[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 113 (Thursday, September 21, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H7969-H7970]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   DEMOCRATS SHOULD STOP USING SCARE TACTICS TO TRY TO WIN ELECTIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Madam Speaker, I would like to follow up on what the 
gentleman from Florida so ably started, that is, talking about 
misrepresentations, not only in this campaign, but on the House floor.
  As a Member that arrived here in 1995, I was surprised that people 
would come to the floor and actually talk about how mean-spirited, 
right-wing fanatics wanted to destroy Medicare and accused Republicans 
of wanting Medicare to wither on the vine. It got so bad, in fact, 
after the President shut down the government by vetoing nine 
appropriation bills, that The Washington Post, never a friend of the 
Republican Party, but The Washington Post actually had an editorial 
talking about the real fault and saying the real fault was that the 
Democratic Party was resorting to scare tactics and they called it 
``Mediscare.'' Of course, that caught on; and we see this trend 
continuing over and over and over again.
  As the gentleman from Florida talked about the 1994 gubernatorial 
race, we actually had Lawton Chiles and Buddy McKay calling senior 
citizens in South Florida saying, if you vote for Jeb Bush, a governor, 
a governor, he is going to cut Social Security. It is just lunacy. 
However, this has been the tact since we got here in 1994: try to scare 
senior citizens, try to scare grandmothers and grandfathers, those that 
are the most fragile in our society, into thinking that one party 
actually wants to take away Medicare and Social Security benefits.
  I would like to say that it ended in this House back in 1996 or 1997 
that, somehow, the far left was shamed into actually stopping the lies 
about Medicare. But I was sitting on the floor here just 2 weeks ago, 
and I heard a gentleman, I will not say his name, but I actually heard 
a gentleman once again say that Republicans came to Washington 
promising to have Medicare wither on the vine.
  Now, there is no polite way to say it. That is a lie. That is just a 
bald-faced lie. Sadly, the gentleman that said it knew he was lying, 
knew he was talking about when Newt Gingrich talked about having HCFA 
wither on the vine because he wanted to privatize an

[[Page H7970]]

awful lot of things. But it just continues.
  How sad is it that we have Al Gore saying that his mother-in-law 
takes dog pills that actually cost less for the dog and more for him; 
and then when he is pushed on it, his staff says yes, it is not true, 
it is not true. It is just unbelievable, and it continues over and over 
again.
  Mr. Speaker, we hear that there is not a prescription drug plan on 
the table. There is. We actually passed one. But because it does not 
socialize the dispensing of drugs in the Department of HHS, somehow, it 
is a mean-spirited plan.
  Madam Speaker, I just hope that the Vice President, and I hope that 
my friends on the left, can actually refrain from the type of scare 
tactics that they have been engaging in for over 6 years, because it 
does not work. We have got grandmoms too. We have parents who depend on 
Medicare, who depend on Social Security, who depend on the type of 
things like, for instance, a bill that I was just able to see enacted 
into law this past week where we passed long-term health care. But we 
did it in a way that did not socialize long-term health care in a 
bureaucracy in Washington, D.C.
  We did it in a way where the decisions are made locally. The 
decisions are made by doctors, by patients, by health care providers, 
and that is where we need to go. I certainly hope again that especially 
the Vice President, who seeks to be the next President of these United 
States, can refrain from these types of exaggerations that are clearly 
intended to distort the truth, clearly intended to scare senior 
citizens into believing that one group of people are for seniors and 
one group are against them. It may make him feel morally superior, but 
it is a lie; and also it is very insulting to those of us who believe 
that one can care for senior citizens without centralizing and 
socializing every single function in the Department of HHS.
  We believe, we believe that people in our communities, people in the 
free market, that doctors, physicians, and senior citizens, can make 
intelligent choices also, with the benefit of the type of plan that we 
passed here several months ago. So hopefully, the fear mongering can be 
left behind, not only on the campaign trail, but also in this House. It 
is too important for our seniors, and it is too important for us.

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