[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 54 (Wednesday, April 30, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H2081-H2088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    ISSUES FACING THE 105TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bob Schaffer of Colorado). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 60 minutes.

[[Page H2082]]

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure to be with you 
tonight and discuss the many issues that are facing the 105th Congress.
  One of the things that we will be voting on very soon is the 
supplemental appropriations bill. That is a fancy word for a bill 
designed to send aid to the folks who have been victims of flooding in 
the Midwest. It also funds the continuation of troops in Bosnia.
  There are a lot of us who want to get our troops home from Bosnia. 
But at this point we still need to fund the ones that are there, and we 
need to have the debate about getting them home also. But the two 
purposes of this funding bill are emergency for the flood victims and 
emergency for Bosnia.
  Politics is politics, and we cannot pass a bill around here without 
something totally unrelated being attached to it. That is always going 
to be the case, and that is the case with this bill that we are 
considering. One of the nonemergency items which many people in this 
House have supported is increased funding for WIC, which is the Women, 
Infants and Children Program. It is a milk formula program, and the 
program does a lot of good.

                              {time}  1945

  We have identified in our society that if we make sure that a 
pregnant woman has a proper diet, that the chances of the baby being 
born without medical complications is much greater; and, similarly, in 
the first couple of years of the life of the child, if the child is 
getting proper nutrition and proper diet, then the child experiences 
far fewer health care problems, which in terms of budget are more 
expensive. So it is an ounce of prevention.
  Now, the Democrats and some of the liberals in the media, the New 
York Times, the L.A. Times, are actually accusing us of cutting WIC. 
Now, I am on the Committee on Appropriations, Mr. Speaker, and I am 
thinking, what is going on? No one has even brought WIC up.
  Here is what the Democrats are saying. They, in this flood bill, want 
to increase WIC funding $78 million. In the spirit of compromise, the 
Republicans on the committee said, listen, we are not certain that this 
needs to be increased, but $38 million is a compromise, it cuts it in 
half. The Democrats still said we are cutting it.
  Now, again, how do we cut what we are increasing? It is the same 
mentality, Mr. Speaker, that we heard last year from the President and 
many, many of the liberal members of the Democratic Party in 
Washington, that when we increased Medicare funding from $190 to $270 
billion, that was a cut. When we increased student loans from $26 to 
$41 billion, that was a cut. And when we increased the school lunch 
program 4.5 percent, that was a cut according to liberal mathematics.
  It is not the case in elementary school math classes all over the 
country, but somehow a lot of people got to Congress without ever 
taking math courses.
  Now, what the Democrats are obviously confused over, and I think very 
purposely in some cases playing games on, is that three points on WIC. 
I want to make sure Members realize, A, No. 1, there is a $100 million 
carryover from WIC. It is somewhat of an escrow account because we 
cannot estimate how many children and mothers will be participating in 
the program.
  But right now we are sitting on a $100 million escrow account. It is 
sitting there. It has not been depleted. It is unused. That is very, 
very important when we are talking about we have to do something in an 
emergency flood bill. That is A.
  B, welfare rolls have gone down 15 percent. Now, if we have 15 
percent of the national population getting off public assistance, why 
is it that the President wants to increase a welfare program on an 
emergency flood bill? It does not make sense. We cannot brag about how 
well welfare reform is working on the one hand and then on the other 
hand increase welfare benefits.
  No. 3. The Democrat liberals who are pushing to increase WIC funding 
at this time are using 1994 census data. Now, 1994 was 2\1/2\ years 
ago, and here we have a situation where those are the numbers they are 
using. But, Mr. Speaker, if we look at 1995 census data, we see that it 
is being fully funded. Conveniently, the liberals who are pushing for 
this WIC increase are forgetting the fact that there is new census data 
available from 1995 which shows full participation.
  Mr. Speaker, I really wish in the U.S. Congress, and in the political 
arena, people would start talking truth and cut out the politics. What 
is happening here is the same old crowd who were scaring our 
grandmothers last year, scaring students, and scaring the school kids 
regarding their lunch programs, they are trying to work them up into a 
frenzy again, saying that Republicans are picking on little children 
and mammas, which is hardly the case.
  But just to remind my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, listen to some of the 
charges made by Members of Congress in the past. The gentleman from 
Michigan [Mr. Levin], Congressional Record of March 23, 1995: ``You are 
abusive in getting at abuse. You are harsh. You use a meat axe against 
handicapped children and their parents.'' I cannot believe that kind of 
extreme language.
  Here is another one: ``They want to make sure that our children, who 
need preventive health care, do not have, and they are looking to close 
the nursing homes.'' That was the gentlewoman from Texas, [Ms. Jackson-
Lee], Congressional Record, May 9, 1996.
  Here is a quote from the President of the United States, Washington 
Times, February 25, 1995: ``What they'', meaning Republicans, ``what 
they want to do is make war on the kids of this country.''
  Now, Mr. Speaker, this is ridiculous extremist talk designed to 
incite, maliciously to deceive. Here are some more.
  Leon Panetta, White House Budget Director, USA Today, February 23, 
1995: ``What they are trying to do is literally take meals away from 
kids. The Republicans are trying to run over our kids.''
  Here is another quote. There are so many of them, Mr. Speaker, I do 
not know which ones to pull out. ``It is the most callous, cold-hearted 
and mean-spirited attack on this country's children I have ever seen in 
my life.'' Representative Collins, Congressional Record March 21, 1995.
  Here is a good one. The Vice President of the United States. I guess 
this is--well, I think the Vice President has his own problems at this 
point, but here is what the Vice President suggested: ``Republicans are 
genetically defective.'' This is a pretty serious thing. Frankly, it is 
a little sick and I hesitate to bring it up.
  This is a quote. Vice President Al Gore, October 30, 1994: ``Ollie 
North is banking on the fact that he can raise enough money from the 
extreme right wing, the extra chromosome right wing, to defeat Senator 
Robb.'' Oh man, what dignity coming from the Vice President of the 
United States.
  Here is another one, March 23, 1995. Representative Green, 
Congressional Record: ``We are talking about stopping children from 
having a hot lunch.''
  Here is another one. The gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro], 
May 9, 1996: ``And they are sincere in wanting to do harm to working 
men and women in this country.''
  Here is a great one. Mr. Miller, Congressional Record, August 3, 
1995: ``It is a glorious day if you are a fascist. It is a glorious 
day.''
  Here is another one, the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Rush, 
Congressional Record, October 3, 1995: ``The bloodsuckers in this 
Congress are lead by Count Dracula.''
  One more. Senator Leahy, Congressional Record, February 24, 1995: 
``This assault on America's children will be stopped.''
  Mr. Speaker, this is the kind of extreme garbage we have to hear on 
the floor of the House. And it is one thing for the Speaker and myself, 
as a Member of the Congress, to have to listen to such 
charges, because, after all, it is somewhat what our job is about, but 
to go out to school kids, to go out to the elderly, to go out to the 
moms and dads and say this kind of thing, I cannot imagine. I could not 
do that, Mr. Speaker.

