, when it was finally 
brought to a stop by congressional action, $20 billion was withdrawn 
from workers' pension funds. Many of those funds that had the pension 
funds ripped out of them ultimately went bankrupt, leaving workers with 
greatly reduced retirement benefits paid by the taxpayer through the 
Pension Benefit Guaranty Fund. Well, the proposal that was slipped into 
the Republican budget would have allowed, by their estimates, $40 
billion to be withdrawn from workers' pension funds. How does this 
happen, you say? The safeguards that were put in place preventing 
companies from raiding their pension funds for their workers were 
eliminated, wiped out, for a windfall window where corporations could 
withdraw those funds without excise tax penalty through July 1 of this 
year and after July 1, they would have a very small tax penalty on the 
withdrawal.
  Today the tax stands at 50 percent to discourage raiding those 
retirement funds. That barrier was put in place with bipartisan votes 
during 3 congressional sessions. The Republicans wanted to wipe out 
that 50 percent, give them a windfall when they are to pull that money 
out. Why in the world, do you ask, would they want to do that, expose 
our workers to the loss of their pension dollars? One reason. They had 
a budget hole. In order to finance that tax cut disproportionately 
benefiting the wealthiest Americans, they needed to come up with funds. 
And if corporations withdrew the $40 billion pension funds, at the time 
of withdrawal, that was taxable to the Treasury, and the Treasury would 
have gained a $9 billion windfall.
  So they were prepared to sell out workers' pension security in order 
to plug a budget hole in their budget, in order to finance that tax cut 
disproportionately benefiting the wealthiest Americans. That was a 
shocking proposal. It did not receive so much as a congressional 
hearing. No hearing on this proposal. And in the Committee on Ways and 
Means at the time it was brought forward, one member said, ``Well, 
look, if you're going to do something that so threatens the workers 
without so much as a hearing, let's at least have the requirement that 
when corporations draw workers' pension funds out for their own 
purposes, for the company's own purposes, against the workers' 
interests, that the workers would be notified.'' Notification to the 
workers when you take their pension money away. That amendment was 
defeated.
  Finally, I went to the Rules Committee and I implored the Rules 
Committee to at least allow an independent vote on this matter so 
critical to workers' retirement security. I felt of the many, many 
issues in this budget which ran hundreds of pages, this one deserved a 
stand-alone vote. The Rules Committee refused to allow the vote. They 
wanted the pension raid wrapped into their proposal to pay for their 
tax cut to the wealthy.

  So in retrospect, I think when you look at what might have happened 
in the 104th Congress, there were some very near misses. Nearly 
catastrophic hits to Medicare, a nearly catastrophic impact to student 
loans, and nearly a catastrophic raid on workers' pension funds, all to 
make their budget plan work, and again the jewel in the crown of their 
budget plan, that tax cut disproportionately going to the wealthiest 
people in this country. There simply were no limits to which this new 
majority would not go to try and fund that tax cut for the wealthiest 
Americans.
  I will tell you, senior citizens, the students and the working people 
of this country deserved much better, and I believe they will get much 
better after this next election.
  Mr. PALLONE. I appreciate what the gentleman said, and particularly 
with regard to the pensions, because I think that many people have 
forgotten that. It came up at the time, and the Democrats did their 
best to point out that it was being proposed and we managed to kill it, 
primarily because of the President's veto, but I think a lot of people 
have forgotten it, and that is why it is so important for us, not only 
today but I think in the next few weeks to continue to point out that 
these are the things that the Republicans were proposing and what they 
would have meant to the average American. That is certainly one of the 
most important. I appreciate the gentleman bringing it up.
  Mr. POMEROY. There are many things with which I agree with the 
majority. In other areas I disagree. But I was absolutely shocked that 
on this pension raid issue, threatening the retirement security of 
millions of working men and women, all but one of the

[[Page H11371]]

majority voted right along to allow the pension raid.
  Mr. PALLONE. It is really incredible when you think about it. I thank 
the gentleman for bringing it up.
  I would like to yield to the gentleman from Michigan. I know he has 
pointed out over and over again how important the President's effort 
has been with the crime bill and with the 100,000 extra policemen that 
have been implemented basically in many municipalities around the 
country. That program is one of the main Federal programs that my 
constituents talk about now because it has really had a major impact in 
reducing the crime rate in a lot of my municipalities. I yield to the 
gentleman.
  Mr. STUPAK. I thank the gentleman and I thank the gentleman for his 
leadership over these past 20 months as we have tried to point out in 
the 104th Congress, and I think we are all proud to be Members of 
Congress, but I think what we have been seeing here tonight, a lack of 
notice as to intent of legislation, lack of hearings, I think that 
unfortunately is a trademark of this 104th Congress. And you and I both 
sit on the Committee on Commerce. Besides being active participants in 
crime issues, we also sit on the Committee on Commerce which deals with 
Medicare and Medicaid. We talk about changes and how we get the Federal 
budget under control and deficit reduction and all that, and I think 
whether you are in the majority and you are running Congress or whether 
you are having a hearing, I think the change that the American people 
want is a change that is based on common sense and shows some 
compassion. Unfortunately, there was no near miss in the Committee on 
Commerce about a year ago when you and I were there and Mr. Pomeroy 
spoke of near misses, it was no near misses when 13 senior citizens 
were arrested at the start of a Committee on Commerce markup on the 
Medicare bill which had $270 billion in cuts that we had never seen 
until we walked into the hearing room that day. And so 1 year ago the 
Republicans ordered the Capitol Police to arrest this group of 13 
senior citizens who tried to participate in this single day markup. Not 
realizing the difference between markup and hearing, they tried to 
participate and ask questions about this Republican plan to cut 
Medicare by $270 billion in the Committee on Commerce. I went down with 
them after these 13 seniors were arrested, I guess a chance to see the 
lockup over here in DC. Being a former police officer, I have seen 
plenty of lockups, but I have never seen one in Washington, DC.

