Congressional Record, Volume 146 Issue 115 (Monday, September 25, 2000)

[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 115 (Monday, September 25, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8046-H8053]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

{time} 2015
DEBT REDUCTION

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gutknecht). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Chambliss) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority
leader.

[[Page H8047]]

Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, I did not come here tonight to talk about
prescription drugs, but after listening to my colleague from New Jersey
(Mr. Pallone), I guess we are going to have to title the Democratic
plan the Sugar Ray Leonard Prescription Drug Plan, because they are
bobbing and weaving all over the place with their prescription drug
plan, saying whatever makes people feel good without having any
substance to it, when the fact of the matter is that there is only one
voluntary prescription drug benefit plan out there, and it is a
Republican plan.
The Democratic plan is not a voluntary plan. It is not a plan that
makes real sense for seniors. And, as I say, I did not come here to
talk about that tonight. But I get so disappointed when I hear people
stand up here and demagogue a plan that is fair, instead of entering
into real dialogue over the differences that are out there and trying
to come to some conclusion.
Hopefully over the next couple of weeks, we will come to some
conclusion on that, but not as long as we have the demagogue going on
and the bobbing and weaving going on and the changing going on and
trying to stroke senior citizens instead of being honest,
straightforward and trying to work out a plan, if that type of
conversation takes place, then we are not moving in the right
direction, and I hope they will change their direction, they will come
together and work with us to provide a plan that is meaningful and that
has real substance to it.
There is one real, fundamental difference in the Democratic
prescription drug plan and the Republican plan, and that is this: Under
the Republican plan, the decision-making process on what drugs are
needed and what drugs will be provided is going to be determined by the
Medicare beneficiary, their pharmacist and their doctor. Under the
Democratic plan, that decision is going to be dictated by the Federal
Government, and that is not what seniors want.
Mr. Speaker, what I really came here tonight to talk about is
something that is just as crucial as that particular issue, and it is
the issue of debt reduction.
I want to go back and review for just a minute where we have been,
where we are, and what direction we are heading in. I was elected to
Congress in November of 1994, and at that point in time, our country
had been operating for some 25 years plus under a deficit budget
situation.
My class that came in in 1995 was committed to the fact that the
American people were insistent that we balance the budget of this
country. The Clinton administration had proposed deficit budgets as far
as the eye could see, and that was wrong; the American people simply
did not want that. They wanted us to get our financial house in order.
Beginning in January of 1995, we started making those tough decisions
right in this very Chamber that have not only led us out of the
deficits, as far as the eye can see, we have balanced the budget of
this country, and now we are looking at excess cash flow coming into
Washington in the form of tax revenues as far as the eye could see.
In 1995, I went back and I looked at the position of the Clinton
administration with respect to balancing the budget. The Clinton-Gore
administration was not in favor of balancing the budget in January of
1995. In fact, the budget that the Clinton-Gore administration
presented to this body in February of 1995 called for a deficit this
year, the year that ends next year of $194 billion. That means we would
have spent $194 billion more than we took in this year, and I think
everyone across America knows and understands that we are now in an
excess cash flow, that is sometimes referred to as a surplus, but as
long as we have a significant debt staring us in the face, I do not
think we can really call it a surplus.
Mr. Speaker, in testimony before the House Committee on the Budget in
February of 1995, the Clinton-Gore budget director who at that time was
Alice Rivlin stated as follows, ``I do not think that adhering to a
firm path for balance by 2002 is a sensible thing to do.'' She also
said ``it is not always good policy to have a balanced budget.''
We ask the American people to sit around their kitchen table every
single month and balance their budget, and yet the Clinton-Gore
administration has consistently made statements exactly like this that
it is not always good policy to have a balanced budget. Well, where we
have come, we fought for a balanced budget for a couple of years before
we finally achieved balance. But under the strong leadership of the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich), chairman of the House Committee on
the Budget, we did reach agreement between the House, the Senate and
the White House to balance this budget of this country over a 5-year
period, beginning in 1997, and the only way we were able to convince
the Clinton-Gore administration that we needed to balance the budget
was that the American people were on our side.

