[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 44 (Monday, April 10, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H1975-H1984]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H. CON. RES. 290, CONCURRENT RESOLUTION ON 
                      THE BUDGET, FISCAL YEAR 2001

  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1 of rule XXII, and by 
the direction of the Committee on the Budget, I move to take from the 
Speaker's table the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 290) 
establishing the congressional budget for the United States Government 
for fiscal year 2001, revising the congressional budget for the United 
States Government for fiscal year 2000, and setting forth the 
appropriate budgetary levels for each of fiscal years 2002 through 
2005, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment 
and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).
  The motion was agreed to.


                Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Spratt

  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct the conferees 
on the budget resolution.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Spratt moves that the managers on the part of the House 
     at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses 
     on the Senate amendment to the concurrent resolution H. Con. 
     Res. 290 be instructed, within the scope of the conference,
       (1) to insist that the tax cuts set forth in the 
     reconciliation directives in the concurrent resolution be 
     reported on September 22, 2000, the latest possible date 
     within the scope of the conference, and to require that the 
     reconciliation legislation implementing those tax cuts not be 
     reported any earlier, thereby allowing Congress sufficient 
     time to first enact legislation to reform and strengthen 
     Medicare by establishing a universal Medicare prescription 
     drug benefit, consistent with section 202 of the Senate 
     amendment and provisions in section 10 of the House 
     concurrent resolution, recognizing that more than half of 
     Medicare beneficiaries without drug coverage have income 
     above 150 percent of poverty as officially defined; and
       (2) to recede to the lower and less fiscally irresponsible 
     tax cuts in the Senate amendment, which do not include a 
     reserve fund for additional tax reduction contingent on 
     improved projects of future revenues, in preference to tax 
     cuts of $200 billion or more as embodied in the House-passed 
     Resolution, which Chairman Kasich identified during Budget 
     Committee markup and House debate on the budget resolution as 
     a paydown' on the tax cuts proposed by Governor George W. 
     Bush, in order to conserve the budgetary resources needed for 
     the universal Medicare prescription drug benefit and for debt 
     reduction.

  Mr. KASICH (during the reading). Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent

[[Page H1976]]

that the motion be considered as read and printed in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Ohio?
  There was no objection.
  The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) will be recognized for 
30 minutes and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) will be recognized 
for 30 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I am offering this motion to instruct the House 
conferees on the budget resolution, basically to say to the conferees, 
let us put the Medicare drug prescription benefit first and foremost, 
ahead of everything else. Let us do it ahead of the tax cuts. Let us 
put it on a priority schedule, let us go first with it.
  Just today we read in the newspaper that Medicare beneficiaries who 
do not have drug coverage typically pay at least 15 percent more than 
those who have the benefit of insurance. I have the experience just a 
week or two ago with visiting a pharmacist in my district who by 
mistake had received a billing from an HMO intended for an HMO in 
Atlanta, Georgia. And when he opened it up, he saw what the HMO was 
paying for drugs like Zocor and Vasotec and Cumadin, as opposed to what 
he was paying, and the difference between what he was paying and 
charging his customers at his pharmacy and what the HMO was paying was 
as much as 65 or 70 percent in favor of the HMO in certain cases. That 
is not right.
  Mr. Speaker, when we combine that with the fact that drug costs are 
going up at a rate that is two or three times the rate of the increase 
in health care generally and the elderly, those over 65 and on Medicare 
have a greater need for prescription drug benefits than anybody else, 
we have a crisis on our hands. One cannot go to any senior citizen 
center in my district, and I dare say this is true across America, 
without having someone relate some really sad and affecting story about 
their problem with obtaining prescription drug benefits.
  We just had a study done by Boston University School of Public 
Health, they found that a significant fraction of the prescriptions 
that are written by doctors for their Medicare patients are never 
filled, they cannot afford it. This is a problem that is not only 
pressing, it is becoming urgent.
  We need to deal with it now. Before we turn to tax cuts, before we 
turn to other major budget decisions, we should put this one first and 
foremost and try to fit it into our budget. In our budget, the 
Democratic budget, we did it the standard and time-honored way. We said 
let us have reconciliation directions to the Committee on Ways and 
Means and the Committee on Commerce, the two committees with 
jurisdiction, and tell them, ``By a date certain, get your act 
together. Here is $40 billion for the first 5 years, $155 billion for 
the second 5 years; within the limits of these resources, report to the 
floor a prescription drug benefit that will begin to take effect next 
year for Medicare beneficiaries.'' That is the way to do it.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) chose a less compelling way of 
doing it. He put $40 billion in a trust fund, so-to-speak, a reserve 
fund, and said if the Committee on Ways and Means is able to come up 
with a bill that reforms Medicare structurally or does Medicare reform, 
then it can also use this $40 billion to report a drug bill. I would 
have preferred and did prefer something much more compelling than that, 
but at least the gentleman put the $40 billion on the table. The Senate 
has done something similar.
  What we are saying now is let us not just do this for show, let us 
not just do this to tantalize the elderly citizens in our district with 
the prospect of getting prescription drug coverage. Let us do it in 
earnest. We can do it right now by passing a motion to instruct our 
conferees to go to conference and say to the conferees, prescription 
drug coverage will come first, and principally this will come first 
ahead of tax cuts.
  One of the problems I have with the Republican budget resolution is 
it puts tax cuts first and foremost, ahead of everything else. Now, our 
budget resolution provided for $50 billion in net tax cuts in the first 
5 years, and $201 billion over the 10-year period of time. We are for 
tax reduction and tax relief too, but we also had other priorities that 
we wanted to serve, and not to do tax cuts to the exclusion of those.
  The problem we had with their resolution as the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Kasich) presented it, their budget resolution, the tax cut could 
easily go up to $250 billion over the next 5 years. We showed by charts 
in the well of the House, if it went that high, if it went over $200 
billion, we not only could not fund the $40 billion for the 
prescription drug benefit, you would risk putting the Social Security 
trust fund in danger again.
  We are saying, put the tax cuts second. Do the prescription drugs 
first. Get in earnest about prescription drug coverage. Do that, and 
then by a date certain, report your tax bill to the floor; and we will 
take it up in due course. But, in first course, let us do prescription 
drugs.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we want to go back just for a second and review 
precisely what was contained in this Republican budget proposal that 
passed the other day.
  As Members will recall, the first thing we did was to protect 100 
percent of the Social Security surplus. That is the first time, I 
believe in my lifetime, that that has been done, where the government 
will not take money from the Social Security surplus to fund any other 
programs.
  The second item that we did was we strengthened Medicare and, in 
fact, created a $40 billion fund. And this fund is available for the 
purposes of funding a prescription drug program that will pass through 
the Committee on Ways and Means.
  First of all, I would hope that the wealthiest of our seniors would 
not qualify for this program. Children in many respects have the lowest 
priority in America, and it is a tragedy that our children are 
neglected. I begin to wonder if they are neglected because they do not 
vote or we do not value them. We value them with our rhetoric, but many 
times we do not value them with our actions.
  The fact is that a prescription drug benefit for seniors that are in 
need of that benefit because they cannot afford it would be right. But 
what we would not want to do was take resources that can be used either 
to make families stronger through tax cuts or other programs that may 
be developed to help our children, to use those dollars to fund the 
Medicare program for wealthy senior citizens.