  So since we could not get hearings with the new majority, what did we 
do as Democrats? We actually went out on the lawn because we were 
denied a hearing room within the Capitol and the buildings that we have 
surrounding this Capitol and we went out on the Capitol lawn for open 
hearings on the Republican bill. We had to have open hearings so 
seniors and health care experts could tell us what all this stuff meant 
as it was laid out before us shortly before we had to vote on it. Why 
did we have the hearings? None of us ever were able to participate or 
see what was in the bill. The Republican plan to cut Medicare by $270 
billion was really written behind closed doors. It is hard to believe 
that in a single day in the Committee on Commerce where you and I sit, 
it was going to be the only hearing scheduled and that was the markup 
to pass the bill which was the centerpiece of the Republican budget to 
cut $270 billion so they could give a $245 billion tax cut to the 
wealthiest 1 percent of this country, the billionaires and the 
zillionaires.
  But did we have hearings in this Congress? Oh, yes, we had hearings. 
We had hearings, 59 days of them spent on Whitewater. We have been 
investigating that for 4 years. But they got 59 more days on that, one 
which there is no big demand to have that. Twelve days on Waco. 
Fourteen days of hearings on Ruby Ridge. But not 1 hearing on Medicare.
  Why are the Republicans so terrified of having a hearing on the 
public hearing on the Medicare bill? Because they know that the 
American public does not believe in cutting Medicare by $270 billion 
and doubling the seniors' Medicare premiums just in order to give a tax 
break to the wealthiest 1 percent of this country.
  Where are we now? We have the Dole economic plan? We hear so much 
about it. But are we having one hearing on the Dole economic plan? No. 
Once again, this is hot stuff. They do not want to have a hearing on 
something where someone may ask a question. The Dole economic plan, 
which is $548 billion, twice as much as the previous plan to cut 
Medicare, they do not even want to give us a sneak preview. But the 
Dole plan is a sneak preview of the upcoming cuts in Medicare. Most 
Republicans are not saying much about the Dole plan. They refuse to 
hold any hearings on the cuts necessary to finance the tax breaks for 
which once again favor the wealthiest 1 percent of this country.
  So once again we Democrats have stepped in with a series of hearings 
on the Dole economic plan. Democrats have been reinforced by a 
statement by the Senator from New York, Senator D'Amato, the cochair of 
the Dole campaign, who admitted last month, and if I can quote him, his 
quote was, ``You can't just be cutting all the discretionary spending. 
You're going to have to look at Medicare.

                              {time}  2115

  I would never say, if I were him, meaning Dole, until after the 
election, no way, no way, absolutely, I am not running this year, so I 
can say it and tell the truth.
  You take a look what the American people have seen, and the truth is 
now starting to come out, what has happened over these pass 20 months. 
I really believe that is why you see our Republican friends walking 
around with these buckets the last few days. I think they are walking 
around with the buckets because they are trying to bail themselves out 
with the American people, because they know we are having the election 
in about five weeks.
  So I appreciate, and I guess I have learned a little bit being in the 
minority, that if you bring forth legislation, include the American 
people. Let them have hearings. Let them ask questions. Use some common 
sense, and show some compassion. Whether it is our veterans, our 
seniors, trying to protect the environment, trying to protect the cops 
on the street that we ask to go out day in and day out and put their 
lives on the line, or trying to help your son, daughter, grandchildren 
to get an education. We can make these cuts, and we have done it. But 
you have to use common sense, and you have to show some compassion, 
something that was lacking in this 104th Congress.
  The things that were important to them, like Whitewater, Waco, Ruby 
Ridge, we have hearings on. The things that are very important to the 
American people, like proposed cuts in Medicare, we have no hearings.
  So I appreciate the opportunity to join you, as we have in these last 
20 months, not only join you on the Committee on Commerce, but also 
having these hearings, to try to get forth at what is really happening 
behind the closed doors with this new Republican majority. I hope they 
continue to walk around with their little gray buckets as a symbol of 
their achievements in this Congress, because those buckets, once again, 
mean they are trying to bail themselves out before November 5th.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's comments. If I 
could mention two things that he highlighted that I think are so 
important in concluding this special order this evening, one is the 
whole stealth aspect. It was amazing how many times on so many of the 
issues we discussed tonight, we were not told and the public was not 
told about what the true intentions of the Republican leadership was, 
until, as you said, it was almost too late, until they were about to 
bring the bill out, either in committee or on the floor, to actually be 
marked up and passed.
  I remember in the case of the Medicare cuts and the changes in 
Medicare, that it was nine months, we started in January of 1995, and I 
do not believe that those incidents that you were talking about took 
place until some in the summer of 1995.
  For that whole period, we kept hearing there was this budget out 
there that was going to provide this $245 million in tax cuts, mainly 
for the wealthy. But every time we asked what was it going to mean for 
Medicare, or Medicaid, for that matter, there was never an answer, 
until the very last

