[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 23, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1773-H1781]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                MEDICARE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sununu). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Before he leaves the Chamber, I want to say to the 
gentleman from California that many, many Members and in fact I am sure 
most Members of this Chamber agree with him in his comments about 
Representative, the Honorable Bob Dornan, because he was such a viable 
part of this body for many years. He is an extremely dedicated 
patriotic American of great intellect and energy, and I hope that the 
years are as good to me as they have been to Bob Dornan in terms of 
getting the job done.
  Mr. Speaker, tonight is the eve of the trustees report on Medicare. 
Each year

[[Page H1774]]

the trustees who are appointed, three of them by the President of the 
United States, give a state of affairs on Medicare, how it is doing, 
how much money it is bringing in, how many people are participating, 
what works and what does not work. We all remember on April 3, 1995, 
when those Clinton-appointed Medicare trustees gave us the very sad 
news that Medicare was going broke and if we did not act and act 
quickly to protect and preserve Medicare, that it would not be there 
for our grandparents and for future generations.
  I think what the Republican Party has tried to do since April 1995 is 
work to solve Medicare on a bipartisan basis, because, Mr. Speaker, my 
mother and dad depend on it. My great grandmother depends on it. My 
wife depends on it. My wife's grandmother depends on it. It is 
something we believe deeply as Americans that we need to protect and 
preserve.
  I have tonight joining me in this special order the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Miller], who has led that fight. The gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Miller] has, and he may have the need to correct me, more 
seniors in his district than any other district in the United States of 
America. It is not only very personal with him, but it is certainly 
political. So he has had to do everything he can to help it.
  I am going to yield the floor to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. 
Miller], but before I do I want to also say that I have the gentleman 
from Washington [Mr. Metcalf] with us, who is part of the freshman 
class in the 104th Congress who also has worked very closely and very 
energetically to protect Medicare. The gentleman from California [Mr. 
Hunter] is welcome to join us if he chooses to.
  Let me yield to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller]. Tomorrow we 
get the report. What is it going to tell us?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. The Medicare report is probably going to tell 
us essentially the same thing we have been hearing the past couple of 
years, that Medicare is going to be bankrupt in 4 more years. This 
report coming out from the administration includes people like the 
Secretary of HHS, Donna Shalala, the Secretary of Treasury, Robert 
Rubin, the Secretary of Labor, which we do not have one right now, and 
few other appointees. It is not in dispute what the facts are going to 
be in the report. The report is going to say that Medicare is going to 
be bankrupt sometime probably in 2002. That is only 4 years away. It 
may be a couple of months different from what it was last year, but the 
bottom line is Medicare part A is going to be totally out of money, 
because we started back in 1995 where the money flowing into the 
Medicare part A fund is less than the amount of money going out. Up 
until 1995, we had more money flowing in from the payroll tax, that is 
how we fund the Medicare part A program, we had more money going in 
than going out. It changed in 1995 and all the reserves will be totally 
exhausted by 2002.
  The gentleman is right. My congressional district in Florida is a 
beautiful area, southwest Florida, with lots of senior citizens. It has 
more senior citizens than any congressional district in the country. It 
is important for the people in my district because of the seniors in 
the district. It is important as a jobs issue. My economy is very 
dependent on Medicare because I have got more hospitals and doctors and 
nursing homes and home health agencies that employ people. That is the 
largest employer in my district. So it is a jobs issue. It is not just 
for the senior citizens.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, it is a jobs issue, but 
also as part of it, there are some inefficiencies in there and one of 
the results of that inefficiency is that Medicare inflation has been 
around 11 percent. Regular medical inflation has been in the 4 to 6 
percent range, depending on the year and so forth.
  Would the gentleman care to comment on that?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. What we find is that in the private sector, we 
found health care costs really being very manageable the past several 
years. Actually for larger businesses with over 100 employees, health 
care costs have even been going down for some of these companies. So 
what we should do is let us look at what the private sector is doing. 
That has been true in everything. Just look at what the private sector 
is doing and apply it to Medicare.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Is the gentleman meaning to tell me that Ford Motor Co. 
or IBM or Wal-Mart, their health care has not been going up as much as 
Government-run health care?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. In some years it has been going down. That is 
how successful they have been to help control costs. Under the Medicare 
plan that we are proposing, this is a bipartisan issue as the gentleman 
said. This is something that we have got to work together with the 
Democrats and Republicans, because the Democrats, despite what they 
said during the campaign last year, are just as committed as we are to 
save this program. We have got to save it. We have got to work 
together. Actually I have to commend the President. He has moved in our 
direction since the election, despite all the rhetoric last fall.  
Hopefully we are going to be able to work out something together. It is 
something that is absolutely essential to this country and we need to 
work together.

  But the gentleman is right. Big companies have actually had their 
costs go down for some years. What they have done is give people 
choices, instead of having one size fits all as we have in Medicare. 
Medicare is not a great program. My mother is on Medicare. She is 87 
years old, in a nursing home. It is very important obviously to my 
mother. But it is very complicated. She has to have a part A program, 
she has to have a part B program and she has to have a supplemental and 
it still does not pay that much. It does not pay any drug coverage.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Would the gentleman care to describe those briefly?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Of course Medicare part A is paid for by 
payroll tax. That is the part that is going bankrupt. The part A 
program pays hospitalization costs. When you go in the hospital, that 
is what it pays for is the doctor, the surgeon, the hospital bills. 
There is some nursing home coverage and a little bit of home health 
coverage there. Part B is outpatient coverage. Part B pays for home 
health and doctor bills. But part B unlike part A is paid mainly out of 
the Federal treasury. Twenty-five percent of it is paid by the senior 
citizens, about $46 a month. Whereas the other 75 percent comes right 
out of our Federal treasury. No one pays a penny into it. It is a pay-
as-you-go type plan.
  Supplemental, the senior citizens pay the full costs of it. They have 
a choice of about 10 plans. They pick the one they want. If they want a 
Cadillac plan, they pay a very expensive bill. If they want to take a 
lesser expensive version, they do not have to pay as much. But it is 
very complicated. No one in the private sector has to live with three 
insurance plans. Basically you just only have one plan. When I was in 
the private sector I had one plan. As a Federal employee I have one 
plan. That is the way it works. But not for senior citizens. We have 
created this very difficult plan. The benefits are not even that great 
sometimes. As I say, most of them do not get drug coverage. They do not 
have all the choices they want. It is a very paperwork, bureaucratic 
type plan. Everybody has been afraid to talk about Medicare. But the 
one thing right now at stake, we brought up the issue 2 years ago when 
the trustees' report came out, is this is something we have got to work 
together on. It is not sustainable continuing to grow at 10, 11, 12 
percent a year. It is going bankrupt. Looking at the numbers, going 
further off into the future, it is even worse.
  We have a two-part problem here, a short-term problem and a long-term 
problem. The short-term problem is bankrupt in 4 years, so we have got 
to act now. We have got to act this year, with the President, with the 
Democrats and Republicans, we have got to have a plan that saves it at 
least to 2010.
  Then we have a long-term problem, and that is what I call the 2010 
problem. 2010 is 65 years after the end of World War II. That is when 
the baby boomers were born, right at the end of World War II, so 
starting in the late 1940's. Those people are going to start retiring 
in 2010. The demographics really explode starting then. That is, the 
number of retirees is going to increase