                              {time}  1715

  We would not want to do that. This does not make any sense here in 
the 21st century. Members might also recall that we had other actions 
in there, including paying down $1 trillion of the national debt, and 
in addition to that, tax fairness.
  I must say that it would be a mistake for us not to have passed that 
earnings limit exclusion program so that our seniors who want to go 
out, who want to work, who want to be independent, do not lose social 
security in the process. Thank goodness we pushed that program through. 
We intend to push other programs like that through, including the 
easing of the marriage penalty.
  So we want to be able to have a process that allows us to pass these 
tax bills that help various segments of our society, and we believe 
that is consistent with our program to strengthen Medicare and to 
provide a prescription drug benefit.
  What is interesting is that President Clinton himself has no 
prescription drug benefit in 2001 and 2002. In fact, he makes very 
significant reductions in Medicare in order to pay for what program he 
is going to create in 2003. Frankly, Democrats ought to be embracing 
this program if they would like to see a strengthening of Medicare. 
They ought to be really embracing the Republican budget, because we get 
about it right away.
  Also contained in the Democrat motion to instruct are the incendiary 
words ``irresponsible tax cuts.'' To me, that is an oxymoron. There is 
no such thing as an irresponsible tax cut. There are plenty of 
irresponsible government spending programs, but I do not think there is 
such a thing as an irresponsible tax cut.

[[Page H1977]]

  I do not know what we would call an irresponsible tax cut. Is it 
something that lets families keep more of what they earn? Is it 
something that lets a senior keep more of what he or she earns, rather 
than being penalized through reductions of their social security 
benefits? Is a fiscally irresponsible tax cut one that provides relief 
to married couples? If people get married today, they can get punished 
because they get married. They pay more in taxes. Is that fiscally 
irresponsible?
  How about for a small businessman who works a lifetime to build a 
pharmacy, like my friend, Max Peoples in Westville, Ohio, or friends of 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan) in Janesville, Wisconsin? They 
work a lifetime, and then when they die, they have to visit the 
undertaker and the IRS on the same day.
  How about reducing or eliminating the death tax so people who work a 
lifetime can pass their legacy on to their children, rather than having 
to pass it on to the Federal government?
  I do not know what it even means when we talk about a fiscally 
irresponsible tax cut. It does not make any sense to me. It seems to me 
as though we ought to stay with the Republican budget plan. That 
Republican budget plan will keep our mitts off of social security, 
something that my friends in the majority party were not able to do for 
40 years. It is going to strengthen Medicare and provide a prescription 
drug benefit starting in 2001.
  I am told it will be very soon that Republicans in the House will 
unveil their bill. I hope it will be means-tested. We will pay down $1 
trillion of the publicly-held debt by 2013. We will continue to promote 
tax fairness for families, farmers, and small businesses.
  There is no reason to fix something that is not broken, so I would 
request that the Members on both sides of the aisle defeat the motion 
to instruct the conferees offered by my good friend, the gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), who I have, by the way, a lot of regard 
for. He is a very smart man, a very nice man, and I wish everybody 
would know him and be the recipient of his kindness and intelligence.
  But on this motion, I am forced to say that we should object, stick 
with the Republican budget. It will be the better budget for our 
seniors, for our children, and frankly, for Americans across the 
country.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his compliments, but I would 
point out that a tax cut that precludes us from obtaining the very 
priorities they set out in their budget is potentially an irresponsible 
tax cut. A tax cut, which we showed here in the well of the House, 
which would take us perilously close to invading social security again 
surely is not one that we want to undertake. Yet, we are concerned that 
the gentleman's resolution leads us in that very direction.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from North Carolina 
(Mrs. Clayton).
  Mrs. CLAYTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to 
me.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct conferees. 
We simply say, before any tax cut, and certainly it is irresponsible to 
make sure that we have a tax cut before we achieve the goals that we 
want to achieve.
  One of the goals stated was that we would have a prescription drug 
benefit. Therefore, before any tax cut is enacted, we must make sure 
that our senior citizens, especially those rural citizens who live in 
rural communities without access to health care, and who pay, by the 
way, for their medicine higher rates than those in other urban areas, 
we make sure that they have the medicine and the ability to pay to be 
free of pain and to live a comfortable life. That is essentially 
basically and fundamental, that we make sure that our program is 
enacted before we have a serious and a large tax cut.
  Older Americans and people with disabilities without drug coverage 
typically pay 15 percent more for the same prescription drugs as those 
with insurance. Many seniors do not have drug coverage at all, and 
therefore, this particular bill is essential for life and the quality 
of life that seniors deserve.
  The gap between drug prices for people with and without insurance 
discounts nearly doubled, from 8 to 15 percent, between 1996 and 1998. 
Uncovered Medicare beneficiaries purchased one-third fewer drugs than 
those who are covered, but they paid twice as much money. They are 
denying themselves a prescribed prescription for their health care, but 
yet, they pay twice as much out of pocket.
  Overall, all of these beneficiaries have an annual out-of-pocket cost 
that is twice as high as those, and with fewer medications.
  Chronically ill uninsured Medicare beneficiaries spend over $500 out 
of pocket for that same coverage. Rural beneficiaries are particularly, 
particularly vulnerable because the infrastructure to provide that 
health care is not there.
  From what I am hearing, if there is to be an insurance model, I can 
tell the Members that we do not have the structure, the HMOs, nor do we 
have other structures that can make this accessible to rural citizens. 
Rural Medicare beneficiaries are over 50 percent more likely to lack 
prescription drug coverage for the entire year than urban 
beneficiaries.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the adoption of this motion to instruct. It is 
urgent, it is timely, and it is vital to the health and welfare of many 
millions of senior citizens.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan).
  (Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin asked and was given permission to revise and 
extend his remarks.)
  Mr. RYAN of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to first discuss 
what this motion to instruct actually does. The motion to instruct 
right now talks about having a prescription drug plan immediately, but 
I find it interesting to note that the minority side, when advancing 
prescription drug legislation in the Committee on the Budget, was 
proposing a prescription drug plan very similar to the President's plan 
which did not begin until the year 2003.
  More importantly, it dedicated a little over $34 billion to enacting 
prescription drug legislation when the Committee on the Budget, the 
majority's plan, dedicates $40 billion for prescription drugs beginning 
immediately.
  Let us go back and remember that the minority side was proposing a 
prescription drug plan dedicating less resources starting in 2 years 
versus the Republican plan, which dedicated $40 billion starting 
immediately.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about some of the benefits of this 
budget plan. For 30 years, for 30 years this institution, Washington, 
D.C., has been raiding the social security trust fund. People have been 
paying their FICA taxes, it has been going into social security, and 
people in Washington have been taking that money and spending it on 
other totally unrelated items.
  This budget seals that trust fund. This budget says, not a penny of 
money should come out of social security. Instead, we are going to pay 
off the debt and fix the problems we have with social security. That is 
what we are trying to do here.
  So what happened last year when the President brought his budget here 
on the House floor in the State of the Union Address? He called for 
dedicating 62 percent to the social security surplus, and 38 percent of 
social security would go to finance other government programs.
  Last year we said, that is enough. We should dedicate 100 percent of 
the social security surplus to social security. That is in fact what we 
have achieved. If we take a look at what we have done over the last 2 
years with this Congress, we have paid back so much debt that we have 
actually stopped the raid on the social security trust fund beginning 
last year.
  This budget completes that. This budget says no longer will we go 
back to the days of red, no longer will we go back to the days of 
taking money out of the social security trust fund to spend on other 
programs that have nothing to do with social security. Instead, we are 
going to pay off our national public debt, we are going to put money 
back into social security, and we are not going to let politicians dip 
into the social security trust fund.
  Last year when the President brought his budget to the floor, he 
wanted 62 percent in social security and 38 percent out of it. He 
called for