  Certainly there are times when I get furious with the other side. I 
know the Speaker feels the same way. But I do not remember ever saying 
that a Member of the other side was going to use a meat cleaver on kids 
or wanting to put harm on American working men and women. What kind of 
low level has public debate in America sunk to when

[[Page H2083]]

people are allowed to use such extreme rhetoric and get away with it?
  Mr. Speaker, this is not a matter of winning a debate, this is a 
matter of public decency. We are the leaders in this country. We should 
act at a higher standard than mud wrestlers at the local bar. And yet 
this is what some of the Members of Congress seem to think is the right 
tactic.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, we are not cutting WIC. And if my colleagues 
listen to the cries about cuts in the past, we can see it is the same 
old game.
  Here is what has happened. When we passed welfare reform, and in 
doing so we scaled back a number of programs, we also increased the 
funding in other programs such as child care, such as parent support, 
tracking down deadbeat dads. And now, because these programs have been 
reformed, many people are getting off welfare.
  But many of the poverty brokers in government circles are doing 
everything they can to try to get around these reforms. They are 
saying, ``Oh, well, now we have a politically target rich environment 
for going after new programs and trying to raise the government 
involvement in folks' lives.'' Right about when they are about to get 
independent, the government poverty broker bureaucrats are rushing back 
in there and saying, ``Wait a minute, I found some gray area in this 
law. You do not have to get independent, even if you are a 25-year-old 
able-bodied male.''
  I am sick and tired of single women in my district with two kids, 
working a job, raising children and paying taxes and having to come 
home after a 60-hour week and supporting some 25-year-old male who is 
too lazy to work. It is time that we say to folks that they have got to 
get to work. Some of them just got to get out of the wagon and help 
pull it. I think it is very, very important.
  Mr. Speaker, we went a long way in the last Congress to change a lot 
of things. Welfare reform was only part of it. But, in addition, we 
passed the line item veto so that the President of the United States 
could zap fat out of the budget. We passed security reform litigation. 
We passed a tough gift ban. We passed lobbyist registration, the first 
time in 50 years. We passed products liability reform.
  We ended farm subsidies and gave farmers the freedom to farm so that 
they would have more flexibility in deciding which crops to plant and 
when to plant them.
  We passed the Paperwork Reduction Act so that businesses that do 
commerce with the Federal Government would not have to fight so much 
red-tape.
  We stopped the practice of unfunded mandates, and this is the 
practice of the Federal Government saying to the local county 
commissions that they have to provide certain services, that they have 
to increase the taxes in their county to pay for it because the Federal 
Government is not going to help them. In other words, we were 
micromanaging counties all over the United States right here out of 
Washington, DC.
  We cut congressional staff by one-third. We reduced our own operating 
budget by $67 million. And for the first time in history, we passed the 
Shays Act, which put the U.S. Congress under the same workplace laws as 
the private sector.
  These were all very, very important reforms. And, in addition, the 
debate now, Mr. Speaker, is not whether we should balance the budget 
but how to balance the budget. We have been working on balancing the 
budget and making some progress, but we are doing that without cutting 
important programs such as Medicare.
  I have with me the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays], who has 
been a leader in protecting and preserving Medicare, and I would now 
yield to the gentleman from Connecticut.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is 
amazing to be here in May and to think that we may be close to an 
agreement with the White House on a 5-year effort to get our financial 
house in order and balance the Federal budget. But it is very 
distressing when we still hear the rhetoric that when spending goes up 
we are still having a cut.
  I just think something I would like at least to do would be to 
revisit what did not happen last year, because I do not want people to 
think it is going to happen this year.
  What did not happen last year is we did not cut Medicare, we slowed 
its growth. We did not cut Medicaid, which is health care for the poor 
and nursing care for the elderly poor.
  Mr. KINGSTON. In fact, if the gentleman would yield, as I recall the 
numbers, we went from $89 billion to over $140 billion for health care 
for the poor, or Medicaid.
  Mr. SHAYS. Medicaid. That is correct. And we did not cut the School 
Lunch Program, we slowed its growth slightly, but allowed for more 
discretion in how it is spent.
  And I want to get back to each of those. We did not cut the Student 
Loan Program. It went up quite significantly.
  I would just go backward from the issues I mentioned. The Student 
Loan Program, when we passed our plan and sent it, the President was 
spending $24 billion. And in the 7th year of the plan, under our plan, 
it would have spent $36 billion. Only in Washington when we spend 50 
percent more do people call it a cut, but it was called a cut.
  Now, it is true that it would have gone to $40 billion in terms of 
tax money. There was $4 billion that we did not spend. But the $4 
billion we did not spend was actually money that we said that the banks 
would pay instead of the taxpayers. The banks would cover more of the 
bad debt and the banks would cover more of the administrative costs.
  So the irony is when our plan was defeated, the taxpayers now have to 
pay $4 billion more and we saved the banks, who would still have made a 
good income from participating in the Student Loan Program.