They finally realized that due to their poll-taking that they do
every single day, and once they realized that they had to come to our
way of thinking and we can achieve a balance, although we brought the
Clinton-Gore administration kicking and screaming here in Washington to
reach balance.
Well, what does reaching balance mean with respect to deficit
reduction? We do have excess cash flow now in the form of both on-
budget, as well as off-budget surpluses that are going to be available
for any number of different types of allocations, and one of those
allocations, and the strongest of those allocations, has got to be debt
reduction.
Mr. Speaker, I know the gentleman from the 11th District of Georgia
(Mr. Linder), my good friend and colleague, is here, and I want him
now, if he will, to talk a little bit about this excess cash flow that
we have as a result of having achieved the balanced budget and what the
gentleman's thoughts are on where we ought to go with respect to
allocation of these funds.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I think, first of all, it is important to
set the differences in how we got here. There has been one difference
in the two parties since the day I got here, which was in 1993, and the
gentleman from California (Mr. Horn) joined us at that time, and that
is the Democrats want more spending and the Republicans want less
spending.
Indeed, that was the debate supposedly that shut the government down
in 1995 and 1996. The President said we are not spending enough money
on Medicare, Medicaid, the environment and education. Indeed, we were
not that far apart. We projected increasing spending by 3 percent, and
he wanted 4 percent. We projected an increase in revenues of 5 percent;
the President projected 5\1/2\.
We projected increasing Medicare spending over 7 years by 62 percent;
the President said 64 percent. We broke down in the second part of this
debate, the part that is not spoken so loudly about, values. We wanted
the American people to make the choices.
We believed their giving Medicare recipients more choices, they would
shop their care and bring down costs that entrusts the American people
to decide. Indeed, Mrs. Clinton said in public during the debate on
health care we cannot trust the American people to make these
decisions.
In 1994 with a Republican majority for the first time in 40 years, we
did something about spending. We eliminated in that first budget about
300 spending programs, and we had a huge fight with the President. But
let us look at what changed in the economy and why we are at the point
today where we can talk about paying down surpluses. If left to their
own devices, this is the 1994 Clinton-Gore Democrat congressional
budget, projected out to 2000, and they would have had $4.5 trillion in
public debt, about a trillion dollars in new public debt compared to
where we are today.
Mr. Speaker, my colleagues can see what happened in 1994, with the
1995 budget, it came down. This is what we are looking at; this is what
we are looking at today. Surpluses, as the gentleman said, as far as
the eye can see and increasing, indeed going back to the last Democrat-
written budget, their projection for 2005 is that they would add about
$450 billion in that 1 year to debt; we are projecting adding about
$400 billion to surpluses. So we have made a huge turnaround, a huge
turnaround.
In 1998 more spending. In the President's State of the Union address,
85 new spending programs, including 39

[[Page H8048]]

new entitlements, more than $150 billion new spending over 5 years;
$129 billion in tax increases. Then 2 years later, the State of the
Union, a $250 billion increase in taxes and fees on working families,
84 new Federal spending programs.
Our good fortune is, none of that passed, and now we are at the era
of dealing with surpluses. There have been some proposals, and we have
passed some bills in this House, that said if the American people are
paying more money into government than it takes to run it, they ought
to get some of that back. No, said Vice President Gore, that is a risky
scheme. It is, however, not risky for him to spend it, so we have a new
plan.
We have a plan, if we are not going to get relief for those who pay
the bills, for those who write the checks, we are going to promote
economic security and fiscal responsibility, we call it the 90 percent
solution.
Let us take 90 percent of next year's Federal budget surplus and use
it to pay off debt while protecting 100 percent of the Social Security
and Medicare trust funds.
We presented the 90 percent plan to the Clinton-Gore administration.
The President indicated that his spending requests were piling up, and
he said, and I quote, ``whether we can do it this year or not depends
on what the various spending commitments are.''
Our 90 percent solution represents a fair middle ground. It is
offered in the hope that while we may not agree in all aspects of the
budget, we can at least agree to do something about the debt. We leave
still 10 percent of the surplus to boost our already substantial $600
billion commitment to our national priorities, such as education,
defense and health research. Specifically, we will use half the money
to strengthen education with the flexibility funding and support to
give our children the best schools and to ensure that for success,
schools must have accountability and will use the other half to grant
some modest tax relief for working Americans.
This turnaround since the gentleman's election has for the first time
in 30 years actually paid down debt. After this year, we will have paid
down nearly a half a trillion dollars in publicly held debt; that is
progress. That is a beginning. Let us do not turn it around now.
I think that the 90 percent solution is something that the American
people will appreciate. For years, my generation and my parents'
generation have voted for ourselves wonderful programs such as Medicare
and Medicaid. Unfortunately, we just chose to pass the bill on to
future generations, that is immoral. The 90 percent solution will begin
to take the burden off my grandchildren.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. We have been
joined by our friend from California (Mr. Horn) who also has some
comments on these issues.
Mr. HORN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Chambliss) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) very much for
providing the leadership in this issue.
I support the Republican plan, because it makes sense, and it pays
off the national debt. This 90-10 plan commits 90 percent of next
year's surplus to paying down the debt. According to the Congressional
Budget Office, the 2001 surplus, 1 year away, will be $268 billion.
Under this plan, $240 billion would go toward paying off our debt. At
the same time, Social Security and Medicare are fully protected.
All $198 billion of the Social Security and Medicare surpluses are
locked away from Presidents, regardless of party. Doing this assures
that funds are used solely to honor our obligations to seniors.
Paying down the debt is more than just an abstract academic exercise.
It directly affects the lives of every American by helping reduce
interest rates and expanding the pool of saving for investments in new
jobs. Lower interest rates are good news for everyone paying off a
student loan or buying a house or buying a car.
Reducing interest rates also creates new private investment in
equipment, plants and factories across the land that produces jobs and
sustains our economic growth.
Mr. Speaker, paying down the debt while we have a surplus is just
plain common sense. In our personal finances, once we have extra money,
we sure try to pay off our debts. The same principle applies to our
national finances.
The 90-10 plan would completely eliminate the debt by the year 2013;
that will lift an enormous burden off our children and our
grandchildren.
A debt-free Nation can create a brighter future for us all, and when
we think back 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, nobody would
believe that we could turn around and cut down that tremendous national
debt of several trillion, and we are doing it and every American will
appreciate that.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California
(Mr. Horn) for his comments.
Looking at what debt reduction has meant to this country and can mean
to this country in very simple terms is this, you know, here we are in
the midst of a political campaign, and we just heard a lot of demagogue
and rhetoric from the folks on the other side about a prescription drug
plan. We are going to pay this year in interest payments alone in
excess of some $230 billion to $235 billion in American tax dollars
just for that interest payment.
What in the world could we do with $240 billion? We could be fighting
over just how that money ought to be spent if we were not paying that
interest payment.
What has balancing the budget done for the dynamics in this House
that we are looking at today? What it has done is we are now arguing
over a prescription drug benefit program and what is the best way to
approach that program and what is in the best interests of our seniors.
Do we think for 1 minute that if the budget submitted by the Clinton-
Gore administration in 1995 that calls for a $194 billion deficit this
year had come to pass that we would be here today arguing over how to
go further and further into debt? No, we simply would not be. We are
here today having a debate over viable programs, viable programs that
benefit citizens all up and down the line in this country simply
because we balance the budget of this country, we acted fiscally
responsible under a Republican leadership, and we are now moving in a
direction where we have this excess cash flow. The debate simply is
over how are we going to approach the allocation of this excess cash
flow.