[[Page H1775]]

very fast, from 2010 on. And the number of people working to support 
them on Medicare is going to be going down. So we are going to have 
fewer people working, paying payroll taxes to support retirees after 
2010.
  Mr. KINGSTON. What the gentleman is saying is it is our jobs working 
with the Medicare trustees on a bipartisan basis to act like 
fiduciaries and protect and preserve Medicare not just for the next 
election, not just for the term of our tenure in public office but for 
the next generations, so that it will be there tomorrow.
  As I understand the gentleman, the private sector health care 
inflation has been flat largely because the private sector has gotten 
out there and looked at different types of delivery systems, different 
alternatives. In our Medicare plan, we had some options for seniors. If 
you want to stay in traditional Medicare, you may, it is no problem if 
you want to just continue. In fact, if you do not elect to take an 
option you are automatically enrolled in traditional Medicare. But if 
you want a managed care plan, because as the gentleman has pointed out, 
it could give you free prescription drugs as part of the monthly 
premium. If you want a medical savings account, which is a deductible 
type plan, you could take that. At one time I know we talked about 
enrolling in the Federal employee health care plan or something like 
that, very close to it. Another option I remember was if you are, say, 
a retiree of General Motors and as part of your job description, your 
perk, if you will, was to be covered under health care the rest of your 
life, you could just elect that and not participate in any kind of 
Government-offered health care. In giving seniors these choices, which 
are the same choices, Mr. Speaker, that everybody has in America today 
and frankly I think I would like to upgrade my mother from a 1964 Blue 
Cross/Blue Shield plan. I do not expect her to drive the same 1964 
Chevrolet Biscayne that we had, actually a Ford Falcon, so why should 
she be confined by the same health care policy? Let us let seniors get 
the benefits of the 1990s. But by offering those things, we can bring 
down medical inflation as respects Medicare and not cut Medicare one 
dime. In fact, I remember last year, and the gentleman can correct me, 
but approximately the numbers were $190 billion, increased to $270 
billion, which is not a cut even if you do live at 1600 Pennsylvania 
Avenue.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. We are going to spend more money every year 
per person on Medicare. Medicare spending is going to go up every year. 
It is just that we need to slow down the rate of growth in spending, 
slow it down just a little bit but spend more money every year. As the 
gentleman said earlier, we need to look at this waste and fraud. 
Because when you have a government bureaucracy, there is so much waste. 
When I have town meetings and I have seniors talk about the waste in 
the system, there are some absolutely amazing stories. One of the 
stories, and actually this was covered, by the way. The Tom Brokaw news 
people had TV cameras at this town meeting.

                              {time}  2030

  And a lady stood up. It was in a mobile home park in Palmetto, 
Florida, and explained about, you know, this is a classic one of waste 
and fraud. It is she got a bill from the hospital. She had been in the 
hospital, and she was billed for her own autopsy, and so she calls up 
the hospital and said, ``You know, you did not do an autopsy on me, I'm 
still alive,'' and tried to explain to him that, you know, you cannot 
do an autopsy, I am still alive, and they came back and the hospital:
  ``Well, let me check the records first''; then came back and said 
``Oh, I'm sorry. That was a mistake. We did an EKG on you.''
  And she said, ``You didn't do one of those either.''
  And so it is amazing the number of little mistakes like that. I mean 
that was, might have been a billing-type mistake.
  Mr. KINGSTON. You know, though, I hear this in our town meetings on 
Medicare with seniors all the time is that the fraud and abuse, the 
sloppiness in billing is just unbelievable.
  My dad has diabetes, and he has macular degeneration, so he is 
legally blind. You know, diabetics have to check their blood sugar 
level all the time, and so in the condominium complex that he lives in 
Athens, GA the seniors all kind of help each other out. So one of his 
things is he gives advice to lots of his neighbors, and he says over 
and over again somebody goes to the doctor, the hospital, on Medicare 
for a head cold, they are billed for x-rays or whatever, it is just. 
And you do not know.
  There is another story of a woman just outside of Brunswick, GA, who 
instead of going to have stitches removed in Brunswick, the ambulance 
drove her to Jacksonville because it is legal under Medicare, and the 
Jacksonville trip allowed the ambulance company to charge $1,200 
whereas, had they just gone to Brunswick, it would have only been $200 
or $300.
  So legally they can be very, very aggressive on their delivery 
service just to get the higher amount. You never see that in the 
private sector. That was one of the reasons that health care inflation 
skyrocketed in the 1980's, but in the private sector, companies started 
getting aggressive about it and they brought that down.
  Now the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Schaffer] is here, and I know he 
is a freshman. He has already expressed interest in working on 
Medicare, and he has been waiting for tomorrow and the trustees' 
report, too.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. Well, thank you very much for yielding. 
This is truly a critical issue for us, and this report that is coming 
out tomorrow is a landmark report that I think the American public 
ought to pay close attention to, and we expect that we will mirror 
closely the last trustees' report that was released, and this notion of 
the bipartisan aspect of our concern about Medicare and our need to 
save and preserve the Medicare program is a very real aspect of our 
deliberation. And when you start with the very basis of the debate that 
exists on Medicare, I think you see that.
  This report is not a Republican report. In fact it is not really a 
Democrat report, although the trustees, the Medicare trust fund, are 
appointees of our President, Bill Clinton, and please help me with some 
of these names, Robert Reich, the Labor Secretary; it includes Donna 
Shalala as well. Maybe you can help me. Who else?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Robert Rubin, Secretary of Treasury, and the 
head of the Social Security Administration is on that. There is about 8 
or 9, I think, total.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. You know, and if you think about how 
many debates we have here where the basis for the debate is often the 
subject of disagreement on this particular issue, there is no denying, 
from either party or anybody involved, that this Medicare program is 
undeniably going to go bankrupt within 4 years. In fact, it is a fact 
that the Medicare program spends approximately $40 million every day. 
Every day; that is something that is very difficult for people to 
fathom, but I have to say, and I appreciate the chance to participate 
in this discussion tonight because when I, as a new Member here in 
Washington, have been on the job for about 4 months and running for 
Congress was an eye-opening experience for me. My grandmother, who 
lives out in Colorado Springs, told me; she said whatever you do back 
there in Washington, you have to save the Medicare program, and I 
assured her that we would, that that is our goal and our objective and 
that we would do whatever it takes to accomplish that.
  And you mentioned a few minutes earlier just about we certainly have 
the financial side of maintaining solvency of the fund. But there is 
also the behavioral side of Medicare itself, and what I mean by that is 
we have to change the system in a way that restores the patient-
physician relationship that we once had; this whole notion of a 
government third-party payer that will pay the bills with little 
questions asked, in many cases, causes, for a significant amount of 
fraud in many cases, for overtreatment and other examples of where 
questions that are just not asked as a consumer would perhaps. And you 
know the Medicare Plus program that the Republicans had proposed 2 
years ago and was eventually thwarted here in Washington involved those 
very opportunities for patients to have choice within the Medicare 
program and to be treated like real customers, real consumers of health 
care