                              {time}  2000

  That was one example, going from $24 billion to $36 billion.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not true that run by the Government the student 
loan program lost $1 billion, but run by the private sector it did not 
lose any of the money?
  Mr. SHAYS. We have a certain part we call the direct student loan, 
which is in essence run by the government. The government was saying 
that this program was cheaper than to have the banks do it. But what 
they forgot to do was to compute in the cost of the government 
administering the program. So it did look cheaper until the GAO and the 
Inspector General said, wait a second, you better take a look at this, 
because this program is going to cost you more.
  Also I need to say that when you had the institutions deciding who 
would get the loans, particularly with the proprietary schools, they 
were giving out loans under the direct student loan, actually giving 
out the government loans to students who would participate but some of 
them not pay it back because frankly in some of the proprietary school 
programs they were in, they were not going to have employment when they 
were done.
  This is just to establish the fact that under the student loan 
program, which some of my constituents thought was being cut, it went 
from $24 billion to $36 billion and we saved the taxpayers $4 billion, 
and the banks would have had to pay more. It is funny that sometimes 
the Republicans are associated with wanting to protect the industry, 
the banks, and the banks were the ones that were going to have to step 
up to the plate and make up that difference.
  I think I was most outraged when I first heard it of the school lunch 
program, because the thought that we would, we Republicans, would cut 
the school lunch program, I thought was probably one of the dumbest 
things I could imagine. When I heard, saw the President come before the 
students and have them be set up as the prop for the national media and 
they seemed quite concerned, probably mostly because there was so much 
attention and here was the President of the United States, it is a 
pretty big deal, but to think he would have used the students as a prop 
to tell people something that frankly was not accurate. What was not 
accurate is we were not cutting the student lunch program, we were not 
destroying it as he described, we were not eliminating the program. We 
were saying instead of it growing 5.2 percent more a year, it would 
grow at 4.5 percent a year, that we would grow in spending from $5.1 
billion in the seventh year to $6.9 billion in the seventh year. Only 
in

[[Page H2084]]

Washington again when you go from $5.1 billion to $6.9 billion would 
people call it a cut. But they did.
  But what we did do, which was very important, is, I do not know if 
everyone in the country knows, I did not know as a Member of Congress, 
I had been here 8 years at the time, that every student in the country, 
rich or poor, is subsidized 30 cents. My daughter is subsidized 30 
cents. I make a decent income, a very good income as a Member of 
Congress. My wife is a teacher. Yet my daughter was subsidized 30 cents 
in a suburban school that is quite wealthy. What we were saying under 
our plan, we were allowing local governments and State governments to 
design the plan better so that they could reallocate the money from the 
wealthy kids in the wealthy communities and spend more in the urban 
areas. So when the President suggested that maybe my students in 
Bridgeport or Norwalk or Stamford might have less, they actually in my 
judgment would have had a lot more, the kids that needed it.
  The gentleman gave the numbers on Medicaid, health care for the poor. 
But the one that clearly I felt most enthusiastic about was our plan on 
Medicare, health care for the elderly.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will pause a minute to go back to why 
touch Medicare. It is the political equivalent of messing with dynamite 
with a lit fuse. Politically, you always take the path of least 
resistance. If you can avoid a controversial issue, you do. Why would 
we touch this lit dynamite on Medicare?
  Mr. SHAYS. We wanted very candidly to preserve the program and to 
save it from bankruptcy.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Who said it was going bankrupt? I want to make sure. 
Let us go back to April 3, 1995, the Medicare trustees report.
  Mr. SHAYS. The board of trustees of the Hospital Insurance Trust 
Fund, they are the group that oversees the Medicare Trust Fund. People 
in this country pay Medicare in two ways, health care for the elderly. 
One is they put money aside in the trust fund. That is the trust fund I 
allude to. If they are hired by an employer, they pay 1.45 percent of 
their income into this trust fund. If they are self-employed, they pay 
double, 2.9 percent. This money goes in the trust fund to be there when 
they are older and it pays all Medicare Part A, which is the hospital 
costs of a senior. Then you have Medicare Part B, which is paid in part 
by the individual in a premium, but most of it is paid for by the 
government in direct taxes coming out of the tax income each year.
  But the trust fund, we were told, was going bankrupt, and not by an 
organization separate from the administration; the administration was 
telling us. President Clinton's appointees, 5 of the 7 people who sit 
on this board were his appointees, they said it was going to go 
bankrupt by the year 2002. They said that 2 years ago. Last year they 
said it would go bankrupt by the year 2001. After he vetoed the bill 
they pointed that out. So it was now going to go bankrupt a year 
earlier. And last week they just reaffirmed that the trust fund will 
run out of money by the year 2001. So you could say, well, we are 
playing with dynamite. I do not consider it a game, and the gentleman 
does not either. What we were doing is to make sure we step up to the 
plate and save this program.
  Mr. KINGSTON. This is what we are paid and elected to do and that is 
to act in a responsible manner and as the report indicated the other 
day, I believe, Medicare today is losing $36 million each and every 
day.
  Mr. SHAYS. It is really incredible to think that right now the trust 
fund has in the balance $112 billion. That will go down in 1998, the 
next year, to $92 billion. When you figure that loss on a daily basis, 
each day that passes the trust fund is losing $35 million. That is in 
the year we are in now. Next year it is going to lose $55 million each 
day. And the next year after that, in 1999, it is going to lose $78 
million each and every day.
  This is according to the President's trustees of this fund, the 
people who have the fiduciary responsibility to protect it as we do. 
They have shared this information with us. They have told us the 
problem. It is up to us to come up with a solution. Then they have said 
in the year 2000, it will lose about $103 million a day, and it will be 
bankrupt in 2001, because it will be losing $134 million each and every 
day.
  We came up with a plan 2 years ago that we will continue to advocate 
and promote that did not increase the copayments for seniors, did not 
increase the deductible for seniors, it did not increase the premium 
for seniors. What it did do was allow seniors for the first time to 
choose to have a private medical plan. In having the private medical 
plan, they could get into this plan and the only way they would be 
interested in doing it is if they got more than they get under the 
traditional Medicare fee-for-service plan that we have now.