{time} 2030

Well, I know this, when we sit around my family kitchen table, and we
talk about any excess money that we have got left at the end of the
month, and there is never usually much there, the first thing we talk
about is we look at how much debt we have got outstanding and what we
can do about that debt to lower our interest payments knowing that,
once we do that, there will be more money there at the end of the next
month.
We have got to be fiscally responsible. A way we can be fiscally
responsible in that regard is making sure we continue to grow the rate
of government at a slow rate and continue to pay down this debt.
As the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), my friend on the
Committee on the Budget, has said so many times, that it is very
important that we remind the people all across this country that, for
the first time in modern history, the growth of the Federal budget this
year is going to be less than the growth of the average family
household budget. Mr. Speaker, that is amazing. It is significant; but
it is very, very amazing.
What has balancing the budget and the fact that we have excess money
on hand now done for Social Security? It has done something that we
have not been able to do in the past 35 years.
I was home in August and had a chance to get around my district to
celebrate during August the 65th anniversary of the Social Security
program, without question, probably the most valuable program that we
have ever implemented in this country with respect to our senior
citizens. I just do not think there is any question about that.
Unfortunately, for the last 35 years, we have not been taking tax
money received from Social Security taxpayers and doing anything with
it other than paying our bills every month. That is wrong. We should
never have let that happen. But it happened 35 years ago. We have now
reversed that trend.

[[Page H8049]]

As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) just stated a little bit
earlier, last year, 1 year ago almost to the day today, September 30,
1999, was the first year in 35 years, according to the Congressional
Budget Office, that this Congress did not spend one dime of the Social
Security surplus. We stuck it in a lockbox to keep it there for our
senior citizens, and we are going to continue to do that with both
Social Security and Medicare.
The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) also talked about the plan
that we passed in the House last week, the plan whereby we are going to
take 90 percent of the surpluses, the excess cash flow that we are
going to have on hand next year, and we are going to apply 90 percent
of that money to pay down the debt.
Well, I could not be happier about that, because what that does is
that amounts to paying off $240 billion of the national debt last year.
As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) alluded to earlier, when we
include the last 2 years, this year and next year, we will have paid
down a half a trillion dollars on the public debt.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, on the chart that I showed, the never-ending
debt that the last Democrat budget that was passed for fiscal year 1995
and 10 years there out created $3.1 trillion in new debt compared to
our creating $4.5 trillion in surpluses. A huge turn around. Those
deficits that they were incurring included spending all of the Social
Security surpluses.
Well, the last couple of years, we have changed the language of that
debate. I do not think future administrations or Congresses would dare
to dip into the Social Security fund.
Now, I think it is important that we start changing the nature of the
debate over surpluses that are not on Social Security. Paying down debt
should be the rallying cry of this whole country. Because if future
Congresses come along, or God forbid another liberal administration
with new spending programs, to spend all this money, we will have lost
this opportunity.
I envision an opportunity where my grandsons will be totally out of
publicly held debt for their responsibility before they leave high
school. I believe the time is coming.
But it is important that we begin to let everyone know that, if 90
percent of that surplus goes to paying down debt, future Congresses are
going to be reluctant to say, let us get out of that habit, let us just
spend it.
I know that the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), as the vice
chairman of the Committee on the Budget, has shared with us some of the
proposals he has seen, Vice President Gore's spending proposals in his
campaign. Would there be any surplus left to talk about paying down
debt if he were elected?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, not only is there not going to be any
surplus left under the Gore budget plan that he has proposed, but under
the very best scenario, over the next 10 years, we are going to be $27
billion in debt. Under the worst scenario, we are going to be $906
billion in debt. That does not include but $27 billion additional
monies being spent over the next 10 years for defense.
We are spending $29 billion in this next fiscal year alone, trying to
restore the military of this country to what it should be because of
the demise under the current administration. It does not include one
additional dime of increased expenditures in the area of agriculture,
for example.
So what the current proposed budget of the Clinton administration
does is to head us, not upwards from a surplus standpoint, as the
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) just showed on his chart, but it
takes us back down that same trail that this administration had us
headed down before this Congress took over in 1995.
Mr. Speaker, paying off the national debt is simply the right thing
to do. It will protect our children from a crippling burden in the
future. By locking away money in the Social Security and Medicare
lockbox, it is simply the right thing to do, not just for our children,
but for our parents.
The 90/10 bill that we passed last week changed budget law so that
Congress can proactively pay off debt because current law permits debt
relief to occur if and only if there are surplus funds left over from
that year's discretionary spending.
The bill is the latest highlight of a Republican record on debt
relief that is unmatched in the history of the United States of
America. Since Republicans gained control of Congress, we have paid
down over $350 billion in debt, and we are on the road to paying off at
least another $200 billion. Now we propose to continue this effort by
paying down that additional $240 billion in debt the next fiscal year.
This bill also contains the Social Security and Medicare lockbox
legislation of the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger), my colleague
from the Committee on the Budget, which is critical, not just to our
senior citizens who are receiving Medicare and Social Security benefits
today, but for the future of those two programs.
This, unfortunately, has been stalled by the Democrats in the Senate
for most of the 2000 calendar year even though this House has passed
both of those, has passed that lockbox bill.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, this lockbox concept, as I understand it,
is simply common sense. What we are saying is we do not mix our pension
plan for retirement with our operating expenses that we use for roads
and bridges and education and other congressional expenses.
So what we are saying is we take the surplus of Social Security, of
grandmother's retirement, and we put it in a lockbox so that it does
not get mixed and mingled with other funds; and it is safe there so
that her security, her retirement is safe.
Now, what I do not understand, and my question to the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) is, why is it that Vice President Gore has led
the opposition to this? Why is it that Tom Daschle and the gentleman
from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) and the Democrats have lined up against
this?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, I think it is fairly obvious that they
want to take that money and continue to spend it like they have been
doing for the last 35 years. We simply cannot let that happen.
We have got a great opportunity with the excess money that we have on
hand now to save and protect Social Security, to save, reform and
protect Medicare, to provide a prescription drug benefit and include
some other reforms in there to make sure that those two valuable
programs are protected and maintained and, at the same time, not spend
that money on other social programs and other programs that our
children and grandchildren are going to have to wind up paying for
years and years down the road.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, what bothers me as a member of the
Committee on Appropriations, we get a budget blueprint from you, and
the House passes our appropriation budgets based on those blueprints,
and we keep the spending in line so that it is balanced, important
programs, education, Social Security, prescription drugs, they are out
there, they are taken care of.
Then we get into a conference committee with the White House or the
Senate, and it seems like all that common sense is thrown out the
window, and we break the budget year after year.
Is the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) optimistic that we are
going to be able to protect Social Security the way the Republicans on
the Committee on the Budget have tried to make it possible for us to
protect it?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, I think we can, provided the American
people get involved. When the American people get involved and tell
their Congressmen, ``Look, we do not want you to spend our Social
Security Trust Fund money,'' then we are going to make sure that
happens.
I tell the story when I am on the road about my mother who is 83
years old, lives by herself, and depends on Social Security and a small
pension that my dad left her, about the fact that she told me one time
not long after I had come to Congress, she said, ``Listen, son, I want
you to make sure when you get to Washington that my Social Security is
protected.'' Unfortunately,