[[Page H1978]]

creating 84 new government programs, 84 new government programs in this 
year's budget, and significantly increasing 160 other government 
programs, for a grand total of 244 new programs and higher spending on 
new programs in Washington coming from the social security trust fund.
  Mr. Speaker, we have actually achieved a historic goal here. We have 
stopped the raid on the social security trust fund. Let us build on 
that success. Let us continue to do that. Let us pass the Republican 
budget and say no to the motion to instruct.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, what the gentleman has done is, with his charts there, 
he has set up a straw man. He has attacked a budget that was never 
before the House. The minority side's budget, the Democratic side's 
budget, called for $40 billion beginning in 2001 for a Medicare 
prescription drug benefit. And not only that, to say it once again, we 
did it the good old-fashioned way that worked. We said to the Committee 
on Ways and Means, by a date certain, here is $40 billion. Report out, 
bring to the floor a resolution, a bill that will provide prescription 
drug coverage.
  They did not have that kind of language in their resolution. Theirs 
was totally iffy. That is what we are trying to do here today, stiffen 
the resolve of the conferees and see to it that we do indeed get some 
legislation that will provide a drug benefit.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
McDermott).
  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to revise and extend 
his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the reason this is such an important set 
of budget instructions is that this House is balanced on a very 
interesting policy point: Should we provide a tax-supported 
prescription benefit package for all senior citizens, or should we do 
what the Republicans are talking about, and that is, find the poorest 
ones and say, here is a little welfare program. Go on and down and 
register at the welfare office, and you can get the drug benefit?
  The President has proposed that we put a package that covers all 
senior citizens. Some of us are not very satisfied with the President's 
plan because it is not very generous, but at least, at least it covers 
everyone. For us to come out and pass a budget and say that, in the 
last resort, if we have a little money left after we have passed all 
these tax cuts we are going to give a little drug benefit, that is 
simply not good public policy.
  The Senate has picked the number of $140 billion in tax cuts. I 
personally think that is too much. I do not think we need that. I would 
rather pay down the debt.
  However, if they are going to do it, let us take the conservative 
number in the Senate, the conservative number in the Senate, instead of 
this liberal wild spending on the Republican side in the House, and use 
that money to give a benefit for all senior citizens.
  Now, when we go out and realize what the average senior citizen 
spends out-of-pocket, my mother is a perfect example. She lives on the 
minimum social security benefit, along with 9 million other widows in 
this country, $888 a month. She spends $400 for where she lives and 
where she gets her food, okay?

                              {time}  1730

  Now she has $400 and she on average across this country is spending 
$200 a month, $2,500 out of pocket, for pharmaceutical costs in this 
country. That is simply inexcusable.
  We can fix it, but it should be for all senior citizens because even 
those who have the benefit now, because of the fact that they work for 
some company or they have the insurance policy or whatever at the 
moment, may lose it and then where are they? My view is that we should 
not drive seniors into poverty before we help them with their 
pharmaceutical costs.
  Any sensible person looking at the Medicare program today would say 
the single biggest problem that we have not dealt with has been the 
issue of pharmaceutical costs.
  I think that it makes sense to take the Senate number. The Senate is 
not overly generous, but at least we would have the $40 million for a 
universal benefit.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Without objection, the gentleman 
from Connecticut (Mr. Shays), will control the time allocated to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), a member of both the Committee on the 
Budget and the Committee on Ways and Means.
  Mr. NUSSLE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, it is pretty obvious that over the weekend the Democrats 
did a poll. They rush in here with a motion to instruct conferees on 
the budget resolution with a time stamp on here of 3:45, not too long 
ago. The ink is not even dry on this. They rushed in here with this 
motion to instruct conferees. What does it say? It says, know what? We 
are getting our brains beat in on this prescription drug benefit. The 
Republicans beat us when it came to the budget resolution; they are 
beating us when it comes to public relations on prescription drugs 
because they know that our original proposal did not have a thing.
  The President's proposal did not have a prescription drug benefit. 
The original proposal that the Democrats brought forth in the Committee 
on the Budget did not have a prescription drug benefit that started 
until the third year. In fact, it cut Medicare. Oh, no, we didn't cut 
Medicare on beneficiaries. We cut it on providers is what they will 
say.
  In my area, as the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Clayton) was 
saying, in rural areas those kind of cuts will be devastating. They may 
say in the third year that they have a prescription drug benefit; but 
when all the rural hospitals close, they do not have health care.
  Well, this is the situation: we put into our plan instructions that 
suggest that there is only one thing that the Committee on Ways and 
Means can do with this $40 billion. It can either reform Medicare and 
provide a prescription drug benefit or nothing else can happen to that 
money except it can be used to pay down the debt. That is it.
  What do the Democrats suggest? They came in with a technicality on 
the floor right at the end of the budget debate, and they said but we 
have a better motion to instruct. They say the Committee on Ways and 
Means has to use it. Guess what? If they do not, it does not go to debt 
reduction; it does not go to tax relief. Guess where it can go? To a 
risky spending scheme that the Democrats have put in place for the last 
40 years that wasted social security, that brought us to the point in 
time where we had this massive debt in the first place, and now they 
want to start all over again.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the situation: this is not just a little drug 
benefit, as my friend, the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott), 
suggested. This is the only drug benefit that is going to pass this 
particular year because we are not going to pass a drug benefit where 
the money, if not spent, can be used for other risky spending schemes. 
We are not going to use this money for anything else except for reform 
of Medicare and for prescription drugs, different than what the 
Democrats' plan does.
  So instead of voting for this motion to recommit that was drafted 
just a few hours ago, after it is obvious the Democrats took a poll 
this weekend, let us vote against this motion to instruct conferees, 
which would gut the Medicare reform proposal, which would gut the 
prescription drug proposal, and which would not recognize that in 5 
days we have tax day and Americans all over the country have been 
paying their taxes. This thumbs their noses at the taxpayers of 
America.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, once again let me inform the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. 
Nussle) that we in committee we did not offer a resolution. We brought 
our resolution to the floor, and it had $40 billion over 5 years; $150 
billion over 10 years for prescription drug coverage; and it was in 
reconciliation, mandates to the Committee on Ways and Means, with a 
date certain for getting it done.
  When we were in committee marking up their budget resolution, we took