  By getting into a managed care plan, the managed care plans would 
have had to offer them more than they get now, because what they get 
now is pretty nice. But they still have to pay the MediGap under 
existing, they still have a premium to pay. But some of the managed 
care programs were going to give eye care, dental care, a rebate on the 
copayment of the deductible, and in some cases pay the premium and the 
MediGap.
  If a senior did not like the managed care plan, we allowed them under 
the bill that the President vetoed to get out of the plan each and 
every month for the next 24 months. In other words, if they were in it 
for 3 months and did not like it, they could leave. If they were in it 
for a month and did not like it, they could leave.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The first election to get into it was up to them 
because automatically they would be reenrolled in traditional Medicare.
  Mr. SHAYS. Right. They were not required to take this. The only way 
they would have gotten into it, it is not like some of the telephone 
plans where you all of a sudden found yourself under a new long 
distance carrier. You stayed under the plan you were. But what would 
have happened in my judgment is some of their neighbors would have 
gotten into the managed care plan, they would have pointed out how they 
were getting eye care, dental care, prescription drug assistance that 
they were not getting under the traditional Medicare plan and people 
would have said, well, I want that too, and they would have joined.
  The reason why the managed care plans could save money is there is so 
much waste and fraud and abuse in government oversight of health care 
that the managed care plans could oversee it better and they would 
still have made money, they would have saved money, through all the 
waste that exists. Yet they would have been able to give more than the 
senior would have now. We also allowed for medical savings accounts. We 
did not require people to participate. But if someone wanted to put 
money, the government would have actually given a senior a certain 
payment, $2,000 or $3,000 a year, we would have given the senior that 
money, they could have put it in the account. If they spent less than 
$3,000, they would have actually saved money. If they spent more, they 
would have had to pay for it on their own. The only requirement is that 
they would have had to get a $10,000 catastrophic plan, so that if they 
really had serious health problems, there would be an insurance program 
for them.
  Mr. KINGSTON. But what would happen is for seniors who were in good 
health and decided they could take whatever smaller bills that were 
manageable, they would pay that out of that escrow account, keeping 
half of whatever they saved.
  Mr. SHAYS. And it was tax-free.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Tax-free. Yet they would be covered for the million-
dollar claim.
  Mr. SHAYS. That is why when the gentleman says, the traditional view 
is that we are playing with dynamite, I was proud to go to my 
constituents and tell them. This is a plan I had worked on with the 
gentleman and others for literally years. We now in the majority had a 
chance to finally begin to implement it.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The only thing about Medicare that is dynamite is when 
it is misconstrued intentionally for political gain. I have never seen 
people who just maliciously go out there and lie to the American 
seniors. I think it is an insult to the generation who fought for 
freedom and liberty in World War II and my dad and your dad and moms. I 
just think it is totally sick for people to go out and lie to 
grandparents, but that is what happened, and Medicare, being Medicare,

[[Page H2085]]