[[Page H1776]]

to provide the consumer-driven accountability that you have in so many 
private aspects as well.
  So certainly we have to look at the financial side of increasing 
spending at a responsible rate so that we do not bankrupt the program 
as others have proposed to increase more than that; in fact, drain the 
account and result in ultimate bankruptcy, but we also have to look at 
the behavioral reforms to the program that allow us to be treated like 
real customers, like real consumers, and to restore that relationship 
which is so vital in the health care delivery system.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the gentleman who has worked so hard on it, the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Miller] do you believe you had mentioned 
that the President is a lot closer now? It is not an election year, we 
do not hear the demagoguery. Are we in the United States Congress going 
to put our seniors first this year, get a bill passed in the House and 
Senate and signed by the President?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Well, I certainly hope so. We have to. I mean 
4 years is not very long. I mean when we started this, it was 7 years 
before bankruptcy. Now it is just 4 years. So we have to do something, 
the President realizes it. And you know what we are hearing is that he 
wants to work out an agreement.
  You know, one thing has been interesting in the past few weeks back 
in my district and even up here: some of the frustrations with the 
bureaucracy. Let me tell you a couple of the situations, and that is 
what people get mad about with Medicare because it is, you know, the 
big bureaucracy in Washington makes the decisions, and these doctors 
are just saying they have never had it worse in Medicare. I mean they 
are getting more letters saying denied, denied, denied, and then the 
doctor just has to spend all this effort documenting why he did this 
procedure. And they said, ``I'm all ready to give up on the whole 
thing.'' I mean there are some doctors that are more senior. They are 
saying, ``Hey, I'm not ready to quit the whole practice of medicine. I 
cannot tolerate it any more.''
  Give you one other illustration. I had the deans of the medical 
schools in the State of Florida. We have, I think, four or five medical 
schools in the State all came to see me one day; the dean of the 
University of Florida, the University of South Florida, University of 
Miami and Nova actually.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Were their any Gators in the room? I am a Georgia 
Bulldog.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. I am a Gator now.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And the Seminoles, but the Gators, you are really 
pushing it even in the name of grandma.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. When I was in Florida the guy named Dooley 
that was there coaching, and we were not too fond of him, but now we 
like our plan. You know, Super Steve was playing when I was there, and 
so now he has brought us to great fame.
  But it was the frustration of the deans of the medical school because 
Medicare had come up with a ruling that was a retroactive ruling of how 
they are going to pay for medical school residents.
  Now I do not necessarily disagree with the details of what they are 
talking about doing, but the problem is they are going to go 
retroactive back to 1992 or so. That was it could bankrupt our medical 
schools; it was unbelievable. I hate anything retroactive. We have 
retroactive death taxes here, a couple of years ago President Clinton's 
bill, but the thing is when you go retroactive, and they feel so 
helpless down there, the deans of the medical schools; we cannot afford 
these millions of dollars retroactively. We have got to pay back.
  If you are going to change the policy, fine, change it, give us the 
right notice. We will work under whatever rules Washington's 
bureaucracy decides. And that is the problem. One size fits all, 
whether it is my local. The dermatologists in the State of Florida have 
had a certain procedure on treating skin cancer. Well, maybe there is 
an abuse of it by Medicare, but only in the State of Florida. So the 
State of Florida Blue Cross in effect banned it for all the doctors, 
and the dermatologists are saying wait a minute; you know, you could do 
it in Arizona, you can do it in Georgia, but the dermatologists now 
across the board, all of them, cannot use this procedure unless you 
have got great documentation. I mean it is unbelievable.
  You know, there was an abuse, but when you have a government-run 
system, one size fits all, you set it up to try to figure a way around 
the system.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, it is interesting. You mentioned that a friend of 
mine sells bandages to Medicare suppliers, and it is kind of a cross 
between the regular bandage and a gauze bandage, and it is more 
sophisticated than an ordinary bandage but is no big deal. He says that 
they can be made for $3. Under Medicare you can legally bill up to $29 
on there.
  So he comes to a town meeting, and he and I make a big deal about 
this bandage, and I show it up, and, you know, of course it is the kind 
of poster child you look for; you know, public officials and so forth. 
And so I showed it. The only time he has ever been audited by the 
Federal Government was after he put this, after he basically blew the 
whistle on this crazy bandage.
  And it is the same thing, only the government would come up with such 
weird rules and regulations and then appear to be a little bit punitive 
when somebody blows the whistle on it, and I hope that it works out.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. I mean, as you were saying, the gentleman from 
Colorado, somebody, you got to be concerned about the patient-doctor 
relationship, and I mean just kind of like the dermatologist situation 
in Florida. For all the dermatologists in Florida, only Florida, they 
came up with a new set of rules, and that, you know, says I mean maybe 
there is a problem there, but, you know, to come up with a blanket rule 
is interfering with that patient-doctor relationship, and there is a 
great deal of frustration, more frustration with our doctors and my 
doctors in my area than I have seen in my 4 years here in Congress 
talking about that issue so. And it is the bureaucracy, and they say, 
oh well, we have got to save money, and so there is a problem here. We 
will write some new rules. Well, you know that is what we need to do is 
open up the marketplace.
  You know one of the options we have talked about by the way in the 
bill last year, and hopefully it will be included in it this time 
around, is something called provider service organizations, which is 
really a great opportunity for local communities to provide their own 
health care. Most people get their health care in the local community, 
and what we want to do is give the opportunity for the local hospital 
and doctors to go together and offer a package or plan to the seniors.
  Now insurance companies are not too keen on this, admittedly, but the 
hospitals and doctors say, hey, we can compete with them because they 
feel frustrated that the Blue Cross or Travelers are going to beat up 
on them. What we want to do is, hey, if Sarasota Hospital and their 
doctors want to do one, if Savannah Memorial Hospital or whatever the 
name of the hospital is in Savannah, wants to get together with their 
doctors and offer one, if they want to get together in Denver or 
whatever city and let the doctor and hospital work together to compete 
with a Blue Cross plan or a Travelers plan or the traditional Medicare, 
which, you know, should continue, that is the type of pressures that 
will give flexibility to a system, market pressures, just what is 
happening in the private sector can really slow down the rate of growth 
in spending because we are going to spend more money in the system as 
long as the amount of money is still growing. I think we can preserve 
and protect it and save it for our seniors and strengthen it at the 
same time, because we need to strengthen Medicare not just for the long 
term.
  Mr. BOB SCHAFFER of Colorado. If the gentleman will yield, you know 
the strengthening is precisely how we pay for our program to maintain 
the solvency of the Medicare trust fund, and the programming, the $30 
bandage example, is one that I hear a lot, not bandages per se in my 
town meetings, but I hear a lot of examples just like that. And what I 
hope people will realize is that those kinds of occasions that occur 
every day in America in fact rob and steal medical opportunities for 
the millions of Americans who receive health care and benefits through 
the Medicare Program. And without a doubt, these different options and 
examples that you mention of various