[[Page H1979]]

their iffy, mushy language and we said let us convert this to a 
mandate, let us send it to the Committee on Ways and Means, and we 
offered to make it reconciliation language and they refused it. They 
rejected it in committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Bentsen).
  (Mr. BENTSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. BENTSEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from South Carolina 
(Mr. Spratt) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, let me make a couple of points. First of all, to my 
colleague, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle), I took no poll over 
the weekend; but I can say when I was running for Congress 6 years ago, 
going to senior citizen centers throughout southeast Harris County, 
Texas, I ran into more and more seniors who said the biggest concern 
they had was the cost of prescription drugs, and the problems that they 
had of having to choose between buying their groceries at the end of 
the month or buying the pharmaceuticals that were being prescribed to 
them by the doctors. That was the issue, and that was the poll. That 
was a real poll.
  Now let us talk about what this motion to instruct is. I do not think 
my friends on the other side have read it. All we are saying, if they 
look at the budget resolution, throughout the budget resolution it is 
very clear on which dates the Committee on Ways and Means shall, shall 
report tax reconciliation language. When we look at the Medicare 
language in there, it says if, it says whenever, but it certainly says 
nothing about a date certain of what it should be.
  My colleagues on the other side have felt the need to use placards. I 
do not like these. I wish that we would ban these from the floor; but 
if we are going to use them, I am going to show what the Republican 
prescription drug plan under Medicare is. It is right here, right here. 
Now the American people can see it as well. It is laid out pretty 
clearly what the Republican plan is. There is no Republican plan.
  Here is the problem: there are about 70 legislative days left in this 
Congress. We still have not passed a budget resolution. We have not 
passed any appropriations bills. We passed a number of tax cutting 
bills, generally scoped toward the upper-income levels, but we do not 
even have a prescription drug bill from the Republican side. So I do 
not know how they think we are going to get this done; and, in fact, 
their budget resolution does not think we are going to get it done 
because it says if, whenever.
  What Democrats are saying today, what Democrats are saying is let us 
make prescription drug benefits for all senior citizens as certain as 
they want to make tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans among us. That 
is what this resolution is about today. I do not see how they can be 
against this. It all fits within the budget numbers that both sides 
use. It does not touch one dollar of the Social Security surplus, we 
are quite certain on our end.
  Their tax cut plan, it can get into the Social Security surplus later 
on, but most of my colleagues will be gone by then so all we are saying 
right now is let us put prescription drug benefits for senior citizens 
on par with their tax cuts, and let us tell the Committee on Ways and 
Means that they have to come up with a bill and bring it up before this 
Congress adjourns.
  Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for offering this resolution, and 
I commend it to all of my colleagues.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished 
gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Sununu).
  Mr. SUNUNU. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) for yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to take the debate back to the fundamentals of 
this budget resolution and away from a lot of the rhetoric, some of 
which we have just heard.
  Let us talk about what is really in the budget resolution and what is 
not. First and foremost, we set aside every penny of the Social 
Security surplus. Now there is a lot of rhetoric on the other side 
about whether do we protect all of Social Security, do we not protect 
all of Social Security? This budget resolution does it, and it does it 
for the second year in a row.
  We had a budget that was put up by the minority last year that spent 
40 percent of the Social Security surplus. We have ended that problem 
in budgeting, set aside every penny of the Social Security surplus. We 
set aside $40 billion for prescription drug coverage for Medicare 
beneficiaries.
  Now it is true there is no formal piece of legislation before this 
body right now, but that is reflective of the fact that we know we have 
to work on a bipartisan basis to try to put together a good piece of 
legislation, not just one that provides prescription drug coverage for 
Medicare beneficiaries but one that reforms and strengthens the program 
and hopefully gives those beneficiaries more options and more choices.
  We pay down the debt. We actually set a course to pay down the entire 
public debt by 2013. We have tax relief in this legislation. Of course, 
we do. We try to make the Tax Code more fair by getting rid of the 
marriage penalty, getting rid of death taxes, repealing the Social 
Security earnings limit, and giving individuals full deductibility for 
their health insurance, and we also invest in defense and education.
  I want to focus a little bit in the minute or so remaining, however, 
on the debt relief I spoke about, because if one travels anywhere in 
this country, people recognize that it is important that we continue 
the process of paying down the public debt.
  Here is what we have done in just the past 3 years: in 1998, we paid 
down over $50 billion in public debt; in 1999, last year, we paid down 
over $80 billion. This year we will pay down $163 billion; and, in 
fact, over the 4 years, including this budget year that we are debating 
now, 2001, we will pay down over $450 billion in debt.
  That is because of the determination of this Republican Congress to 
set aside funds, not just for social security but also for debt 
retirement and to keep that debt going in the right direction.
  Now the minority has said repeatedly in this very debate we should 
get rid of all of these tax cuts, get rid of any tax cuts and pay down 
more debt. Of course we could do that. We could decide not to repeal 
the penalty that seniors pay if they choose to continue working and pay 
down a little bit more debt, but if we did that it would be wrong. We 
could decide not to eliminate the marriage penalty, to keep penalizing 
married couples simply because they choose to get married, and pay down 
a little bit more debt, but if we did that it would be wrong. It would 
be wrong to sustain a Tax Code that is so unfair.
  We could refuse to give individuals health insurance deductibility, 
but that also would be wrong. We could decide not to give individuals 
health insurance deductibility and pay down a little bit more debt, but 
again that would simply be the wrong approach to take.
  We need a Tax Code that is more fair. We need to continue to pay down 
debt, and we need to recognize that what is important is that just as 
one views their home mortgage, if they have additional income, 
additional funds, they do not pay down their entire home mortgage in 
one year. They might put a little bit more toward that mortgage, but 
what is most important is that they pay down a little bit every year, a 
little bit with every payment. They reduce the size of the mortgage 
gradually, and they keep the country and their own budget on a course 
of fiscal responsibility.
  I urge my colleagues to reject the motion to instruct.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I would respond to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. 
Sununu) by saying that if he has a $250 billion-plus tax cut instead of 
$147 billion, which is what the Senate has proposed, that is $103 
billion less debt reduction and $103 billion less to work with, fewer 
resources to work with to provide for a Medicare prescription drug 
benefit, and that is what this debate is all about.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island 
(Mr. Weygand).
  (Mr. WEYGAND asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. WEYGAND. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from South 
Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for yielding me this time.

[[Page H1980]]

  Mr. Speaker, perhaps the Republican members of the Committee on the 
Budget were not there during the process they were going through then 
when we actually passed a resolution that they promoted, but they 
refuse to understand the actual alternative that we have proposed.
  I offered the amendment, I offered the budget amendment in the 
committee that actually would provide for the prescription drug 
benefit. Nowhere in our amendment, nowhere in our resolution, did we 
require this program to begin in 2003.
  My dear colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Ryan), talked 
about that this would not start for another couple of years. That is 
not the truth. The Democratic amendment, the proposal that we put 
forth, would simply instruct the Committee on Ways and Means to begin 
immediately to provide a $40 billion benefit for prescription drugs for 
our seniors.
  What came out was a plan that I referred to here as the Bentsen plan 
that he referred to earlier. This chart that I show right here is the 
Republican plan for prescription drugs. It was mushy, as our ranking 
member said. It had nothing to it, no substance whatsoever. They 
proposed a plan that did nothing for prescription drugs.
  Back in Rhode Island where I come from, many seniors who have worked 
all their lives are facing now $5,000, $6,000, $7,000 and even $8,000 a 
year with prescription drug costs. A small contractor by the name of 
Paul Smith and his wife Judy came to me and said, I am 70 years olds 
and my wife is 66. I have to go back to work part time to pay for my 
$8,300-a-year worth of prescription drugs.
  We as Democrats and Republicans should not tolerate that whatsoever. 
We should be working together to make a plan that is truly a plan, not 
a white piece of paper.
  What we have proposed is simple. Give the money to the Committee on 
Ways and Means to come up with a proposal right now. We are not adverse 
to tax cuts. As a matter of fact, our proposal was to have over $50 
billion worth of small business tax cuts, but prioritize our business 
before the Committee on the Budget; put our seniors first.
  Those people who cannot afford prescription drugs should have a plan, 
not a blank piece of paper, and that is what the Republican proposal 
is.

