[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 25, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4617-H4618]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 CUTTING MEDICARE BENEFITS TO THE ELDERLY TO PAY FOR TAX CUTS FOR THE 
                                WELL OFF

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Olver] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, the fat is in the fire. Today this House 
passed, with an almost unanimous vote on the part of the Republican 
Members, a bill that is going to cut $115 billion out of Medicare, 
which is going to end up producing lower-quality health care at higher 
costs for my mother, for all of the Members of this body for their 
mothers and grandmothers and grandfathers as well.
  Tomorrow we are going to end up debating the tax bill, which the 
Republicans paid for today by the cuts in Medicare, and in the process 
of passing that bill they refused to protect, to renew, to affirm the 
promise that had been made to our veterans of a lifetime of health care 
for people who had served in the military services, and that is 
particularly important for the 12 million or so, or the remainder of 
the 12 million American veterans of the Second World War.
  Well, Mr. Speaker, the more things change, the more they are the 
same. As Yogi Berra once said, deja vu all over again. That is what has 
happened here. Throughout the 104th Congress, the fight in this House 
of Representatives and in the Senate was over the massive cuts in 
medical care for senior citizens that were virtually equivalent to the 
total amount of the tax cuts that were going to be given, and here we 
are again, cutting Medicare, and that is rather similar, very similar 
to the amount of dollars that are needed to pay for the tax cut that 
comes next.
  Mr. Speaker, the President and the Congress have made a balanced 
budget agreement, and there are going to be tax cuts as a part of that 
agreement. There will be tax cuts.
  But the question that we are going to be deciding tomorrow, who is it 
that are going to get the tax cuts? The question is, who do Members of 
the Republican Party care about and defend and fight for, and who do 
Democrats care about and defend and fight for?
  Well, the Republican plan for tax cuts and the Democratic alternative 
tax cut plan show clearly who Republicans and Democrats care about and 
fight for, and we will see that very clearly tomorrow, and in the days 
ahead. We will see it again and again in the days ahead.
  Mr. Speaker, the Republicans have called their tax plan good for the 
middle class, and they say that their plan gives tax breaks to working 
families who really need it. This chart tells a somewhat different 
story.
  The Republican plan, which is the plan that is in blue, gives almost 
two-thirds, 64 percent, of the tax reduction to one family out of six 
in America, those families, the 19 million families that already earn 
more than $100,000 a year. The Republican plan gives that one family 
out of six 64 percent of the tax reduction. Over here, the other five 
out of six families get 36 percent of the tax reduction, including that 
great middle class who have incomes between $25,000 and $100,000 a 
year, that

[[Page H4618]]

great middle core of the American people, the middle class in America, 
and they get 36 percent of the tax cut.
  The further great irony about this is Member after Member from the 
Republican Party has stood up tonight and talked about class warfare. 
Well, there is nothing that shows the class warfare better than to show 
that graph that shows 64 percent of the tax reduction in their plan 
going to one family, the wealthiest family out of every six families in 
the country. That is the class warfare that is involved. And the great 
irony is here that it goes even beyond that, because if we take this 
group of five out of six families over there in the blue piece on the 
left, the part that are going to get 36 percent of the tax reduction 
divided among them, it turns out that two out of those five, two 
families out of those five whose income is less than $25,000 a year, 
they are going to get nothing from the plan. That is the extent of the 
class warfare which is involved in this legislation which we will take 
up tomorrow.

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