[[Page H8050]]

until the last 2 years, I could not look her in the eye and say, ``Hey,
we are protecting your Social Security.''
But now with the Congressional Budget Office certifying that, as of
September 30, 1999, we did not spend one dime of that surplus on
anything but Social Security, and it looks like for 2000, when we wind
up the year next week, we are going to have the same certification
coming from the Congressional Budget Office for the, again, only the
second time in the last 35 years that a Republican Congress has grabbed
ahold of this thing and we have made sure that we are not going to be
spending that Social Security surplus.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my dad is 82
years old. He is legally blind. He has diabetes. His Social Security is
very important to him. But the other thing is he has saved all his
life.
Now, it is popular now with the environmentalists to say, when one is
brushing one's teeth, turn off the water. Well, we did that on Plum
Nelly Road in Athens, Georgia, because my dad thought it was a waste of
water for one to run it one more drop than necessary. If one ever left
the room and the light was on, one was in trouble. My dad never bought
a car that had a radio in it. When one had to buy the radio, he sure
never had an FM, it was only an AM radio. He never had white wall tires
on the car and never had power steering.
He fought, as did so many in that World War II generation, to save
their money to get ready for a rainy day. He instilled that in us. My
allowance starting out very young was a nickel a week. Then it got to
be a dime a week. When I got to high school, it was $3.25 a week
because he put me on a clothing allowance. From age 12 on up, we had to
buy our own clothes, which accounts for why I still look like I need an
upgrade in my wardrobe. Even then, $3.25 a week was not enough to buy
one's clothes.
But the point is that generation knew what a rainy day fund was
about. That is all we are saying on Social Security is save it for its
intended purpose of retirement. Do not squander it on politically
popular programs designed to get Members of Congress reelected for that
1 year. It might make one a hero back home in one's own little
district, and it gets one back up here one more term; but it is not in
the interest of the United States Government. It is not in the interest
of the American people if everybody is fishing his own line and no one
is worrying about keeping the boat afloat.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, I think that is probably one fundamental
difference in the demagoguery that goes on and what we have heard
tonight and what we have been talking about here. I think when one is
honest with the American people and one sets the facts straightforward
to them, they have a greater appreciation for that and they see through
that demagoguery.
What we are talking about now are the real facts. We have got to save
for that rainy day. We have got an opportunity to save for that rainy
day. We should not squander that opportunity by spending the excess
money that we have now on more and more social programs that are not
going to improve those programs one iota.
We have got to be able to take programs like Social Security and
Medicare and ensure because we know they are going to be here forever
and ever and make sure that they are saved and protected.
I am impressed with the allowance of the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Kingston). I still remember mine. It was 50 cents, and I had to give 15
cents to the church. So I had 35 cents a week.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I yield to the gentleman from the 11th district of
Georgia.
Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I agree that the point the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) made about preserving and protecting the Social
Security and Medicare are important. But I want to go back to the point
that we have got the chance to pay down the debt, and we have got a
significant budget surplus this year with which to do so.
There are rumors around this town that the President is not going to
sign our appropriations bills, not going to finish the year unless we
spend anywhere from $20 billion to $45 billion more in ongoing spending
in programs of his choice.