                              {time}  1745

  It has no substance, no plan, no direction.
  Today, what we are asking with this motion with regard to instructing 
conferees is put our seniors first, put our seniors above all of those 
other groups that really are begging us for tax cuts, but provide our 
seniors with a benefit for the prescription drugs.
  I recently completed a commission to report on Rhode Island that 
showed the comparison between what our seniors pay and what our pets 
pay for the very same prescription drug. The very same prescription 
made by the same manufacturer, the same FDA requirements, the same 
dosage was 83 percent cheaper for my dog than my mother. We treat our 
pets better than we treat our senior citizens when it comes to 
prescription drugs.
  How can we not have a plan? How can we tolerate a white piece of 
paper? How can we tolerate what my colleagues have put forward? Vote to 
approve the motion to instruct conferees.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). Does the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Thornberry) claim the time from the gentleman from Connecticut 
(Mr. Shays) who claimed the time from the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kasich)?
  Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to claim the 
time for purposes of control.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Texas?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Shays).
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for yielding 
me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is we are going to protect 100 percent 
of Social Security. We did that last year, the first time since 1960. 
We are doing it in this year's budget, and we are going to do it in 
next year's budget, the plan that we are bringing forward.
  We are strengthening Medicare and prescription drugs. We are setting 
aside $40 billion to implement our ultimate plan. It is no different 
than the motion to instruct the conferees. It is basically a blank 
paper. It sets aside money like we do. We retire the public debt by the 
year 2013, and we promote tax fairness for families, farmers, and 
seniors, and restore America's defense and strengthens support for 
education and science.
  Our GOP plan ends the marriage penalty. It is interesting, the 
Democrats voted for it, but I guess they do not want to cut taxes, but 
they voted for it. It repeals Social Security earnings test. They voted 
for it but say they do not want to set aside money for a tax cut. We 
reduced the death tax. They voted for that, many of them. We expand 
educational savings accounts. We increase health care deductibility. We 
provide tax breaks for poor communities. We strengthen private pension 
plans.
  What interests me, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) 
called this an irresponsible tax cut. It is interesting because, in the 
next 5 years, we have $10 trillion of revenue. We want a tax cut of 
$200 billion. That is 2 percent of all revenue. What is irresponsible 
about reducing taxes 2 percent? Maybe it is irresponsible that we are 
not doing more.
  Then I heard this was wild spending. Only the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott) could call tax cuts spending.
  I will tell my colleagues what I think is irresponsible. The 
President increases taxes by $10 billion in the first year of his plan. 
We cut it by $10 billion. We ultimately set aside $200 billion for a 
tax cut. We lock in $150 billion. We set aside a reserve of $50 
billion. If there is a potential surplus, we will have another $50 
billion, just slightly over 2 percent of all revenues that will come in 
the next 10 years.
  No, a tax cut is not irresponsible unless it is not enough. It is 
certainly not spending, as the gentleman from Washington (Mr. 
McDermott) would call it. It is a tax cut. We give it back to the 
American people.
  The bottom line, we set aside $40 billion for the Committee on Ways 
and Means to bring forward a Medicare plan, a Medicare plan that will 
have prescription drugs payments for our seniors. That is what we do, 
and that is why we are so strongly in support of our plan.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Price).
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I stand in favor of this 
motion to instruct, which would tell the conferees to make a Medicare 
prescription drug benefit a higher priority than a tax cut that would 
override all other priorities.
  This motion to instruct conferees rejects the House's fiscally 
irresponsible $200 billion tax cut which our Republican friends 
describe as a down payment on the $483 billion plan outlined by 
Governor Bush, a tax cut that would eat up the entire nonSocial 
Security surplus and begin to eat into funds borrowed from Social 
Security.
  Mr. Speaker, we can afford a modest tax cut, but we cannot afford the 
kind of tax cut that would compromise the future of Social Security and 
Medicare. We need to address the future of Medicare. We need to address 
the deficiencies of Medicare. The most striking deficiency, the most 
important deficiency is its failure to cover prescription drugs.
  We need a prescription drug benefit now, not later. Prescription 
drugs now account for about one-sixth of all out-of-pocket health 
spending by the elderly. Almost 40 percent of those over age 85 do not 
have prescription drug coverage.
  Spending and utilization of prescription drugs is growing at twice 
the rate of other health spending. Between 1993 and 1998, spending for 
prescription drugs increased at an annual rate of 12 percent compared 
to about 5 percent for other kinds of health spending.
  So this motion to instruct conferees takes the lower tax cut number 
in the Senate resolution so that the tax cut does not use all of our 
budgetary resources. Then it instructs conferees to use the latest date 
possible for tax cuts, September 22, so Congress will have time and 
will have the resources

[[Page H1981]]

