[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 162 (Tuesday, November 16, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H12076]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           TAPS FOR THE CAPS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I am here so that a very 
important death should not go unmourned. Indeed, I must say that if it 
were not for me, I think it would go not only unmourned but unnoticed. 
I am talking about the demise of the caps.
  Madam Speaker, in 1997, this House passed, along with the other body 
and it was signed by the President, a piece of legislation, and I have 
just gone back and read the debates, which touched off a vast orgy of 
self-congratulation. That bill did two things. First, of all it imposed 
discretionary spending caps. It said that the amounts we were spending 
in 1997 on discretionary programs of the Federal Government would be 
the same amounts we would spend for the next 5 years. That was widely 
hailed as the way in which we would get to a balanced budget. We also 
made serious cuts in Medicare. The caps were going to balance the 
budget for us. The caps in Medicare were to pay for a capital gains tax 
cut.
  Now it is 1999. With 1997 as the reference point, the wonderful, 
marvelous Balanced Budget Act, which was a source of such pride to so 
many of my colleagues especially on the Republican side, lies in 
complete ruin. It is time to say taps for the caps. The caps of 1997 
were to put limits on discretionary spending. They have now become a 
severe embarrassment. They do not even get talked about. The budget 
resolution paid some homage to them and was promptly disregarded.
  Madam Speaker, the appropriation we are about to pass, the omnibus 
bill that we are about to pass, absolutely repudiates those caps. 
Indeed, we do not even hear them talked about. The caps are gone. Many 
of us felt at the time that the caps were totally and completely 
unrealistic. We felt that they substantially undervalued government. 
They did not give us the resources to do important functions that the 
public wanted done. But we were told by our Republican colleagues that 
the caps were essential as methods of fiscal discipline.
  In less than 2 years, I take it back, 2 years later the caps are 
gone. They are dead and they die unmourned. They die unnoticed with 
regard to the 1997 Act. 1999 is the year of Emily Litella: ``Never 
mind.'' Never mind that we put these caps on. Never mind that we cut 
Medicare. This has been a year in which we have been undoing it.
  That leads me to a problem, Madam Speaker. Certainly, it would be odd 
to think that thoughtful, knowledgeable, well-informed Members of this 
House in 1997 would have enacted public policy which 2 years later they 
would be repudiating and hiding from. Certainly, we could not expect 
thoughtful Members of this Congress to be doing things and then 2 years 
later thoroughly repudiating the absolutely foreseeable consequences of 
their own actions. So there is only one explanation.
  Madam Speaker, 2 years ago this House was infiltrated by impostors. 
Two years ago, taking advantage of the undeveloped state of DNA 
evidence, people impersonating Members of this House took over the 
place and foisted on this country cuts in Medicare that nobody today 
wants to defend and caps that were unrealistic.
  This calls, Madam Speaker, for serious investigative work. Where is 
the gentleman from Indiana and his crack investigative minions in the 
Committee on Government Reform when we need them? This certainly seems 
to me to be worthwhile shooting a couple of pumpkins to find out how we 
got to this situation where the United States House of Representatives 
was taken over by impostors, by people who pretended to be Members of 
this House and passed legislation so negative in its consequences that 
once the rest of us were able to wrest control back from these 
invaders, we pretty much got rid of it.
  Madam Speaker, there is obviously something lax about our security. 
There is something that has gone completely wrong when legislation 
passed in 1997 is celebrated by the people on this floor, and 2 years 
later the rest of us have to undo it.
  So I hope, Madam Speaker, over this break we will try to find ways to 
prevent any recurrence, because the situation in which people, and we 
do not know who they were, but in which these masked men and women came 
in here and replaced the thoughtful Members of this House and inserted 
themselves into the voting machines and passed irresponsible cuts in 
Medicare and passed caps that have become a joke, we must not allow 
that to happen again.
  Madam Speaker, eternal vigilance is all that stands between us and a 
repeat of that 1997 debacle.

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