[[Page H11372]]

day effectively when the Committee on Commerce was asked to mark up the 
bill.
  It is incredible to think that such an important change, not only in 
terms of the cuts, but the changes, the substantive changes being 
proposed in Medicare that would have effectively gutted Medicare, and 
we could not find out about it and the public could not find out about 
that.
  We saw that time and time again with so much legislation, so many of 
the major changes being proposed, that we succeeded eventually in 
stopping once we found out what they were and once we could tell the 
American public what this was all. That stealth strategy continues 
today.
  As you point out, the Dole economic plan is the same way. We hear 
about the tax breaks, if you will. But the details of how they are 
going to go about implementing those cuts, what they are going to do to 
various programs, whether they are discretionary programs or 
entitlement programs, I think at one point in the plan that was put 
forth, when Mr. Dole put forth his plan, he actually admitted it was 
based at least initially on this year's budget, on the Republican 
budget that was passed this year. That budget itself would continued 
the major cuts in education, environment, Medicare, and Medicaid.
  But this would have to go way beyond that. We would see a lot more in 
terms of negative impacts on those programs, and particularly Medicare, 
because there is so much more that has to be found to reach that level 
of tax breaks, primarily for wealthy Americans.
  Mr. STUPAK. If I may, if it is based upon the Republican budget that 
was passed this year, that budget was already vetoed and rejected by 
the American people and by the President. I am glad to see him stand 
tough to protect the issues like Medicare, Medicaid, education, the 
environment and our veterans.

  If nothing else, for the listeners back home just again, let's go 
back to Medicare, something that affects all of us, our grandparents, 
our parents. We cannot have a hearing, but yet we will spend 59 days on 
Whitewater, 12 days on Waco, and 14 days on Ruby Ridge? Those are 
hearings that were for nothing more but to divide this country, to 
foster unfounded allegations, to just rip apart this country.
  But yet something that affects all of us, that we should be concerned 
about and actually could unite the country, balance the budget and yet 
still provide for our seniors and parents and grandparents, we do not 
get any hearings on that, but we want to talk about Ruby Ridge and Waco 
and Whitewater. The priorities have been backwards. They have been 
upside down.
  So, hopefully, as the fall unfolds, there will be a new majority come 
January, and we can get back on the right track of looking forward to 
working with the American people, not against them, not deceive them, 
not be decisive, but work forward and move this country forward.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman. I just want to say one 
thing: As the gentleman mentioned, being in the minority for the first 
time, because I was here before when we were in the majority for 
several years, as were you, but one thing that I learned and one thing 
that renews my faith, if you will, in our democracy, is that once we 
were able to get the word out, either on the floor here or back in our 
districts at town meetings or with the media or whatever, once we were 
able to get the word out to the American people, and even to some of 
our colleagues on the other side, about what the impact of these 
Republican leadership proposals were and how they were going to cut 
Medicare and how they were going to change the program, how they were 
going to cut back on environmental protection, what they were going to 
do to student loans and education programs, we were able to change the 
dynamics of what goes on here.
  That is why, even though we are coming to the close of this Congress, 
when I am asked, and I am often asked by reporters or constituents, 
``What did the Democrats accomplish in this Congress?'' And I say we 
halted, we stopped, these extreme measures from becoming law, 
collectively with the President. That is an accomplishment, and that is 
something we can be proud of. I think it is also an indication that 
this democracy works, that once you are able to speak out and get the 
truth out, it really does make a difference.
  Mr. STUPAK. Their contract of America, you never hear them talk about 
that anymore. You never hear them brag about it, as they did for the 
first 9 months, this contract is going to do this and that. They are 
running away from that contract, because it was not a Contract with 
America, it was a Contract on America.
  Now you do not see them campaigning on it. There are not all these 
wild promises, extreme positions. I think the American public, like us, 
learned in the last 20 months and said the truth has finally come out, 
as Mr. D'Amato said, and they are trying to bail themselves out with 
their little gray buckets. We look forward to the next few weeks.
  Mr. PALLONE. I want to thank the gentleman fro joining me in this 
special order tonight.

                          ____________________