[[Page H1777]]

service delivery systems and networks that we would hope recipients 
would be able to choose among and be a part would end the example of 
the $30 bandage, will put an end to the example of the $200 splinter 
removal, as I had heard out in Colorado, examples like this that you 
just routinely hear, and it is just remarkable.
  I would like you, though, to speak to just one more time. I do not 
think we can say it often enough that our plan actually envisions 
spending more money per recipient over the next 5 to 6 years than 
certainly what we are spending today. Many people think that the only 
way you can save Medicare is to somehow cut spending or cut funding for 
the program. We are not talking about that at all. In fact, we are 
talking about increasing the per-capita benefit to somewhere around 
$6,700 per recipient. Today I think we are around $5,000 per recipient, 
somewhere around that neighborhood.
  But by increasing the spending at a responsible rate and at the same 
time putting the patients and giving them some real incentive in the 
accountability side of this delivery system, that is how we are going 
to save the program, that is how we are going to maintain solvency, and 
hopefully that is what is going to ultimately earn the bipartisan 
support here in the House and the Senate and over at the President's 
office as well to sign Medicare reform in a program that will save the 
program.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is too bad that in Washington you can always demagog 
out of fear and you can get reelected through race-baiting or scaring 
seniors or saying that children are going to be starved on the streets. 
It is an old tactic.
  Last year, before the gentleman was here, Haley Barbour, the chairman 
of the Republican Committee, offered $1 million to any Democrat or any 
person who could show where Medicare was being cut in the bill. Now do 
you not know the pressure that partisans were under to try to prove 
that the Republicans were, in fact, cutting Medicare? I mean they would 
have loved to collect that million dollars because in addition to being 
millionaires, they could have been heroes, huge heroes.
  Not one person was able to do that. Medicare was not cut. Yet 
unfortunately, in Washington we have a few demagogs who like to scare 
seniors and so forth, but the gentleman has raised a good point. Per 
recipient, it went from approximately 5,200 to about 7,100, and we are 
going to continue to work, and the doors are wide open in the 
discussions and the dialogs and the committee rooms. Democrats and 
Republicans, come on in, let us do what is responsible. Tomorrow we 
will get the report, and we are going to have to continue addressing 
this.