{time} 2045

If my colleagues will recall, in 1996 it cost us $7 billion in
yielding to the President to get him to sign our budget so we could get
out of town; in 1998, he held us up for $20.8 billion in more spending
just to get the budget process finished; and, of course, those were $7
billion and $20.8 billion that we could have used to further reduce the
debt on our grandchildren and their children.
I always thought it was kind of strange that the President held a
press conference after he signed that ugly budget in 1998 and said,
``The best news is I didn't let them spend one penny out of the Social
Security surplus.'' When in fact, of course, we spent $20.8 billion of
it. Not one reporter asked him a question about that, but everyone in
this town knew that we were going into the Social Security surplus just
to satisfy his spending appetites and so we could get out of town.
I wish what we would have done some time ago is put a line item in
our budgets from day one so that any money not committed to spending
programs would be in a line item. That way, when the President comes
through at the end of the year he has to say I want to spend this much
more money; and we are going to say it is going to come out of retiring
the debt because we ought to have a line item in our budgets that is
for our children and grandchildren and their children, to get this
mortgage of their future off their back, so they can choose their
priorities for their lives and the government that they support and not
continue to be paying off ours.
So the 90-10 deal is a deal the American people ought to embrace.
They ought to understand when the President says that we have to spend
another $20 billion that it is coming directly out of retiring the
debt, directly out of our grandchildren's futures. And once we
establish this goal, it seems to me, over this Congress and future
Congresses, we can set the pattern just like we have set the pattern of
not spending the Social Security reserves, and I do believe this will
be a better country for it.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. The gentleman from the first district had another
comment.
Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the gentleman was talking earlier about debt
reduction, and I think it is so important. I am a supporter of lower
taxes. I think it is just fundamentally wrong for the government to
hold more than it needs. What are we, serfs? Is this the medieval time?
Are we back in collectivist Soviet Union that we have to work to keep
Washington bureaucrats happy? If we go into Wal-Mart and we buy a
hammer that costs $11, and we give the cashier $20, we expect $9 back.
We do not expect to be given with the extra $9 some nails and some wood
and maybe some other tool. The fact is we should get our refund.
I understand that in Washington money is power and the more money
that the government confiscates from people the more power that it has.
And I know there are those in the administration who want that power so
that they can micromanage our lives. But that being the case, we were
unable to get such common sense tax reductions through as marriage tax
relief or ending the tax on Social Security or ending the taxes on
small businesses and individuals who want to have a full deduction to
make health care more affordable and more accessible. So we have kind
of gotten a deadlock on lowering the tax burden on hard-working
Americans. That being the case, though, are we going to go out and
squander the surplus or should we apply it and invest it in the future;
invest it in our children by paying down the debt?
The gentleman has pointed out that we spend about $230 billion to
$240 billion on interest payments on the national debt. That is just
about the size of our entire national defense. Now it is a little bit
higher, but that is about equal to what we spend on our military, $240
billion. Is that not four times what we spend on education here? I know
it is about four times what we spend on agriculture and nutrition
programs, such as food stamps and the

[[Page H8051]]

WIC program for children. And if we look at all the money, this goes to
nothing. It just goes to the bond holders of the national debt. It does
not create jobs, it does not buy equity, it does not protect the
environment or educate children, it does not give prescription drugs to
seniors. It just goes out the door.
So if we can pay down the debt, and I believe the budget we are
operating on pays it down by the year 2013, if we can do that, then we
can invest the money in areas where we are going to get something out
of it and, most importantly, a better society, which we are not getting
right now when we are just paying bond holders.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. We were talking about that fact earlier, that because
we are now in a situation where we have excess cash flow and we can pay
down that debt, we are having the debate now over the prescription drug
issue, for example. But I can just see us if we had lived up to the
Clinton-Gore administration expectation of having $194 billion deficit
this year when they presented their budget in 1995. Does my colleague
think we would be here arguing over how we are going to come up with an
additional entitlement program within Medicare? There is just no way we
would have done that.