politics being politics, that is probably going to happen again.
  Mr. SHAYS. I think that more and more people began to understand what 
was happening, but it required a lot of work to make sure people did 
understand.
  One last point we should make on the Medicare plan that I thought was 
really ingenious and I thought would save a lot of money. We were 
providing in our legislation language that allowed a senior if they 
found a mistake in their bill to get a percent of what they found. For 
instance, I have had some seniors who have talked about bills that they 
saw. First off the bills sometimes are not sent to the senior. Under 
our legislation we would have required the seniors to have a copy of 
their bill. We would have required the bills to be put in simple 
language that an individual could understand. If you had a chest x-ray, 
you say that. If you had a visit from the doctor, you make clear the 
visit from the doctor and how long it was and what it was for. Then a 
senior could say, ``I never had that visit with the doctor, and the 
$300 charge is not a valid one.'' We would have given a senior, we had 
not written the regulation, that would have been up to the 
administration, but they could have determined that, say, 10 or 20 
percent of the savings would have gone to the senior. Some seniors 
would have found that they would have made money. But in the process, 
they would have saved us literally hundreds of millions of dollars.
  Mr. KINGSTON. That is exactly right. I do not think it is always 
fraud. I think a lot of it is just sloppiness and negligence. There is 
a story, I am sorry I cannot cite the person but she received a bill 
for an autopsy, went to a doctor and said, ``I never had an autopsy,'' 
and they said, ``Yes, you did. Here is the bill.'' She said, ``No, I 
did not have an autopsy. It's me, I'm alive.''
  They said, ``Okay. Well, you had an MRI.'' She said, ``No, I did not 
have an MRI.''
  They said, ``Well, you had a mastectomy.'' ``No, I've never had a 
mastectomy, either. I know with certainty that none of the above were 
received.''
  Mr. SHAYS. I had a senior who in one meeting, she gave me a stack of 
envelopes that must have been about 3 inches tall, many, many 
envelopes. They were all bills that she received. She received them all 
the same week. She simply said, why could they not have been put in one 
envelope? Some of them were duplicative. It was a pretty extraordinary 
thing.
  I will say to the gentleman that another person stood up at this 
meeting and said, ``You understand I am a man.'' I said, ``Sure, you 
look like a man. You look like a senior.''
  He said, ``Well, I was charged for giving birth.'' He said, ``That is 
not possible but I was charged that.''
  I notice, and the gentleman is in charge of this floor, but if I 
could have the honor of introducing my colleague the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson].
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will wait one second before he does 
that. What we need to do is we need to have a contest for the most 
ridiculous and absurd Medicare story, and let us all go out there and 
find those crazy stories. I just think it is so ridiculous, that this 
system is so broken that live people are being billed for autopsies, 
men are being billed for women-only type procedures. We need to change 
it and we need to protect and preserve it. I am going give the 
gentleman the pleasure of introducing his colleague from Connecticut, 
the leader on the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. SHAYS. I might say to the gentleman before I introduce her that 
one of the reasons we have these abuses is the way that Medicare pays 
the bill is the bills are submitted and paid for and then after the 
fact, they are reviewed, basically 1 percent of the billings and 4 
percent of the total billing costs. The money has already been paid 
out. Then they are asking the money to be returned. It is a crazy 
system.
  I am going to introduce the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. 
Johnson]. We are talking about the fact that our trustees have pointed 
out that Medicare is losing $35 million a day and that next year it is 
going to lose $55 million and the year after $78 million and the year 
after that, each day, $103 million, the year after that, in the fifth 
year of our plan, what we want to prevent from happening, in losing 
$134 million. Yet under our plan last year which the gentlewoman played 
the central role in, she made sure that we spent 60 percent more on 
Medicare under the life of the plan, and on a per-person basis, 50 
percent more.

                              {time}  2015

  You know the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] and I were just 
marveling at the fact that only in Washington when you spend 50 percent 
more per beneficiary would someone call it a cut. I just welcome you. 
You are the leader in the health care field in the Committee on Ways 
and Means, you are my colleague in Connecticut, and it is just really 
great to have you join us.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I am 
proud to be with you tonight, and I appreciate your gathering for this 
special order. It is such an important program, Medicare is. It is 
critical to our seniors, but it is just as important to their children 
and grandchildren. It is one of the pillars of retirement security. If 
we cannot guarantee our seniors some level of financial security and 
health security, then we are not the great and free Nation that I 
believe we are.
  I just want to say a couple of things, picking up on what you were 
talking about. First of all, I wish we were here tonight talking about 
how we had slowed the deficit that is developing in Medicare, that this 
year we were not going to see as big a debt in Medicare as we had last 
year, and we could have done that. We had a good plan if we could have 
passed it. If we could have had people listen deliberately to 
discussion about the problems and the solutions, we would be here 
tonight cheering the turnaround in Medicare and the preservation of 
Medicare for our seniors and our children.
  Mr. SHAYS. The fact was we passed the legislation if it could have 
been signed into law by the President.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is true, and one of the provisions 
in that legislation goes to the heart of what you were saying. It 
allowed seniors to report things they had been charged for wrongly and 
share in the savings. Remember they would have gotten half the cost of 
that delivery that the gentleman was billed for in savings, and the 
government would have gotten the other half of the savings. So it would 
have created, in a sense, an enforcement police the size of the entire 
senior population in America, and frankly that would have been a great 
thing.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It certainly would have paid for some of the medical 
expenses out of pocket.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. You bet, you bet. It would have been 
good for the seniors, good for the program, good for the government 
because it would have created the right partnership between the 
government, the seniors of America and the providers of health care in 
our country who are without doubt the best.
  But I also want to point to a couple of other things that were in our 
bill last year because some of them actually the Congress passed and 
the public did not have a chance to understand that, one of the 
provisions in the medicare formula.
  Mr. SHAYS. When you say we passed, we passed it the first time. You 
mean the one that was signed into law by the President.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is right. There were a few other 
provisions that we were able to get into other bills a second time, and 
the President did sign, and one of those was an aggressive attack on 
Medicare fraud.
  Now I am the chairman of the Ways and Means subcommittee that does 
oversight, so we oversee all of the programs that are under the 
jurisdiction of the Committee on Ways and Means, but one of them is 
Medicare, and we had our high-risk program hearing; that is, the 
highest risk of fraud programs under our jurisdiction, and one of them 
was Medicare. Medicare is one of the programs in our Nation that has an 
extraordinarily high risk of fraud and a high volume of fraud. The 
inspector general said $20 billion of our expenditures in Medicare 
every year are fraudulent, paying for health care you did not get or 
did not need.
  So it is a very big problem, and I am proud to say that last year we 
did get