                              {time}  2045

  One of the things we need in Medicare policy is common sense. One of 
the things that we have tried since we have become the majority of 
Congress is bring common sense, Republican, American ideas to the 
streets of America. Common sense is at a premium in Washington. It is 
just such a scarcity.
  But the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Jack Metcalf] is one of the 
Members who has been working very, very hard in the Housing Opportunity 
Caucus to make homeownership and that part of the American dream real 
to millions of more Americans than have houses right now. So I am proud 
to yield to the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Metcalf].
  Mr. METCALF. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely critical to protect and preserve 
Medicare. We cannot allow it to continue toward bankruptcy. It will be 
very difficult, but I will tell you, we will succeed in keeping 
Medicare so people can stay in their own homes.
  Homeownership is something I am critically interested in. I will 
briefly comment on this as related to Medicare. Very important, really 
critical, and that is homeownership.
  As chairman of the Republican Opportunity Caucus, I can sincerely 
speak on one of the most important issues facing our Nation, the 
ability of our people to realize the American dream and participate in 
one of our greatest opportunities, homeownership, and the right of the 
Medicare recipients to stay as long as possible in their own homes.
  While there is no magic silver bullet in finding ways to increase 
homeownership, we can find solutions by working together. In some 
cases, Federal programs such as the low income housing tax credit, FHA, 
HUD or the Federal Home Loan Bank have been the catalyst for developing 
homeownership.
  Clearly, Mr. Speaker, these important programs I have mentioned, and 
important ownership encouragements, such as maintaining the home 
mortgage deduction, have brought people from renting to owning, 
fulfilling the dream of so many Americans.
  Not only does homeownership benefit the individual home buyer, but 
the spin-off of the home building industry is the catalyst for our 
national economy. Rightly so, new housing starts are always one of the 
first indicators we look for in an ever-growing and expanding economy.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republican Housing Opportunity Caucus is committed 
to identifying models that work for housing and homeownership. It is 
often the case that partnerships fostered between nonprofit 
organizations, lenders, government and builders are needed to solve the 
ownership problem. This is the goal of our caucus.
  The mission of this caucus is to give Members of Congress, who are 
interested in housing policies, an opportunity to discuss their 
concerns and coordinate a response. A symposium that we will soon 
sponsor will bring in people with hands-on experience in providing 
affordable housing. We want their ideas and creative suggestions to 
implement and expand homeownership, especially for first-time home 
buyers.
  Housing is not just a roof over your head but a place you can call 
home, a place you own. Thus far, over 30 of my colleagues have joined 
this caucus. We remain committed to expanding homeownership and 
opportunities for everyone, and protecting Medicare so seniors, like 
me, can stay in their homes as long as possible.
  I personally invite Members to join the caucus and look forward to 
working together to find solutions that will expand homeownership and 
fulfill the homeownership American dream.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for discussing what he is up to 
in the homeownership conference, because another thing that will bring 
about homeownership, as much as anything else, is balancing the budget, 
and we are going to be talking about that, because, as the gentleman 
knows, Alan Greenspan has said that balancing the budget could reduce 
interest rates on home mortgages as much as 2 percent, and that would 
be significant towards everybody participating in the American dream.
  There are a lot of quirky things that we are trying to bring common 
sense policy to. One of them is in the subject of sugar, and, Mr. 
Speaker, we are not going to get back to the Hershey's bipartisan hugs 
and kisses dialogue when we talk about sugar. But the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Miller] has a program that eliminates the sugar program. 
So I wanted to yield to him and ask him what is the sugar program and 
why should we eliminate it?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. I thank the gentleman.
  Last year we worked very hard, and the gentleman worked very closely 
with me and with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], a Democrat, 
to do away with the sugar program. We are going to try to have a 5-year 
phaseout.
  I look at the sugar program as one of the most egregious examples of 
corporate welfare that we have here in Washington. Anybody who believes 
in reducing the size and scope of government has to believe in getting 
rid of this program, phasing out this program, because the sugar 
program is big government at its worst.
  What the sugar program does is it is a cartel. I think the gentleman 
from Texas [Mr. Armey] says it is the worst cartel we have had since 
OPEC. It is the cartel that controls the amount of sugar available in 
the United States, and it does this by restricting imports in such that 
the price of sugar is kept almost at twice the world price. If the 
world price is 12 or 13 cents, in the United States we pay 22 or 23 
cents a pound for sugar. It costs the American consumer $1.4 billion a 
year.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask the gentleman, it costs the American 
consumers the difference in the world price versus the domestic price, 
but does it cost you in taxes?

[[Page H1778]]

  Mr. MILLER of Florida. It costs in several areas in taxes. Because, 
first of all, the American consumer is the American taxpayer. So I am 
not sure of the distinction. When the American consumer pays $1.4 
billion more for sugar than they need to, it costs the American 
taxpayer, too.
  But it costs the taxpayer in other ways we don't realize. For example 
the sugar program is bad for the environment. It really is bad for the 
Everglades. There was an editorial in the New York Times on Sunday 
talking about the Everglades problem and sugar's contribution to it.
  Now sugar is not the only problem to the Everglades. It is a major 
contributor to the destruction of the Everglades and the Florida Bay. 
The problem with it, for example, is to solve the Everglades problem, 
part of the solution is to buy 100,000 acres of land in the Everglades' 
agricultural area. Last year, we put $2 million in the farm bill to 
help buy that land.
  We are going to buy 100,000 acres, most of it in sugar, but because 
of the sugar program, we are going to pay an inflated price for the 
land. It is going to cost us probably $100 million more to buy this 
land from the sugar farmers because of the sugar program. It is crazy.