to enact a Medicare prescription drug benefit before it acts on the tax 
cuts.
  Mr. Speaker, let us put first things first. Let us support this 
motion to instruct conferees.
  Mr. THORNBERRY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.
  Mr. Speaker, seniors in my district are very concerned about the 
costs of prescription drugs, and they are glad that we will be 
addressing that issue this year. But seniors in my district are also 
very concerned about being able to pass along the fruits of their 
labors to their children, because many of the seniors in my district 
are farmers and ranchers and small business people, and they are 
weighed down by the effects of the death tax and their inability to 
pass along what they have worked for all their lives to their children 
and grandchildren. Many of them are still involved in their farms and 
ranches and small businesses. So as taxes go higher and higher, their 
costs of production go higher, and it is harder for them to make a 
living. So tax relief is an important part of this bill for seniors and 
for their children and for their grandchildren.
  The budget resolution that the House passed is a good balance that 
includes a prescription drug benefit and tax relief, and it also 
includes strengthening our country's defense. This budget resolution 
increases defense spending 6 percent over last year. It helps us do a 
better job of taking care of our people.
  But we know that more money alone doesn't solve all of our problems. 
We also have to reexamine our commitments and all of the deployments 
around the world. We have to address the fact that, in fiscal year 
1998, $24 billion of defense spending is in unreconciled transactions. 
We do not know where it was spent.
  We have got to do a better job of making sure our money is spent 
smarter and more effectively, and this budget resolution as well as the 
continuing activities of this committee will help get us in that 
direction.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).
  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, America is completely entranced by the 
television show, ``Who Wants to be a Millionaire?'' I think that is the 
game that is being played out here on the floor today. The Republicans, 
they are starting the game kind of with the faster finger contest.
  So what they do is they put a chart together, and they list six 
things that they want to accomplish. They want to protect 100 percent 
of Social Security. They want to strengthen Medicare. They want to 
retire the public debt. They want to promote tax fairness. They want to 
restore America's defense, and they want to promote education.
  Now, the trick in the fastest finger contest is which order does one 
think the Republicans are going to put the answers in. Because we think 
and the American people think that the Republicans are really playing a 
different game. They think, as we do, that the real game on the 
Republican side is who wants to help a millionaire?
  So number four down here, yes, they want tax fairness for families, 
but the families they are talking about are the families in the country 
club. They want big tax breaks. So answer number one for them is 
helping the wealthiest families in the country with a big tax cut. But 
the Democrats, we are saying our answer is, who wants to help the 
elderly? Who wants to help the sick? Who wants to help kids get an 
education.
  So we are moving up those issues up to number one, two and three. 
That is what the Democratic resolution says out here on the floor.
  Let us make sure that we get this answer correctly, because there 
should be no taxation breaks before medication benefits for senior 
citizens in our country. We should ensure that the list, which is up 
here as a wonderful set of objectives that the Republican Party is 
listing, but they do not tell us what their priorities are. It tells us 
nothing about what they want to do first.
  If we look back to past history, their first and primary objective is 
cutting social programs, especially for senior citizens in our country 
so they can have the biggest tax breaks for those that have been most 
benefited by the enormous prosperity of the 1990s.
  So do not kid ourselves. This is all about who wants to make more 
money for more millionaires in our country. That is the game which the 
Republicans are playing. The Democrats are just making sure that we get 
the order first, prescription drugs to senior citizens before more tax 
breaks for millionaires.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. 
Shays) seek unanimous consent to reclaim his time?
  Mr. SHAYS. I do, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Shays) controls the time.
  There was no objection.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I remind the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey) 
that the first two tax cuts that went through were ending the marriage 
penalty so that young couples would not have to pay $1,400 more, and 
ending Social Security penalty, which I think the gentleman voted for, 
hardly cuts tax for the wealthy.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. 
Hoekstra).
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Connecticut for 
yielding me this time.
  Mr. Speaker, the budget passed by this Chamber provides the framework 
and the foundation for continued prosperity. We know where the 
Republican priorities are. In 1993, I came to Washington. I came to 
Washington because I watched the other side spend the Social Security 
surplus for 40 years. We are now on our way to the 3rd year balancing 
the budget by not spending one dime of Social Security.
  The Republicans have their priorities right. We are going to 
strengthen Medicare by setting aside $40 billion for a prescription 
drug program. We are going to work at retiring public debt rather than 
accumulating public debt as we did for 40 years. We are going to 
promote tax fairness for families, farmers, and seniors. We are going 
to restore American defense. We are going to strengthen education in 
America.
  I want to talk a little bit more about how we strengthen education in 
America. We have seen one approach to strengthening education, which is 
creating program after program after program here in Washington, 
throwing $35 billion into an agency that cannot even keep its own 
books. It cannot balance its own books.
  What does that mean? It means that it does not even think enough 
about our kids to make sure that every dollar that we invest in 
education makes it into a classroom, makes it to a child where it 
actually can make a difference.
  There is a better way. Rather than having an education bureaucracy in 
Washington which is mandating to local school districts and to parents 
how to spend their educational dollars, the Republican plan, we 
maintain the funding, we increase the funding, but we give it to the 
school districts in a way that gives them maximum flexibility.
  We increase funding for the Individuals With Disabilities Act. As we 
give the school districts and local districts more money, it frees up 
their money to move those dollars to the areas that they feel are most 
important.
  We preserve funding for the Innovative Education Program Strategies. 
What is this? This is a very flexible block grant back to local school 
districts. It says we trust them to take some of this money and 
allocate it to the things that they think are most important. The 
President has not even requested funding for this program since 1994.
  We reject cuts in impact aid. This is where money flows to local 
school districts because they have a significant impact because of 
Federal programs and facilities in their districts. We increase 
spending for Pell Grants. The Pell Grant program helps lower income 
students attend college.

                              {time}  1800

  There is a clear difference. One program says we are going to invest 
in Washington; the other says we are going to invest in our local 
schools and our local kids.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time is remaining on 
this side.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from South

[[Page H1982]]

