[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 145 (Tuesday, October 13, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10806]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 CASUALTIES OF THE DO-NOTHING CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, it is day 110 of this Republican-led 
Congress. We have worked 110 days here in Washington, D.C., and you 
have got to wonder, why is not the Nation's work done?
  The average American has worked 201 days so far this year while 
Congress has worked only 110, first time in 24 years. We have had 
funding crises before at appropriations time, but it is the first time 
in 24 years, since the passage of the Budget Act, that the leaders of 
the House and the Senate, now both from the same party, have failed to 
agree on a budget resolution.
  Now, the casualties of this do-nothing-to-offend-powerful-special-
interests Congress are things that the American people want and need, 
but they will not be considered nor passed by this Congress. Health 
maintenance organizations, HMO health insurance reform, millions of 
Americans in this next year will be denied needed tests, needed 
referral to specialists and needed treatment, some will probably even 
die because of this neglect. They have no right of appeal under current 
law. The insurance industry is exempt, the HMO industry, from 
liability. And they are exempt from antitrust law, and the Republicans 
do not want to do anything to rein them in and give patients and 
providers, the doctors who are gagged and want to talk about this any 
rights, because there is a lot of campaign cash flowing from those 
special interests.
  Teen smoking is up. We are all alarmed. We just read about it last 
week. There was legislation proposed in the House and the Senate by the 
Democrats to reign in teen smoking. Guess what? The campaign 
contributions of the industry speak louder than the needs of suffering 
Americans and kids who will become addicted to tobacco.
  Social Security, nothing except an attempt to raid the Social 
Security trust fund which they are now calling a surplus. It is the 
money that is supposed to pay future retirement benefits, to raid it 
for tax cuts.
  Remember last year's tax cuts were paid for by reducing Medicare 
reimbursements and raising Medicare premiums, that is how those tax 
cuts the previous gentleman spoke about, those things that are 
wonderful for the middle class. Look at the statistics on the first 
year of the tax cuts. People across America should compare their forms 
for 1996 and 1997 and see what they got.
  If they are a family that earns less than 59,000, the average was $6. 
If they earned between 59,000 and 112,000, the average was $61. But if 
they are in that stratospheric 1 half of 1 percent who earn over 
$600,000 a year, $7,381.
  Now, someone rose earlier when I raised this on the other side and 
said, well the middle class tax cuts will kick in later. Why did not 
the middle class tax cuts kick in first? Why did the tax cuts for the 
most wealthy people in the country come first? Because that side of the 
aisle is servicing them because they are servicing their campaigns.
  What about education? The President had an initiative, he proposed it 
in January, school construction, crumbling schools, crowded classrooms, 
smaller class size, more teachers. They tell us we have no time and no 
money to address those needs, no time and no money. Yet they added $4.1 
billion to the Department of Defense budget that was not requested by 
the Pentagon, things that ranged from transport plans in the Speaker's 
district, retiring other serviceable transports 12 years early so we 
could build those in the Speaker's district, to a beauty, 
pharmacokinetics research. The American taxpayers are going to spend 1 
quarter of $1 million on pharmacokinetics research, unrequested by the 
Pentagon in the next year.
  What does that mean? It means in a powerful Republican Member's 
district a company called Stay Alert makes gum that you can chew that 
has caffeine in it. It is called Stay Alert. And he has ordered the 
Pentagon to pay that company a quarter of a million dollars to 
investigate what that might do for our troops.
  They did not like gum in the barracks when I was doing my basic 
training. But I guess he wants to introduce gum into the barracks, or I 
do not know what the deal is. But why did the American taxpayers have 
to pay a quarter million dollars?
  We do not have money for teachers. We do not have money for smaller 
class size. We do not have money to do a whole bunch of things around 
here that benefit average American people, but we have a quarter of a 
million dollars to spend on pharmacokinetics research for the Stay 
Alert Gum Company. They chew it, they are going to stay awake. Truckers 
chew it, they stay awake. You drink coffee, helps you stay awake. Give 
me the quarter of a million dollars, hell, I will do the study for 
$10,000.
  This is absurd. There is money. It is a matter of priorities. The 
people have got to choose whose priorities they prefer. The priorities 
that service the tobacco industry, the insurance industry, military 
industrial complex, or the priorities that serve the American people.

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