  Mr. KINGSTON. Because the Government is the reason that land is 
higher, and yet the Government is going to pay the higher cost, which 
it costs.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Right. That is what makes it so crazy is that 
we are, in effect, subsidizing sugar again; we are buying that land.
  Another little interesting subsidy about the sugar program is we 
cannot grow enough sugar in the United States to satisfy demands, so 
there is no choice about the fact whether we do not import or not. We 
have to import sugar.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not true that we import 100 percent or 99 percent 
of our tea, which is true, we do not grow tea domestically? Many people 
have said we have to preserve the American supplier because we cannot 
be dependent. But I think the reality is the dependency is overseas to 
those markets to make sure that America continues to buy their sugar.
  So to say that there is going to be a sugar shortage because of the 
change in the sugar domestic policy is ridiculous because we never had 
a tea shortage, or at least none in recent memory that I can recall.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. We have to be proud of American agriculture. 
It is the most efficient and productive in the world. We are the major 
exporter of agriculture products. I do not know the number, but that is 
one of our largest trade surpluses we have.
  I have a lot of citrus in the State of Florida, of course. We cannot 
consume all of the citrus we grow in the State of Florida. We have to 
export. Tropicana is my largest employer in my district. Twenty-eight 
percent of the juice they produce there in my area goes outside the 
United States. Fifty percent of the fresh grapefruits in the State of 
Florida are shipped outside the United States.
  So we have to export some products and some products we have to 
import. I mean, that is just a fact. Sugar, we just do not have the 
land.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask my colleague on the subject of imports, so 
not only are we subsidizing large, corporate American sugar growers, 
but we are also, if I hear the gentleman correct, subsidizing foreign 
sugar growers; is that correct?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. That is right.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And then let me ask the gentleman this question, are 
there non-American citizens participating in the sugar program, and are 
they getting paid to do that?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. The gentleman asked a couple questions. One 
is, one reason we call it corporate welfare is that there are at least 
33 farms that benefit by a million dollars a year. Most of the benefits 
go to big sugar farmers, sugar plantations in the State of Florida. The 
largest one, as a matter of fact, is controlled by a family who are not 
U.S. citizens.
  But the interesting point on this, and it really makes me bothered by 
this whole thing about importing sugar, Australia has a free market for 
sugar. We should be able to compete with Australia. They sell sugar to 
anybody in the world 12 or 13 cents a pound, but not to the United 
States. We do not want to pay 12 or 13 cents. We insist on paying the 
full price; the United States insists on 22 or 23 cents a pound.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Even though we can get it for about half that price.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Not just half price, but, no, we insist we 
will pay our price for it whether it is coming from the Dominican 
Republic or what have you.
  This is a bad jobs issue, too. The sugar program is killing jobs in 
the United States. Let me give a couple of illustrations.
  First of all, we have sugar refineries that are going out of 
business. We have closed 40 percent of the sugar refinery production in 
the United States since this sugar program came into existence in 1981, 
40 percent. These are good-paying jobs.
  I had a press conference last week, and I had these members of the 
AFL-CIO surrounding me coming down from New York City and Baltimore 
saying, ``Hey, we are going to lose our jobs, this is my career, and we 
are going to have to shut down because there is not enough sugar in the 
United States to keep these mills open.''
  But the other issue why we are losing jobs is, because of the high 
price of sugar, we are driving jobs outside the United States. Canada. 
Canada, you can buy sugar for about half the price that we do here.
  Why would a candy company that uses a lot of sugar continue producing 
in the United States when they could shift the production to Canada, 
produce the candy there and send it back to the United States? And that 
is exactly what is happening.
  Mr. KINGSTON. In fact, there is a candy cane company in Georgia who 
tells me that the biggest competitor is not in the candy cane business, 
the biggest competitor is the U.S. Government, who makes it so that 
they have to buy sugar at an inflated price, and because of that, 
Canadian candy cane manufacturers can come in there. And he can beat 
the Canadian candy cane manufacturer any day of the week on a one-on-
one basis, but when the Government is also on the team of the Canadian 
folks, the American guy loses.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Right. It is just not fair. We should be proud 
of a lot we did with this farm bill last year. We made some historic 
changes with farm programs that went back all the way to the 1930s. It 
was a really historic change.
  Unfortunately, the only program that was not changed, basically, was 
sugar. All the other products, whether it is peanuts or dairy, had some 
really major changes. But not sugar. And it was unfortunate.
  So, hopefully, we are going to continue to address that issue in this 
Congress and see some results, maybe.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The interesting thing about the sugar program is that 
changes in compromises transitioning the sugar program to a free market 
program and protecting whatever very small farmers are out there. But 
as was said, most of the bulk of it, the benefits go to the large 
corporate farmers anyhow, but giving the programs the benefit of the 
doubt, compromises were offered. They were all rejected.
  The Miller-Schumer bill, which the gentleman has introduced, actually 
eliminates the programs and takes the American consumer out from the 
shackles of a Government cartel.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. It was actually the Miller-Schumer-Kingston 
bill last year. Right. It was a 5-year phaseout. So it was not 
something that was going to happen immediately. I am a big believer 
that we need to phase these programs out so we do not really punish 
people unfairly on this.
  We have to be fair to the American consumer, who is the American 
taxpayer. We are losing these jobs. It is just not the right way of 
having a big government program. It no longer needs to continue to 
exist in this country.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is interesting as we look at these things. I want to 
talk to the gentleman about the budget. When he says the taxpayers are 
paying, one of the things that they have to pay for is the 
administration of this ridiculous program.
  Another thing taxpayers are paying for is AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps 
takes kids who are volunteering and pays them. Now it is interesting. 
The President has this volunteer summit going

[[Page H1779]]

on this week in Washington. And Americans are great volunteers. I 
believe the statistic that I read, 90 million Americans volunteer 4 
hours a week each and every week, and that includes people who make and 
bill out $4 or $5 an hour to people would bill out $300 or $400 an 
hour.
  Everyone likes to volunteer in America and participate, and it is one 
of the great things about our country. Yet, the President's main 
program has been to take young children and start paying them to do 
what their older brothers and sisters and parents have been 
volunteering to do.
  Now the cost for that and the President's justification is that it is 
an idea to get them interested in participating; it helps them with 
student loans and so forth. And yet, the cost per student is $26,000, 
Mr. Speaker, for volunteers; and the student only gets $1,500 of that. 
Where is the difference? The bureaucracy.