Carolina (Mr. Spratt) has 6 minutes remaining; and the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Shays) has 7 minutes remaining.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman 
from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).
  (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend her remarks.)
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I wish to congratulate the 
gentleman from South Carolina for this motion. I rise to endorse it and 
ask my colleagues to accept it.
  My district showed a definitive difference in the amount of monies 
paid by senior citizens for prescription drugs. It was higher in the 
18th Congressional District in Houston than in Canada and in Mexico.
  We find that those who are 85 years old, 40 percent of them do not 
even have the ability to pay for any drugs. They have no benefit 
whatsoever, and we must realize that seniors are living longer.
  We also find that seniors are paying twice as much for their 
prescription drugs if they are Medicare beneficiaries and they do not 
have that provision, and so they are buying one-third less drugs. What 
does that mean? It means sicker seniors. That is what it means. Mr. 
Speaker, these are individuals who have worked hard in our communities.
  Then we find the cost of our prescription drugs, the amount of money 
our seniors pay, is far more than any other health need that they have. 
And this, I would say to my colleagues, begs for us to have a 
prescription drug benefit under the Medicare provisions.
  I do not know why it is so difficult. This is something we should 
support. I cannot go home and tell my seniors in the 18th Congressional 
District that in the United States of America they cannot have a drug 
benefit; but yet in Mexico and Canada prescription drugs are cheaper.
  I would say it is time now to support this motion to instruct, Mr. 
Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, today I rise in support of the Spratt motion to instruct 
the conferees on the budget resolution. The Spratt motion sets the 
stage for enacting a Medicare prescription drug benefit or other 
legislation to improve Medicare before the reporting date for a tax cut 
reconciliation bill by setting September 22 as the date for reporting a 
tax cut bill protected by reconciliation. Furthermore, the Spratt 
motion recedes to the Senate's slightly smaller tax cut and also recede 
to the Senate by dropping the reserve fund language in the House-passed 
resolution that provides for an additional $50 billion in tax cuts.
  While the Republicans propose large tax cuts over the next 5 years 
and reconcile the Finance and Ways and Means Committees to report 
legislation, Republicans do not show the 10-year cost of this tax cut 
which could be as large as the $792 billion that the Republicans 
proposed and the American people rejected in 1999. Moreover, the 
Republicans do not intend to strengthen or support Medicare due to the 
fact that there are no reconciliation instructions to require 
legislation that would actually use the $40 billion ``reserve'' 
earmarked in the budget resolution. In addition, the Republicans have 
cut non-defense appropriations while defense significantly increased.
  For the third consecutive year Republicans have chosen to provide 
large tax breaks for the wealthy. This budget resolution provides at 
least $200 billion in tax breaks over the next 5 years for the 
financial elite of America. Furthermore, this resolution is a major 
down payment for George W. Bush's proposed trillion-dollar tax scheme. 
I will not stand by while our children's future is bankrupted to fund 
this irresponsible budget resolution.
  This budget contains deep cuts in domestic spending by $114 billion 
over the next 5 years; fails to provide anything to strengthen Social 
Security or Medicare; cuts nondefense discretionary spending by $19.7 
billion in 2001 and $138 billion over the next 5 years below the level 
needed to maintain purchasing power after adjusting for inflation; and 
pretends to reserve $40 billion for a Medicare prescription drug 
benefit contingent upon essentially turning Medicare into a voucher 
program. Republicans have used slight of hand to hide the facts of 
their irresponsible budget by showing the effects of proposed tax cuts 
for only the first 5 years and not the full 10-year projections 
commonly used during the last 4 years.
  I am disappointed in the budget resolution because I do not believe 
that it provides adequate investment in our Nation's future. America's 
future depends on that of her young people--in providing them adequate 
resources and opportunities to become our future leaders including 
providing them education and access to adequate health care.
  The budget resolution provides inadequate resources for the education 
of our young people. I firmly believe that we must focus our attention 
and our energy on one of the most important challenges facing our 
country today--revitalizing our education system. Strengthening 
education must be a top priority to raise the standard of living among 
American families and to prolong this era of American economic 
expansion.
  Education will prepare our nation for the challenges of the 21st 
century, and I will fight to ensure that the necessary programs are 
adequately funded to ensure our children's success.
  We must provide our children access to superior education at all ages 
from kindergarten to graduate school. Recent studies emphasize the 
importance of quality education early in a child's future development. 
And yet despite these studies, the Budget Resolution still inadequately 
funds programs that would provide for programs targeting children in 
their younger years.
  In addition, we need to open the door of educational opportunity to 
all American children. It is well known that increases in income are 
related to educational attainment. The Democratic budget alternative 
rejects the Republican freeze on education funding and allocates $4.8 
billion more for education for fiscal year 2001, than the Republican 
budget. Over 5 years, the Democratic Party demonstrates its commitment 
to education by proposing $21 billion more than the Republican budget 
resolution.
  The Congressional Black Caucus [CBC] offered an amendment in the 
nature of a substitute that promised to invest for the future of our 
Nation. The CBC substitute is a budget that maximizes investment and 
opportunity for the poor, African-Americans, and other minorities. This 
Budget for Maximum Investment and Opportunity supports a moderate plan 
to pay down the national debt; protects Social Security; and makes 
significant investments in education and training.
  The CBC budget requests $88.8 billion in fiscal year 2001 for 
education, training, and development. This is $32 billion more than the 
Republican budget provides. The CBC substitute proposed a $10 billion 
increase over the President's Budget for school construction. Other 
projected increases include additional funding for Head Start, Summer 
Youth Employment, TRIO programs, Historically Black Colleges and 
Universities, and Community Technology Centers. In an age of 
unprecedented wealth the CBC has the vision to invest in the American 
family and not squander opportunities afforded by a budget surplus.
  I will not support the failed policies of the past. Senator McCain 
has best characterized this budget resolution as one that is fiscally 
irresponsible. I support a budget that invest strengthening Social 
Security; provides an affordable prescription drug benefit for all 
seniors; helps communities improve public education with quality 
teachers, smaller classes, greater accountability and modern schools; 
and pay down the national debt. These are the policies that invest in 
our children and in the future of our Nation in the 21st century.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 20 seconds to just remind my 
colleagues that I was here for 13 years, and I never saw in a Democrat 
budget any prescription drugs. In the Republican budget we have 
prescription drugs.
  It is interesting to note that my colleagues on the other side want 
to make it universal, so they want to give millionaires prescription 
drugs. Somehow that does not bother them. So I guess they like some 
millionaires and not others. I guess taxes, whatever.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Herger).
  Mr. HERGER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to outline the six points of 
the Republican budget plan and compare it a bit with the Democrat plan, 
or the plans they have had over the last 30 years when they were in 
power.
  Number one. Last year the House of Representatives passed a measure 
that I sponsored, the Social Security Lockbox, by an overwhelming 416 
to 12 vote. This budget reinforces that effort by ensuring that Social 
Security dollars will not be spent on unrelated programs. It protects 
100 percent of the Social Security.
  In this budget all of the $166 billion Social Security surplus is off 
limits to Clinton-Gore spending. This will be the second year in a row 
that Republicans have protected the Social Security surplus.
  Secondly, we are strengthening Medicare with prescription drugs. It 
sets aside $40 billion to help needy seniors to be able to afford their 
prescription drugs; and at the same time, it rejects the $18.2 billion 
Clinton-Gore Medicare cuts. The other side would like to cut Medicare.

[[Page H1983]]