And the gentleman is exactly right. If we had that debt payment down
to zero, and we had that additional funding from what we are paying out
in interest, we could do a lot of things that would benefit the
American people all across the tax spectrum, all across the social
spectrum, and we can make life a lot easier for folks. That is why it
is just so critical. And we are talking about now 13 years, just 13
short years we could pay off this entire debt.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will continue yielding, he has one of
the rare and valuable positions as a House Member of serving on the
Committee on Agriculture, serving on the Committee on Armed Services,
Committee on National Security, and is the incoming chairman of the
Committee on the Budget. And I know the gentleman has worked very
carefully to protect not only seniors who are retired on Social
Security but veterans, and to try to get the United States Government,
good old Uncle Sam, to fulfill the promises that have been made to
veterans.
I know the gentleman is a cosponsor of the Keep the Promise
legislation for veterans who have been promised certain benefits,
health care benefits; that we are actually going to deliver those, the
ones the Clinton-Gore administration have cut and eroded over the last
8 years, but is it not true that the gentleman's budget also has a
cushion in there to take care of our veterans as well as the other
seniors?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Not only does it have a cushion to look after
veterans, but we took the Clinton budget last year, which called for a
zero increase in veterans' health care, and we plussed that budget up
last year by $1 billion and dedicated that $1 billion just for
veterans' health care.
Because the gentleman is right, that is a segment of our population
that fought and risked their lives, in a lot of instances lives were
lost, because those folks believed so strongly that this country ought
to continue to live under that great flag of freedom and democracy and
we can never forget those folks. Unfortunately, they have had a number
of their rights and benefits taken away from them. Probably veterans'
health care benefits have been taken away more so than any other area
of their benefits. We plussed it up by $1 billion last year and
dedicated it to health care alone. This year we have plussed up the
President's budget again and we have increased the budget by $2.7
billion over last year. So we have added a total of $3.7 billion for
veterans' benefits just in the last 2 years.
Are we exactly where we want to be and ought to be with respect to
restoring those benefits? No, we are not. But we are moving in the
right direction in spite of a stone wall that we keep running into in
the name of Clinton-Gore. They keep giving us smaller budgets, they
keep wanting to reduce veterans' benefits, particularly in the area of
health care, and we are taking them kicking and screaming down the road
of making sure that our veterans do get the benefits to which they have
been promised all these years and to which they are entitled to. And,
dadgummit, we have just got to look after them.
Mr. KINGSTON. I know also one of the goals of the Committee on Armed
Services, the Committee on Appropriations, and the Committee on the
Budget has been to cut the paperwork so that our veterans not only have
the money at the VA to provide their benefits but they do not have to
go through the long procedures and the clearances and the problems that
they are having with Tri-Care; that they can actually go faster to a
doctor, get the treatment they want, and get to the clinic closest to
them. I know the gentleman has made a major commitment in that
direction as well.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. In fact, that bill was passed in this very House just
last week; that where a veteran has a long distance to drive to go to a
VA facility, when he needs medical treatment, we are going to have a
pilot program now that we are going to look at that hopefully will be
converted into a permanent program whereby those veterans will not have
to drive that long distance to a facility. They will receive a voucher
and they will be able to take that voucher to a physician or to a
doctor close to their home and get medical treatment and have the
Federal Government pay for it under the Veterans Administration.
That is a significant improvement in the delivery of health care that
we are going to be able to provide to veterans.
Mr. KINGSTON. Now, maybe combining all three of the gentleman's hats
of agriculture, armed services and budget, the gentleman also is
providing money to get active duty personnel off of food stamps.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. When we took over control of the House of
Representatives and the Senate in 1995, we had about 12,000 members of
the Armed Forces who were receiving food stamps. Nobody in this House,
I do not think, realized that. It came to our attention late in the
process in the Committee on Armed Services. And when we discovered
that, obviously everybody was appalled at that, and we began working on
it.

Over the last 6 years, we have reduced that figure from 12,000 to a
little bit in excess of 3,000. It is somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000.
I am not sure of the exact number, but we have cut it every single
year. Again, we have cut it in spite of the fact the administration has
not called for significant increases in defense spending that would
allow us to give pay raises to those young men and women who are having
to draw food stamps to feed their kids, instead of having the security
and the peace of mind and knowing that their children are going to be
fed and they can look after the business of trying to defend this
country.
So we have cut that list, and we are going to continue to work on it
until we get all of those folks off of food stamps, because it is just
not right. It is just not right. It is immoral, it is un-American, and
it should not be the case. We have to continue to work on that. The
gentleman is right, we are doing that with help from my colleague and
the other members of the Committee on Appropriations who have been very
generous in approving the defense budgets we have had over the last 6
years. And we have to continue down that road until we get all of these
folks off of food stamps.
Mr. KINGSTON. To continue on this, one of the reasons why we are
losing good soldiers right now is that the pay is low and they do have
to go on food stamps. Last week, I was at the third infantry division
while they were deploying to Bosnia. In our area, we have about 2,500
to 3,000 soldiers in Bosnia, as of last week, and I was saying good-bye
to them. I asked the colonel how many of these soldiers are married.
And he said about 60 percent are married, probably because that is the
average right now.
What I do not understand is why the Clinton administration has not
recognized that the Army today is an army where we have a lot of
families. And this deployment situation of permanent peacekeeping by
presence, just having our folks there by occupation, gets to be very,
very expensive.
The gentleman and I were here when we debated Bosnia; we were here
when the administration said we will only be there for 1 year.
Personally speaking, I voted against getting involved in it because I
feared we would be there a long

[[Page H8052]]

time, and now we are on our 5th year there. Actually, longer than 5
years. As I said good-bye to these young men and women, wondering when
they were going to come home, and they are going to come home in 6
months, but who will go after that? In the meantime, how many of them
will we lose?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Well, I can tell the gentleman who is going to go
after that, because the 48th brigade of the National Guard of the State
of Georgia has been called up, and they are in preparation and training
right now to go to Bosnia in March. So they will be going about the
time the group the gentleman is talking about is coming home.
The gentleman from Minnesota and I actually went to Bosnia together,
and we saw the troops over there and saw the activity going on. And
just like my colleague from Georgia, I was opposed to getting involved
in that. I failed to see a national security interest of the United
States that was in jeopardy. But once we were there, once our troops
were committed, then everybody here was absolutely and totally
committed, and the gentleman from Minnesota and I had a great visit
with those folks over there.
Unfortunately, probably 90 percent of the men and women that we saw
serving in Bosnia were either in the reserves or the National Guard,
which means that they were called away not just from their families but
from their jobs. They are not sure what is going to be there when they
get back, and it really is a situation where the OPTEMPO in the
military has been called to the brink.
It is something that we are addressing now in the Committee on Armed
Services. We are looking at if we have to continue down this path, and
gosh knows I hope we will not have to continue being the policemen of
the world, but we have to look at increasing the force structure of
this country.
I would yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