[[Page H2086]]

passed a new antifraud program that will put regional people out in 
every regional office looking at nothing but Medicare fraud.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Now if the gentlewoman would yield for 10 seconds, $26 
billion in fraud in Medicare and Medicaid together. That is twice the 
annual budget of the entire State of Georgia. I am not sure what your 
budget is in Connecticut, but you can run the State of Georgia tax-free 
for 2 years just on what the Medicare and Medicaid fraud is.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is truly stunning, that is truly 
stunning, and people ought to try to imagine in their minds what $26 
billion would buy if it were spent right.
  You know Medicare is an outmoded benefit package. It does not cover 
prevention. It only helps you after you get sick. If we had $26 billion 
that is spent on fraud to use for preventive benefits, would it not be 
a wonderful thing for the seniors of America?
  Well, I am proud to say that we passed a bill that put $800 million 
into fraud inspectors in the regions, and those people are now, most of 
them are hired. That program will be completely in place in the next 
few months, and next year when we stand here at least I hope we will 
have better numbers and we will be able to demonstrate that the 
Republicans put in place a very strong antifraud effort in Medicare.
  But I do regret that the President vetoed the bill that would have 
let every senior in America be part of making Medicare honest.
  Mr. SHAYS. I think that we could point out that there are times that 
we have big disagreements with the administration, but this dealing 
with the fraud area, that was one area where we had some cooperation 
and we wanted to build on the cooperation we had with the White House. 
In that bill that passed on health care reform which dealt with the 
whole issue of portability, in that bill that you make reference to, 
section 2 which dealt with fraud, we also made health care fraud a 
Federal offense for public and private sector, and the reason why we 
did that was that we found that those that wanted to cheat the system 
were sometimes going from one State to another, and if the public 
sector was being more aggressive, it went into the private sector. So 
we put it all in one package so they could not escape and we could 
follow them, and in some instances we are talking about some 
organizations cheating the system not $10 million but literally 
hundreds of millions of dollars.
  So we are proud of the fact that that is something we did and 
grateful that the President agreed that it was something that he could 
sign.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. I am also pleased that the President is 
working with us this year on another very important part of the 
Medicare reform bill that will be good for seniors but also good for 
all Americans of every age. In the Medicare reform bill we had written 
a provision that allowed hospitals and doctors to develop their own 
networks so they could compete with insurance companies. That would 
give us competition in the managed care market between insurance 
company plans where there are stockholders involved and you have to 
have a return on your investment and provider sponsored networks where 
the physicians and the hospitals actually are the means of delivering 
care, and therefore, hopefully, the decision about quality of care 
would be kept very close to the provider, to the doctor and the 
patient, to the hospital and the patient, to the provider and the 
senior citizen. And we know this will not only be good for seniors to 
have these provider-sponsored organizations, but they will be good for 
people of every age to have managed care systems in which the ownership 
and the responsibility is right anchored with the people who know the 
most about health care and the quality.

  Mr. SHAYS. It is kind of amazing to think that existing law does not 
allow hospitals and doctors to compete with the insurance industry in 
this very, you know, important effort of providing the best health 
care, and one thing I want to express some gratitude for:
  The President did veto our Medicare reform legislation. It was the 
election year, and it got caught up in that, sadly. But the bill that 
he submitted in terms of how it is what he wanted to budget on 
Medicare, a lot of the parts to the legislation were really taken out 
of our bill that he vetoed. Just in making reference to the very 
example you are talking now, allowing the private sector to compete 
with the insurance industry.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. That is right, and our goal was to 
ensure that seniors would have the choice of health care plans that 
offered, for instance, prescription drug coverage, that offered better 
preventive benefits, that better covered the deductibles and copayments 
in Medicare, and because we wanted seniors to have those choices we 
wrote provisions in the Medicare reform law that allowed the 
development of hospital and physician networks, and you know, as one 
who represents an area of the country that has a lot of small towns and 
small hospitals, I can tell you that allowing the development of these 
provider-sponsored networks is key to the survival of these smaller 
hospitals and the medical community around them.
  So I am pleased that this year the administration is back before the 
Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Ways and Means on which I 
serve. They are saying that we need to do this, they are going to work 
with us this year, and I believe we are going to improve the health 
care system and the choices not just for senior citizens but for all 
Americans, and that is in everybody's interest.
  So I am pleased that this year we will improve the benefits under 
Medicare. We will also slow the growth in costs through the kind of 
progressive change that is possible through good governments and good 
choices.
  Mr. KINGSTON. We will protect Medicare not just for the next election 
but for the next generation, and so that not only will your mom and dad 
and grandparents be able to use it, but you and I will be able to use 
it, and our children and their children. I think that is very 
important.
  I think this is all part of commonsense government. We need common 
sense in public policy, we need common sense in spending, and we need 
common sense in health care policy, and one of the issues that we have 
thought--we hope we are on the eve of a breakthrough in the budget.
  The gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] had mentioned earlier 
tonight, as a distinguished member of the Committee on the Budget, that 
negotiations have been going on since January on the budget to try to 
craft a bipartisan agreement so that we can save the fiscal character 
of our Government for the generations to come, long after the three of 
us have left Congress.
  Let me yield to [Mr. Shays] as a member.
  Mr. SHAYS. You know, I just would want to say that as we talk, people 
like the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Kasich, budget chairman in the House, 
and Pete Domenici in the Senate are meeting with representatives from 
the minority in this Congress as well as the White House, and one thing 
that is quite clear in this Congress is that it is still a Republican 
controlled Congress, be it only by a margin of 10 votes, and the White 
House is a Democrat White House, but we all have to be Americans first 
and Republicans and Democrats second, and I just hope and pray that the 
talks that have taken place with the White House are yielding fruit. I 
think they are.
  I know what our ultimate objective is. We want to balance the Federal 
budget and get our country's financial house in order. We want to save 
our trust funds, particularly Medicare, not just for future 
generations, but for the generations that exist now, and we want to 
transform this caretaking social and corporate and agricultural welfare 
state into what some call caring opportunity society. I think that we 
are not just trying to transform social welfare in which the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut was so active, but we are looking to end 
welfare for corporations and we are looking to end welfare in the 
farming industry.
  And the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] was so on target in 
pointing out that with the freedom to farm bill we are allowing the 
energies of the farmers to not be encumbered by lots of Government 
intervention and welfare payments.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. You know I am very proud of this 
Congress and the way we are working together. I know the press has 
reported primarily

[[Page H2087]]

controversy around campaign practices of the White House and the last 
election and some other things, but underneath that we are doing the 
people's business, and the negotiations around the budget that have 
gone on have been frank, serious talks about how do we through common 
sense reach the goal of a balanced budget and return fiscal sanity to 
this Nation.
  Just today on the House floor, I guess it was yesterday on the House 
floor, we passed an adoption and foster care reform bill so that 
children will not get caught in abusive homes and they will not get 
lost in our foster care system, and we did that bipartisanly, both 
parties working together, both parties here on the floor talking about 
the ways in which this bill would help children in America, some of our 
concerns about that bill as well, and today had a long debate about 
housing, public housing policy, and we will bring forward in the next 
few days a bill by bipartisan vote.
  Mr. SHAYS. It is interesting, if the gentlewoman would yield, 
probably not many people know what we did with foster care and adoption 
because there was not this rancorous battle between Republicans and 
Democrats.