  Point three. Our Federal public debt stands now at $3.6 trillion. 
This equates to $56,000 for the average family of four. This year, 
nearly $1,000 in taxes from every man, woman, and child in the United 
States will be used just to pay the interest on the debt. The 
Republican budget resolution leads our Nation on the path towards 
eliminating public debt by paying off $1 trillion over the next 5 
years. Our budget discipline has already repaid $302 billion since 
1998.
  Mr. Speaker, those are numbers; but paying off the public debt is not 
just about numbers, it is about people. It is about the future of our 
Nation. It is about children living in my northern California district 
and elsewhere in our Nation that are saddled by this debt unless we pay 
it off. This budget takes the bold step for ourselves and future 
generations by taking on the challenge to pay off this national public 
debt.
  The next point it promotes, point number four, is tax fairness for 
families. Farmers and seniors. This is not for fat cats, as the other 
side would have us believe. It provides for those in the House-passed 
marriage tax penalty provision who, on average, pay $1,400 extra just 
because they are married.
  It also provides for a small business tax relief and education and 
health care assistance amounting to $150 billion, and it rejects the 
$96 billion growth tax increase over the next 5 years in the Clinton-
Gore budget.
  Number five. It restores American defense 6 percent more than last 
year for our overdeployed armed forces. The GOP defense budget provides 
$1 billion more than the Clinton-Gore plan.
  And finally, number six, it strengthens support for education and 
science, 9.4 percent more for elementary and secondary education, and 
IDEA increases of nearly $2 billion. Also, it fights cancer, AIDS, 
diabetes, and other diseases with $1 billion more for NIH, as well as 
$1 billion extra for basic research in biology, science, engineering, 
and math.
  Mr. Speaker, this is a good budget resolution; and I urge my 
colleagues to reject this motion to instruct.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from 
Maine (Mr. Baldacci).
  Mr. BALDACCI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished gentleman from 
South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) for his leadership on this issue.
  Mr. Speaker, let us put first things first. First things first are 
the seniors who cannot afford their medications; who are cutting their 
pills in half, cutting the potency, thereby running the risk that they 
do not get better earlier. Those are the people who we are trying to 
put first; the people who cannot afford their prescription drugs 
because they are too expensive.
  We have developed all this taxpayer-funded research, and the people 
who are supposed to be benefiting from it cannot even afford the drugs 
once they are developed. We need to put first things first, and this 
motion puts first things first.
  Our seniors are being forced to choose between food, fuel, and 
prescription drugs. A study that just came out showed that those paying 
15 percent more than anybody else are the ones who do not have the 
insurance or on Medicare. The ones that are the most vulnerable are the 
ones paying the most.
  Mr. Speaker, these are individuals who have contributed to their 
communities. They have sacrificed; they have worked for their families 
and lived their whole lives and tried to make their families and their 
communities better. They are the most vulnerable amongst us, and they 
are the ones we should help first. Not a very large tax break providing 
for the very wealthy people to be able to enjoy, but the most 
vulnerable amongst us who need our care and support in their 
prescription medication, who have led a full and productive life for 
their families and their communities.
  Mr. Speaker, this motion is putting first things first.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I believe I have the right to close.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time to close.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich).
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) is 
recognized for 2\3/4\ minutes.
  Mr. KASICH. Mr. Speaker, I would have to say this is the most 
overused chart I think I have seen on the House floor in maybe a dozen 
years. It is used by the Republicans and the Democrats alike. And we 
would like the Democrats to use it more and keep repeating our themes 
because we think it is really a good message.
  In fact, I was in Reading, Pennsylvania, the other night and I made a 
talk; and I never really talk about the budget but I talked about the 
budget, and I said, ``I want you to know what is in it because I am so 
amazed that we were able to accomplish the fact that we are going to 
keep our mitts off Social Security and keep that surplus there and use 
it to fix Social Security for three generations of Americans. Not just 
the seniors, but the baby-boomers and particularly the kids, who are 
really at risk.''
  And we are going to strengthen Medicare. Frankly, Medicare has got to 
become a much more free market program. And we have to provide 
supplements in private savings accounts in order to really solve the 
Medicare problem long term. But at this point we want to strengthen it, 
and we want to make sure our seniors have access to the prescription 
drugs because, frankly, we may be able to avoid surgeries, for example, 
and have a more inexpensive way of keeping people healthy through the 
use of prescription drugs.
  But we certainly do not want people of real means to qualify for 
another entitlement program offered by the Federal Government that, 
frankly, takes away from people who are more needy.
  We pay down $1 trillion in the publicly held debt. That is better 
than Regis Philbin did if we add up all his shows together. We are 
going to pay down $1 trillion in the publicly held debt, and we are 
going to cut taxes. And we are going to cut taxes for people who pay 
taxes.
  I am in favor of that. I am not a big fan of cutting taxes for people 
who do not pay any taxes. So we are going to have a program that will 
help the family farmer and the small businessperson. We are going to 
help the married couples. We are going to help everybody who is out 
there paying taxes and let them pay a little less and get this 
government to clean itself up a little bit.
  We are going to restore America's defense. We do not want our troops 
to be up against the wall without the training money they need, the 
basic supplies that they need.
  And, finally, we are going to strengthen support for education. We 
believe in basic science. We love the human genome project. As one 
philosopher once said, advanced science is sometimes indistinguishable 
from magic. And the fact is that human genome project almost looks like 
magic; it is so amazing and it offers so much hope to everybody.
  So with these six principles, we do not think we ought to change 
course. We think we are headed in the right direction. We think this 
will strengthen America, will strengthen our families, our communities; 
and so I would ask my colleagues to reject the motion of the gentleman 
from South Carolina.
  Let us stay the course and get this budget done and offer something 
to the American people that I believe will improve their lives.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  This whole debate began when the President sent us a budget and said 
let us do prescription drug coverage; there is a gaping hole in the 
comprehensive care we ought to provide in Medicare. And I absolutely 
agree with that.
  When the Republicans brought their resolution to the Committee on the 
Budget, they provided for prescription drug coverage in an iffy 
conditional kind of way. The usual procedure in a budget resolution, 
the one tool we have to get something done on the Committee on the 
Budget, is to impose reconciliation instructions on the committees of 
jurisdiction, to tell them by a date certain to report out language to 
the House floor so that we can act upon the purpose that we have set 
for ourselves.
  We, in our resolution on the Democratic side, did just that. We 
resorted to the time-honored tool of reconciliation and said to the 
Committee on

[[Page H1984]]

Ways and Means and to the Committee on Commerce, reconcile the budget; 
here is $40 billion for the first 5 years, $155 billion over the next 
10 years, establish a prescription drug benefit for Medicare.
  That is all we want to do today. We want to take this iffy, mushy 
language now in this resolution and stiffen it up. We want to stiffen 
the spine and resolve of the conferees and tell them, go to conference 
determined to see that the first order of business of this House is not 
tax cuts, it is a prescription drug benefit. Then they can turn to tax 
cuts. We do not rule that out.
  We provide in our budget resolution for tax reduction of $50 billion 
over the next 5 years, $201 billion over the next 10 years, and we say 
in this resolution recede to the Senate tax proposal, which is $147 
billion.
  Why do we say that? Because, Mr. Speaker, going back to a chart I 
used repeatedly when we argued this resolution, we think that the other 
side is coming perilously close to putting us in the position of being 
back in the red, back into the Social Security surplus once again.
  The budget resolution the Republicans brought to the floor produces, 
according to their numbers, a surplus of $110 billion over 5 years, 
provided they can hold discretionary spending below the rate of 
inflation to the tune of $117 billion over 5 years. A very big proviso.

                              {time}  1815

  But if they then go from a $150 billion tax cut to a $200 billion tax 
cut, that $110 billion is reduced by 50. And then if they do the 
prescription drug benefit at 40, they take another 50 off. They are 
down to a $110 billion surplus over the next 5 years. By our 
calculation, Mr. Speaker, they will have a $10 billion surplus next 
year, but every year thereafter they will have a zero surplus.
  They are skating on thin ice. They are putting us in danger of 
invading the Social Security surplus again. And when that crunch comes, 
prescription drug coverage will never get done. That is why we say do 
it first.
  Now, this is simply a test of their sincerity. If they are earnest, 
if they are sincere, if they really want to do prescription drugs, vote 
for this resolution.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the following chart for the Record:

                                       THE REPUBLICAN BUDGET RESOLUTION USES UP THE ENTIRE SURPLUS--AND MAYBE MORE
                         [All figures exclude the Social Security surplus; negative signs indicate savings; dollars in billions]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                      2000         2001         2002         2003         2004         2005      Five years   Ten years
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      CBO Surplus w/o Social Security...........           27           15           29           36           42           48          171          893
                                                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tax cuts (before use of ``reserve'')............  ...........           10           22           31           42           45          150          750
Non-defense cuts including timing shifts........           12          -16          -13          -21          -30          -37         -117         -377
Defense.........................................  ...........            3            2            2            3            2           12           23
Farm payments...................................            6            1            1            2            2            2            7           18
Extend expiring Customs Service fee.............  ...........  ...........  ...........  ...........           -1           -2           -3          -13
Medicaid/CHIP access and benefits...............  ...........        (\1\)        (\1\)        (\1\)        (\1\)        (\1\)            1            2
Interest costs of policies......................        (\1\)            1            1            2            3            4           11           75
                                                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Surplus claimed by Republicans............            8           17           16           20           24           33          110          415
                                                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reserve for $50 billion additional tax cuts.....  ...........            5           10           10           10           15           50          250
Reserved for Medicare ``reform'' and drugs......  ...........            2            5            8           11           14           40          155
Interest cost of reserves.......................  ...........        (\1\)            1            2            3            4           10           80
                                                 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Surplus/Deficit(-) when reserves are used.            8           10            0            0            0            0           10          -70
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ means ``less than $\1/2\ billion''.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). All time has expired.
  Without objection, the previous question is ordered on the motion.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion to instruct 
offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt).
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the noes appeared to have it.
  Mr. SPRATT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

                          ____________________