                              {time}  2100

  Once again, we have a program that is doing nothing but growing the 
bureaucracy. So the Congress goes Republican, the Republicans go in 
there and say, let us audit AmeriCorps and see how it is that the 
program that pays volunteers $1,500 costs $26,000 per volunteer. We 
found, after ordering this audit, that the books were in such bad shape 
that they could not be audited. Our budget is full of ridiculous and 
archaic things like that. As the President stands in the well of the 
House of Representatives and says, the era of big government is over 
with, in fact, his budget insists on increasing the size of big 
government.
  Let me show the gentleman this chart, Mr. Speaker. This is the 
Clinton budget which he says will reduce spending and balance the 
budget by the year 2002. In fact, in the year 2002, the Clinton budget 
proposal has a $69 billion deficit.
  Now, if we say an increase in Medicare is a cut, maybe we can call a 
$69 billion deficit an even budget, I don't know, a zero balance. But 
it is not true.
  Here is what is even worse than that, 98 percent of the deficit 
reduction in the Clinton budget comes within the last 2 years. That is 
the equivalent of me saying I am going to lose 30 pounds over the next 
10 months, and not losing anything for the first 9 months and then that 
last month go on a starvation diet, like anybody thinks I am going to 
make the goal. It does not even happen.
  Then, in the year 1998, which is a year away, it increases the 
deficit by $24 billion compared to not even passing his budget. 
Clearly, Mr. Speaker, we cannot be playing games like this. The time 
has come to balance the budget.
  My friend, Michael Quido, who is an evangelist, I do not know if the 
gentleman gets him in Florida or not, tells the story about a frog that 
got caught in the road, got caught in a pothole in the road. People in 
Florida have all of these sink holes, so they can identify with this. 
The frog gets caught, his buddy frog comes over there and tries to pull 
him out. He pulls and pulls and pulls and cannot get the frog out of 
the pothole.
  So his buddy says: I will try to come back to get you tomorrow. Just 
hang in there. So he goes back home and has dinner, a couple of flies 
and grub worms with the family. The next thing you know, the frog that 
was in the road caught in the pothole comes through the door. He said, 
how did you get out of the pothole? We tried and tried and tried and we 
could not get you out of the pothole. How did you get out? He said: 
When you were trying I just wanted to get out because I knew I needed 
to get out. But after you left a truck was coming, and I had to get 
out.
  Now, that is the position of the U.S. Congress right now. We are 
stuck in the pothole. We would like to balance the budget, but in 
reality, we can go home and tell everybody it is somebody else's 
problem. We can portray ourselves as a solution and say that we really 
cannot do it now, but we are trying, and we can talk this good game.
  The fact is, we cannot defy gravity much longer, Mr. Speaker. It is 
time to admit a truck is coming down the road to smash all of us 
politically, nationally, economically. It is time to balance the 
budget, and it is time to quit fooling around about it.
  I know the gentleman from Florida has worked very hard as a member of 
the Committee on the Budget to try to come up with some programs that 
the Clinton administration will agree to eliminate and that we can move 
toward balancing the budget. I know the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich] has worked very hard with the White House since January trying 
to negotiate. Are my colleagues getting anywhere?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, balancing the budget is very, 
very hard work. It is not easy, because a lot of the programs are good 
programs in the government. The problem is whether the Federal 
Government should really be doing them.
  My colleague mentioned AmeriCorps. I am sure there is some good work 
being done by AmeriCorps ``volunteers'' in this country, and I am sure 
they can show us some of the programs that they are helping with. And I 
think we could say, well, that is fine.
  The question is, first of all, it is not a volunteer program. I mean, 
it is a paid-work program. It is a make-work program. And for someone 
who is a big believer in volunteer work, I never was in politics before 
and my background is volunteer work. I had my kids volunteer, my wife 
volunteers, we have done everything. In terms of helping with arts 
organizations or mental health organizations or day care programs, we 
are strong supporters of helping the community. That is what makes the 
backbone of a great community where we live now.
  So I am a big believer in volunteer work. But when you get paid, that 
is a job. So let us stop calling AmeriCorps a volunteer program. It is 
a jobs program.
  Why do we need a new jobs program? We want to have college kids; 
well, let us help work study. That is a good program. It helps kids 
work for the university or do different jobs and get paid for it. But 
it is a jobs program. So it really bothers me when you say it is 
volunteer. Oh, well, we have a volunteer army. It is volunteer to get 
in, but one is a paid soldier, and it is a career when one gets in. So 
we have to differentiate. But we can go program after program; and 
sitting on the Committee on Appropriations as we both do, we have to 
make these tough choices. They are not always bad programs, someone is 
always there to defend them.
  But I am more optimistic now. We start with the ideas, the rhetoric 
is very different. When we first came here in 1993, talking about 
balancing the budget was not talked about. We were the only ones 
talking about it. We were just talking on this side of the aisle. At 
least now, everybody is talking about it, assuming we are going to 
balance the budget in the year 2002. So at least we are starting with 
the premise that we are going to reach a goal. That was not true 4 
years ago, so we have come a long way. Unfortunately, I am not sure the 
facts will back up the rhetoric. The rhetoric is there, but at least we 
have accomplished the rhetoric.
  Mr. Speaker, the negotiations are going on, as the gentleman said, 
between Senator Domenici and the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kasich, from 
the House Committee on the Budget. We are at a critical juncture right 
now because, if we cannot get something to work with the administration 
on, we are going to have to proceed on our own to present a budget. We 
are prepared to move very quickly, because time is running out. I mean 
our fiscal year ends on September 30, so we have to have a budget and 
get moving on the appropriation process and all that.
  The President said he presented a balanced budget. And as the 
gentleman said, it is smoke and mirrors, and the gentleman from Ohio 
[Mr. Kasich] uses phrase, it gives smoke and mirrors a bad name because 
of the games they played with the issue.
  But there are serious negotiations going on. I think it is very 
difficult for the President, Dick Morris' theory, and the triangulation 
is separating us from the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. If he 
is willing to sacrifice the liberal wing, the party who say they are 
for a balanced budget, but I do not think really mean it, we have a 
chance to get a deal.

  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask the gentleman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. 
Kasich] has been negotiating with the

[[Page H1780]]