                              {time}  2030

  So it does not always get the attention of the media, but it was 
excellent legislation that will do a lot of good.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, that is why I wanted to 
bring that up, because we do a lot of real thoughtful work here about 
the problems in our lives and certainly abused children is a very big 
problem in the communities that we represent, and we took a giant step 
toward protecting children just yesterday. It will move to the Senate 
now, and then to a conference committee, and in several months it will 
move to the President's desk and children and families will do better 
in America because of a thoughtful, bipartisan and common sense 
Congress.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, that is why I think it is so important 
that we look, always look at the big picture. Mr. Speaker, there is an 
expression I heard. I wish I could attribute it, I cannot; a second 
time tonight that I cannot attribute a good quote, but it was that 
idealism is ignorance easy.
  So often people come to us and they have one side of an issue and 
they have the solution and it fits just perfectly on the bumper 
sticker. But our job as legislators is to sit there and listen to both 
sides of the issue. We realize we may be elected by 51 percent of the 
people, but we represent 100 percent of the people. In fact, we are 
represented from Connecticut, but not just to represent Connecticut. We 
all have to look out for the United States of America, and in doing so, 
in that framework, sometimes it is very difficult.
  But, Mr. Speaker, if we can balance that budget, interest rates, 
according to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, we can reduce 
interest rates. A 2-percent reduction of interest rates on a $75,000 
home mortgage over a 30-year period of time saves American families 
$37,000. On a $15,000 car loan, it saves American families $900. On a 
student loan over a 10-year period of time of $11,000, it could save as 
much as $2,100.
  Balancing the budget is real. It is not an academic exercise. 
Balancing the budget is about people, it is not about numbers. I know 
that the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson] has been on the 
Committee on Ways and Means, and the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. 
Shays] being on the Committee on the Budget, we spend hours and hours 
crunching numbers and talking in strange jargon about CBO and OMB and 
most of these things that most of us do not understand and do not know 
that we want to. But we do know the old expression that when your 
intake exceeds your upkeep, then your input is going to be your 
downfall.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to ask the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Kingston] to repeat that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I am not sure I got it right anyhow, but the fact is, 
it gets down to this: If you bring in a dollar, you should never, ever 
spend more than a dollar. And we have since World War II been spending 
$1.59 on every dollar that we bring in.
  Now, that has not been the case in the last 3 years, but the fact is, 
you cannot go on forever defying gravity. The children in America need 
to live in a world where the budget is balanced and where Congress is 
not spending more money than we bring in.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman mentioned the children of the 
world, and I would love the indulgence of my colleagues just to thank 
the participants of the summit that was in Philadelphia. I had the 
opportunity to go to the summit, and I have to tell my colleagues that 
it was very moving to see Mrs. Reagan there on behalf of her husband, 
President Reagan, to see Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter and George Bush 
and our President, Bill Clinton, all focused in a common effort to 
direct the public's attention on the need to really respond to our 
children.
  I know that there is some controversy in terms of say AmeriCorps, 
which some on my side of the aisle might disagree with. I certainly am 
a strong supporter; others raise questions. But as a former Peace Corps 
volunteer, I just found it extraordinary that we had Republican and 
Democrat Presidents all saying that this matters so much to them that 
they were willing to devote a sizable amount of their time. More 
importantly, to have Colin Powell basically take this on as really a 
lifetime effort.
  This is in my judgment, I would want to say on the floor of the House 
for the record, I am absolutely convinced that people will look back 
and say that something very wonderful happened in this country about 
drawing the public's attention to our kids.
  Mr. Speaker, we have been told by some who say that politicians are 
elected by adults to represent the kids, and I really believe that. 
Here we had four Presidents and a First Lady; we had Colin Powell, a 
distinguished citizen, who basically said that he is going to devote 
his life to making sure that Americans realize the need of helping our 
kids. He is doing it by example, our Presidents are doing it by 
example, and this is something that he is asking all Americans to focus 
on and think about.
  In my city of Bridgeport that I represent, I would contrast it to the 
city say right next door, the community of Fairfield. I was in a 
parade, in a Fourth of July parade, and near the beginning of the 
parade in Fairfield and you march along and there are just literally 
tens of thousands of people along the march, and you get to the 
reviewing stand. And an hour and 20 minutes later I said, ``When is 
this going to end?'' And he looked at me and said, ``It is going to go 
on for a while.''
  And what was it? This was a wonderful parade of Boy Scouts and Girl 
Scouts and Indian Guides and Indian Princes and soccer teams and 
volleyball teams and bands. I thought, the challenge for some children 
in our country is deciding what they do not do, they have so many 
options.
  Then I thought, right next door in the city of Bridgeport I know the 
children do not have that same option. After school there is really 
nothing for them to do. We are really asking in this summit for 
Americans to adopt a child, to be a mentor, and to help them. Not 
Government.
  I will just say one thing. One of the absurdities that took place in 
the summit was a group that marched in opposition to the summit because 
they said it was wrong for us to think that volunteers should be doing 
these things, that it was government's responsibility. I wanted them to 
think of what was the very basis of our strength as a country, the 
active participation of citizens.
  President Clinton I think pointed out something that I found was very 
stirring. We were at the site of the founding of our country, and I 
remember as he gave his speech as the other Presidents had given 
theirs, he said that when Jefferson left after the conclusion of the 
Constitution, a woman asked Jefferson whether this was going to be a 
monarchy or a republic. And Mr. Jefferson said to her, ``It is a 
republic if you can keep it.''
  Then the President talked about a more perfect union. He said even in 
that Constitution we had slaves. In that Constitution, the gentlewoman 
from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson] could not vote. I would just point out 
that we are making this a more perfect Union. I think the task for us 
now is to really alert the American public for the need to not depend 
on government. The era of big government is over, but the era of big 
problems still remains.

