[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 144 (Monday, October 12, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10562-H10563]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     COMMENTS ON OUTPUT OF CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, well, here it is. It is the 109th workday 
of this Congress in Washington D.C. Thank God we were in session all 
weekend, although most Members of Congress have not been here. The 
leadership has not been evident. But that brings the Congress up to a 
grand total of 109 days.
  Now, the average American holding only one job, and I have a lot of 
American families in my district holding two or three jobs trying to 
make ends meet, but those who are just holding down one job have worked 
200 days so far this year.
  No wonder the Congress' work remains undone. Congress, under the 
Republican leadership, has worked in Washington, D.C. 109 days. Many of 
those partial days, like the day that we adjourned at 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon on a Wednesday because the Republicans had a huge fund-raiser 
in New York and they had the corporate jets waiting for them out at 
National Airport, and they all had to jet up to New York and hold this 
gala event to rake in a few tens of millions of dollars from their 
corporate sponsors, the same corporate sponsors who wanted them to kill 
any attempts to curtail teenage smoking and go after the tobacco 
industry, and the Republican leaders delivered. There is no legislation 
coming out of this Congress to curtail that, and the rate of teenage 
smoking is skyrocketing with all the tragic consequences down the road.
  Then the insurance industry. They provided quite a few jets that 
afternoon because they had a real big one they wanted to kill. Tens of 
millions of Americans are in what are called HMOs, health maintenance 
organizations. What we found out about these HMOs is that they save 
money by denying Americans and their families and loved ones needed 
care. The insurance bureaucrats will deny your doctor, will deny you a 
referral to a specialist, so that they can fatten their bottom line.
  Tens of millions of Americans were demanding patients' rights. Even 
the AMA weighed in. They wanted providers' rights. The doctors are fed 
up with this too. They want to be able to refer their patients for 
needed tests. But, guess what? The insurance industry is capable of 
delivering tens of millions of dollars to the Republican leadership, 
and, behind closed doors, they decided to kill that legislation. There 
will be no HMO insurance industry Patients and Providers Bill of Rights 
in this Congress because of special interest money.
  Now, the chairman of the Committee on Rules rose the other day and 
said it does not matter that we didn't do HMO reform or anything about 
teenage smoking. It does not matter that we have not passed the 
education package to decrease class size, to increase the number of 
teachers and rebuild our crumbling schools, because we did one big 
thing in this Congress, we passed a tax cut.
  Well, let us look at the statistics for the tax cut that was passed 
by the Republican majority. The families earning less than $59,000, I 
hope they would all look at their tax return for this year, the 1997 
tax year, and compare it to the 1996 tax year and see how much the 
savings were. Those who got it, about one family in five earning less 
than $59,000, they got $6. $6. Very generous of the Republican 
leadership.
  Now, families between $59,000 and $112,000, they did a little better. 
They got $81. That is, those of them who got it. That is 20 percent of 
the families in that tax bracket.
  But, ah ha, thank God some people really got relief under this bill. 
Two-thirds of the small number of families in this country earning over 
$112,000 a year, those whose incomes average $660,000 a year, well, 
they got a tax cut of $7,135. Very nice. Very nice. It could help pay 
one year's cost for a kid to go to a state institution of higher 
learning.
  Of course, their kids are not going to the state institutions of 
higher learning. But it could pay for that from one of those other 
families. The families earning less than $59,000 will get $6 to put 
toward that education, and those between $59,000 and $112,000 will get 
$81.
  So that is the grand accomplishment of this Congress. That is reason 
enough not to have done anything for education, for class size, for 
more teachers

[[Page H10563]]

for the crumbling schools. That is reason enough for the Republican 
leadership to have denied tens of millions of Americans patients rights 
when they need a referral to a specialist, when they need a test, when 
they need treatment. They are denied, with no appeal, and the 
Republicans have denied them legislation to fix that. It was within the 
power of this Congress, but the big money spoke louder than the 
millions of Americans who needed help.
  Then the teenagers getting hooked on tobacco, well, too bad for them 
too, according to the Republican leadership. There was not time to take 
care of that problem.

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