{time} 2100

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, it was a wonderful trip over there. We
cannot help but be proud of the young men and women who serve us in the
armed forces and the job that they do, whether it is in Bosnia or
Yugoslavia, East Timor, Haiti. We have had so many deployments over the
last 8 years that we are just stretching our people far too thin.
I think the other issue we are raising here is the whole issue of
burden sharing. Bosnia alone has costs us, as members of the Committee
on the Budget, almost $20 billion now. And it is really hard for us to
see any real evidence that we are making any real progress.
The same is true with Yugoslavia. It is time for our allies. We are
spending about 3 percent of our gross domestic product on defense. Our
European allies are spending an average 1\1/2\ percent. That has made
our job a whole lot more difficult in terms of balancing the budget.
I just want to come back to a couple of points that my colleague
raised, and I think they really need to be repeated because everybody
likes to take credit. It is like the little red hen in baking the
bread. Nobody wanted to help grow the wheat. Nobody wanted to help
harvest the wheat. Nobody wanted to help to grind the wheat. Nobody
wanted to help bake the bread. But everybody wants to take credit once
the bread has been baked.
If we go back to where we were in 1995 when the President proposed
his budget in the spring of 1995, we were looking at deficits of over
$200 billion well into the future. And we came in and said, no, we are
going to slow the rate of growth in Federal spending, we are going to
eliminate programs, we are going to consolidate programs. We have
eliminated over 400 programs, some big ones the Interstate Commerce
Commission, some small ones like the Coffee Tasters Commission, some
that Americans will not miss, some that most Americans will not miss
very much. But the point is we have made enormous progress.
We were accused of wanting to starve children and throw grandma out
into the street. We have made enormous progress, and most of it has
been done in little changes that we have made along the way and slowed
the rate of growth so that this year the Federal budget will grow at a
slower rate than the average family budget.
The real goal, as my colleagues are talking about today, and I was
listening very carefully up there, the real goal of paying down this
debt, I just cannot think of anything better to leave our kids than a
debt-free future.
But above and beyond that, I am told by Congressional Budget officers
that, if we begin this process of really paying down debt, we will see
real interest rates drop by at least one percent. That will save the
average American family over $4,000 a year in interest payments that
they are paying on their homes, their mortgages, their credit cards,
all the other things that Americans have in terms of debt. And to me
that is a huge tax cut.
We need to really think about what it will mean when we get to that
point where we really have eliminated the publicly held debt. I think
we are at a very important point in history. And I hope that our
leadership, the appropriators, the people serving on the conference
committees will not be eager to compromise.
I believe that $1.868 trillion is more than enough to meet the
legitimate needs of the Federal Government and those who depend on it.
And if we need to spend more in one particular category, if the
President says, no, we have got to spend more, whether it is on
education or the environment or whatever his particular pet programs
are, then we should demand that the President show us where he is going
to pay for that program out of some other area of the budget. I do not
think that is too much to ask.
We have come a long ways. We cannot turn back now. I really
appreciate what my colleagues have been talking about tonight because I
think this is at the heart of what we must do as a Congress, and that
is to control the rate of growth in Federal spending, to make certain
that we pay down debt; and ultimately I believe we allow families to
keep more of what they earn in two ways, first of all with tax cuts and
secondly by seeing lower interest rates on their home mortgages and
everything else that they own.
So I really appreciate this special order tonight, and I thank my
friends from Georgia for having it.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, before the gentleman from Minnesota yields
the floor, I wanted to bring up something that, as we work on
prescription drug coverage, and it is interesting, the only bill that
has passed is a Republican bill, yet as we listen to Gore and the
Democrat party, we would think that they have passed five bills and we
have not done anything.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield,
I do not think the President has ever introduced a prescription drug
bill. In 8 years, I think the sum total of what this administration has
done on prescription drugs is they have refused to enforce the
antitrust laws that are on the books. We have seen even bigger mergers
of the huge pharmaceutical companies. And then, of course, when seniors
try to buy prescription drugs in either Canada or Mexico or Europe via
mail or e-mail or some kind of ordering system, the other thing the
administration has done is they have sent those seniors threatening
letters. And we have copies of those in our office. In fact, I think we
have copies on our Web site so my colleagues might want to check it.
So they have never introduced a bill, but they have allowed the big
drug companies to merge; and they have not enforced the antitrust laws,
and they have threatened seniors. That has been their answer.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, what I think is real important to
understand is that in Canada and Mexico they can buy drugs made in
America by the same drug companies that we buy from at our local
pharmacist and they can buy those same drugs, same dosage for 30
percent less, 40 percent less in one case, 25 percent less; and yet, if
they live in Minnesota or New York or Maine and they drive over to a
pharmacist and buy them, the Clinton FDA stops them.
Here is an opportunity that, under the Clinton administration we
passed NAFTA, which has cost us a lot of jobs in our area, and yet free
trade with Canada would mean they should be able to buy things over
there; and yet it is the Clinton administration that keeps our seniors
from doing that. And