[[Page H2088]]

  I was stirred by this, and I hope other Americans were, that this is 
going to be a citizen Government helping our kids, giving them 
activity, giving them a framework, giving them discipline, helping them 
see mentors that are somebody other than someone selling drugs and 
leading a bleak future.
  So I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues, but it was stirring, 
and I really believe that if we can use that summit and the 
bipartisanship that existed there and throw these politics out the 
window a bit, we will be a more perfect Union.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Mr. Speaker, I certainly am proud of my 
hometown of New Britain, CT. Last Saturday we had Christmas in April 
and I and many, many other people from the town turned out.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman might want to explain 
Christmas in April. People of all walks of life, some brought their 
children, and we painted and repaired inside and out.
  Mrs. JOHNSON of Connecticut. Christmas in April, it is a way the 
community gives the gift of Christmas to families who need help.
  I had the privilege of working at the home of an elderly couple who 
for decades have helped lead and care for veterans of this Nation's 
wars. They have done so much for others, and it was so nice to be a 
part of a team of 19 or 20 that painted rooms inside and painted things 
outside, that cleaned up the yard, that replaced a ceiling. I mean it 
was just wonderful. It was a gift to people who have given all of their 
lives and who now in their elder years need some help with that kind of 
work.
  And in New Britain, Connecticut, volunteers painted, repaired and 
upgraded the homes of 40 families. Some of them elderly, some of them 
single parents with young children, some of them just people who for 
one reason or another needed help with those kinds of chores, and some 
brought their children, just so their children could see that working 
together we are a powerful force, we Americans, and Government can 
never replace that energy, that faith, that love, that hope.
  I am proud to be a part of a Government that understands that people 
are the power and is working to assure that Government partners those 
powerful people and shares with them their vision of hope, opportunity, 
and justice for all. That is I think what we are talking about and why 
we have been so concerned with Medicare, preserving Medicare, 
strengthening Medicare, protecting Medicare for our seniors, but also 
fixing it so it better serves not only our seniors but their kids as 
they retire and our grandchildren when they retire.
  It is very nice to be with you gentlemen tonight. I am sorry that I 
have to excuse myself because I have some calls that I have to make.
  Mr. KINGSTON. We thank the gentlewoman for joining us, and we thank 
the gentlewoman on behalf of all Americans, particularly seniors, for 
all that you are doing to help protect and preserve Medicare.
  Mr. Shays, if the gentleman is going to stay, I wanted to touch base 
a little bit on some of these tax issues.
  Mr. SHAYS. I would love that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask you this: We have been talking about 
balancing the budget. Is it consistent or inconsistent to talk about 
cutting taxes and balancing the budget?
  Mr. SHAYS. Oh, it is definitely consistent.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Consistent with a ``C''.
  Mr. SHAYS. And important, for a variety of reasons. First off, we 
need to recognize that when you increase some taxes you actually get 
less revenue because in a dynamic model people respond. They say taxes 
are higher and they find ways to avoid paying them by doing other 
things. If you have a luxury tax on boats, they simply decide not to 
buy boats, as we found in our 1990 budget agreement when we increased 
the tax on boats and people stopped buying them.
  So you have a dynamic model. Sometimes with lower taxes you get more 
revenue. We would find that to be true specifically with the capital 
gains exemption.
  Imagine a farmer out West whose neighbor wants to sell land and they 
want to buy the land, but the neighbor does not sell, and why does the 
neighbor not sell? Because they would realize such a large capital 
gain, they do not want to pay 28 percent of that gain to the 
Government. It might be what is their retirement, it might be what pays 
for their child's college tuition, and so they simply do not sell.
  What you have is, you do not have a transaction taking place, whereas 
if we lowered the capital gains you would find, in fact, that there 
would be greater transactions and more revenue. So one of the things 
that we hope happens is that there is, in fact, a capital gains 
exemption.
  We also hope that there would be a reduction in the tax that people 
pay on inheritance so that they do not have to sell the farm or sell 
the business.
  So we believe that it is consistent, and I would also say to the 
gentleman that we would pay for our tax cuts. So if you want a smaller 
Government, as I do and as the gentleman does, you make the Government 
smaller and you return the money back to the people to spend as they 
want and create economic activity which also brings in more revenue.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think the gentleman has answered that 
very eloquently. The bottom line is, we American people can spend our 
money better than bureaucrats in Washington can. Let American people 
keep more of their own savings. They will create jobs, more people go 
to work, less people are on public assistance. When less people are on 
public assistance, again, more people working and paying in, revenues 
do go up. I think Presidents Kennedy and Reagan have both proven that 
and I think we need to prove that again in this session of Congress.
  Mr. SHAYS. And I think we will.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for being with us tonight and for 
all of his hard work for the folks in Connecticut and all over the 
country.

                          ____________________