White House in good faith since January. And his analogy is, it is like 
selling a house to somebody. They say I like your floor plan, I like 
your shrubbery, I like your neighborhood, I like your price, but they 
keep coming and coming with everything but a contract. At this point, 
my colleague says it is time to fish or cut bait, and they are not 
doing that.
  So here is my question. Say the White House is up to its usual tricks 
and they will say one thing publicly but behind the scenes not agree to 
a budget. What do we do in the House? Can we go ahead without a budget 
and pass our appropriations bills and avoid a government shutdown, or 
does Clinton want to have another government shutdown?
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Actually I think the President really wants a 
balanced budget, but we will see. We are at a critical juncture over 
the next couple of weeks. We will know whether we can work out an 
arrangement so that we can have a balanced budget with the President 
over the next couple of weeks. If we do not, we are going to find the 
Budget Committee moving very fast forward and presenting the budget 
that we will vote on here in the House certainly before the Memorial 
Day break. And then the Committee on Appropriations can move ahead with 
all 13 of their appropriations bills.
  So we had a meeting in the Committee on the Budget this afternoon, 
and I do not want to be optimistic or pessimistic. We are at a very 
critical point right now, and we just do not know what we are going to 
come forward with over the next few days.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, here is a budget that has been proposed 
from the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann], one of the members of 
the committee. His budget excludes Social Security revenue and, as the 
gentleman knows, Mr. Speaker, Social Security is mixed in with the 
general budget. What his does is actually protect Social Security by 
putting it on a separate line and then, in addition to balancing the 
budget by the year 2002, one thing the Neumann budget has that I really 
think is very important, and I do not think this can be picked up by a 
camera, Mr. Speaker, but this is a schedule for balancing the budget 
and zeroing out the national debt. And in the Neumann budget, by the 
year 2023, my children and grandchildren, your children and 
grandchildren, can wake up and say the national debt is gone. The $6 
trillion national debt, that generation of Americans, can live without 
having that dark cloud hanging over them.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman mentioned Social 
Security. Social Security generates approximately $75 billion more in 
revenue a year than it pays out. So actually, our deficit is worse than 
we realize, because Social Security is counted in there.
  What is really good about the Neumann budget is it takes care of the 
national debt issue and it gets Social Security on a sound basis.
  We have talked about Medicare earlier, we have to talk about Social 
Security. It does not go bankrupt for another 20 years, so we have a 
little bit of time. But the fact is it is hiding how bad the deficit is 
today; $75 billion of our deficit, it should be higher by $75 billion, 
because Social Security is where that money is.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Essentially, when we talk about Social Security, is 
what seniors are saying, is protect it from general highway 
appropriations, or AmeriCorps, or the NEA, or whatever the folks want 
to spend money on; just use the Social Security money only for Social 
Security. That is what seniors say.
  What the younger folks say is, put me in a private program; the 
existing program is not going to be there when I retire. So the great 
beauty of this Neumann budget is he calls it a Social Security 
preservation budget. I call it the grandma and the grandbabies' budget, 
because it looks at both spectrums of our population, the demographics, 
which I think is extremely important.
  Let me read the gentleman some statistics that were given to me by a 
man named Pete Davies of Sun City, AZ. It says, prior to 1929 it was a 
disgrace for an administration to run a deficit. Out of the 140 years 
between the year 1790 and 1929, there were 87 years in the history of 
the United States when there was a surplus, and that resulted in a 
reduction of whatever debt had been out there. There were four periods, 
from 1801 to 1811, 1922 to 1934, 1879 to 1892, and 1919 to 1929 where 
the Nation operated for a decade or more with a surplus every year, and 
that was considered a responsible government. The longest period prior 
to 1929 in which there was a deficit every year were the 8 years of 
1857 to 1864, which included the Civil War. So there was a reason, a 
viable reason to have a deficit.
  Mr. Speaker, the longest period with a deficit without a war was the 
5 years of 1846 to 1850. Then of course there was a deficit between 
1930 and 1945, 16 years, but that was right after World War I and 
during World War II.
  But during this last period when we have had deficits since 1969, or 
actually since 1970, 1969 was the last time we had a balanced budget, 
we have not had a major war, certainly a civil war or of World War II 
proportions. So it is absolutely time that we got this under control 
and do what is responsible.
  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Sun City, AZ. I have a Sun City in my district 
in Florida.
  One thing I think for senior citizens, and I meet with them all the 
time, most senior citizens, they lived through the Great Depression and 
World War II. They want to do what is right for this country. In fact, 
a lot of them resent the fact that most Americans think all seniors 
want is more, more, more. That is not necessarily true. Some of their 
organizations that, so called, represent them up here say that, but the 
seniors back home do not always feel that way.
  I had an interesting conversation on the phone last week with a 
constituent who lives in a very, very large mobile home park, these are 
not wealthy retirees. This lady was from Indianapolis. He was in fact 
leaving this Saturday to go back to Indianapolis, 84 years old, lost 
her husband recently. She is getting this extra money from Social 
Security. I do not need it. This debt is bad. How can I get my check, 
give it back, and have it applied to the debt. I do not want to just 
give it to the government to spend more money.
  She wanted to give it back to the government to pay down its debt. I 
thought that was very noble of her, and I called and we chatted on the 
phone the other day. That makes me feel so good. They know there is a 
problem there. They know it is not right for their grandchildren and 
this country and future generations, they are willing to do their 
share. I do not need this COLA or this increase, I do not think we 
should stop that at all. The seniors are willing to do their fair 
share, they just want to make sure that everybody contributes to it, 
the farmers and the military, everybody.
  Mr. KINGSTON. So are farmers, so are veterans and so are business 
people. Somehow, Washington does not get the message. Sometimes they 
get beat around up here, as you do, people come to the office, you have 
to vote, and you are darned if you do and darned if you do not on an 
issue.

                              {time}  2115

  You go home and you realize that the guy in the morning who wakes up 
at the crack of dawn, who puts his lunch together and eats it out of a 
lunch pail, drives maybe 20 miles to work, and comes home late at night 
after putting in a full day, he is tired, his kids are there and his 
wife has had a full day at her job, they are not disappointed in the 
vote that we may have cast because they want a government that works. 
They just want good, commonsense policies, a balanced budget. They want 
an American dream they can pass on to their children and grandchildren, 
they want a good future that they can retire with a health care program 
that is there and a neighborhood that is safe.
  If they can have that, that is what they want. I think what they are 
asking from you and me as their representatives in Washington is just 
to do what is right, to do what is good for America. If you do that, do 
not worry about lobbyists and the big government crowd, and then the 
day is a good day.
  I go home and think about those folks, because often they do not 
write. Many times they do not have business cards, they do not have 
titles and so forth, but that is whose interests we really have to look 
out for. That is who we have to make more of a priority.

[[Page H1781]]

  Mr. MILLER of Florida. Exactly. As Ronald Reagan said, this is a 
great country filled with good people. There are so many good people, 
it makes you feel good to be in America. Especially senior citizens, 
they want to do what is right in this country. They recognize we have 
problems in this country. They are willing to make their contribution, 
but as the gentleman says, we have talked to veterans groups. It is not 
always me, me, me, and that is too bad that some organizations here 
advocate that.
  We are moving in the right direction. The rudder is right, we are all 
talking about balance the budget, balancing the budget and getting 
fiscal responsibility back in Washington. Now is a chance, the best 
chance ever in our lifetimes, to really bring that fiscal sanity back 
here and get a balanced budget by the year 2002. I am more optimistic 
today, whether we deal with the administration or we just do it on our 
own.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I am glad to hear that. I thank the gentleman for being 
with us tonight in this special order.

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