[[Page H8053]]

that is something that could affect the cost of prescription drugs
right now.
Now, my interest and I think the interest of the gentleman from
Georgia (Mr. Linder) and the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) is
that, if we can get our seniors to get lower-cost drugs, there is more
competition in the system and more competition will bring the prices
down; and so we want the folks in Minnesota and on the border States to
get their drugs cheaper from Canada because we may be able do that also
through the Internet. But we also will benefit when the prices come
down, and that is why it is in our interest as a Nation.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, from a budget perspective, last year the
Federal Government, through the Veterans' Administration and through
other programs that are actually run by the Federal Government, we
bought about $5 billion worth of prescription drugs last year.
Now, I estimate if Americans had access, including the VA and
Medicaid and medical assistance and some of the other programs we fund,
if we had access to drugs at world-market prices, let my give my
colleagues one example, Prilosec, a very commonly prescribed drug in
the United States for acid reflux disease and ulcers. In the United
States the average price for a 30-day supply is now about $139 a month.
That same drug sells in Canada for $55. It sells in Mexico for $17.50.
Now, that is just one example. But we believe that you could save
easily 30 percent.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman did not have to make this
story up, unlike Vice President Gore, who has to absolutely lie about
his mother-in-law. The truth is out there. Why not tell the truth?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. The truth is we could save at least $1.5 billion a
year. And when people talk about the prescription drug problem, the
problem is that they always talk about the wrong side first; they
always talk about coverage. The real problem is price. If people had
access to drugs at world-market prices, we would have a much smaller
problem dealing with the coverage side.
The good news is I think the congressional leadership, and the
Republicans in particular, now understand that if we believe in free
markets for textiles, if we believe in free markets for lumber, if we
believe in free markets for agricultural products, certainly we ought
to have free markets when it comes to pharmaceuticals.
I do not believe in price controls, but I do not believe that the
world's best customers should pay the world's highest prices. And that
is what is happening today, and it is partly because of the miserable
job that the Justice Department has done, the administration, the FDA,
and so forth in terms of encouraging more competition.
So that is an issue that has huge budget implications. Because when
we look at Medicare, we look at the VA, we look at how much we are
already spending on prescription drugs, if we have access to world-
market prices, we will see prices in the United States, in my opinion,
drop by at least 30 percent. And next year the estimates are, in the
United States, we will spend both from private citizens, insurance
companies, the Government, and so forth, we will spend close to $150
billion on prescription drugs. Thirty percent of $150 billion is real
money.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman hits the core of that
issue, too, is that we do not drive those prices down by Government
controls; we do not drive those prices down by the Federal Government
doing anything other than allowing for competition, promoting
competition. That should be the sole function of the Federal
Government.
We tend to go in the other direction sometimes, and that just ought
not to happen.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, one senior at one of my townhall meetings
said it best: if you think prescription drugs are expensive today, just
wait until the Federal Government provides them for free.
We have got to deal with the price side first. And then when we do,
we can come up with a prescription drug program that encourages
competition, that allows markets to work, that gives people choices,
that is available, it is affordable, and ultimately will bring down the
price of prescription drugs so that people will not be falling through
the cracks as they are today.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman bringing that
up. We talk about the differences between the Bush and the Gore plan. I
think if we look at the Gore plan, and there is a plan, it has never
been introduced for 8 years, but suddenly about a month ago the Gore
plan had a new prescription drug benefit. I did not know it until I saw
an advertisement on there.
Let me ask my colleagues. In fact, I would love anybody to answer.
Have my colleagues been sent anything to the office? I mean, we have
got New York, Minnesota, Georgia, and Colorado here. Not one office has
been sent this allegedly serious proposal. But the Gore plan has one
purchaser of prescription drugs. That is the Federal Government.
The Bush plan has eight different options to choose from. The Bush
plan they can enroll in at any time in their life. The Gore plan they
have to chose at 64\1/2\ years old. And if they do not choose then,
they are out of luck.
The Bush plan says, we are not going to ensure Bill Gates and Ross
Perot because two-thirds of the people out there already have a
prescription drug plan; we do not need the universal coverage for
everybody. The Gore plan says, no, sir. Ted Turner, Ross Perot, Bill
Gates are my kind of guys. I want to make sure they get free
prescription drugs from the truck drivers back home and the coal miners
in Tennessee.
And so it is the typical government-mandated, one-size-fits-all, huge
Washington-driven entitlement. And that is why I think it should be
rejected; and instead of shotgun, we should laser beam our solutions to
where the problems really are.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I think our colleague from Georgia (Mr.
Linder) says it best. In many of these issues, it really is about who
decides, will it be Washington or will it be the individual. Whether we
are talking about education reform, health care reform, prescription
drug reform, whatever we are talking about here in Washington, most of
it all comes down to who decides. Will it be Washington bureaucrats, or
will it be you?
The thing about this side of the aisle is we believe in individuals,
and we believe that the individuals can make the best decisions.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. And will make the best decisions.
I want to thank all of my colleagues for participating today. We look
forward to continuing to dialogue with our folks on the other side and
the White House to, hopefully, get our 90/10 debt pay-down bill signed
into law by the President. It is the right thing to do, and it needs to
happen.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hayes). The Chair would remind all
Members that although remarks in debate may level criticism against the
policies of the Vice President, still remarks in debate must avoid
personality and, therefore, may not include personal accusations or
characterizations.

____________________