[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 142 (Wednesday, November 1, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H11769-H11774]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   THE HORRIBLE DEBT OUR NATION FACES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Wilson). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) 
is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. Madam Speaker, I want to thank the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), my colleague, for joining me 
tonight.
  Madam Speaker, I have come to talk about what I consider to be one of 
the greatest threats to our Nation, and that is the horrible debt that 
our Nation faces and the absolute reluctance on the part of both 
Presidential candidates and almost everyone who seeks higher public 
office to deal with it.
  Mr. Speaker, when I go down the street in my home State of 
Mississippi and folks ask me where do their tax dollars go, they are 
almost dumbfounded when I tell them that the largest expenditure of 
their Nation is interest on our Nation's debt.
  Yesterday our Nation spent $1 billion on interest on the national 
debt. We did the same thing today. We did it 3 days ago. We did it 5 
days ago. We have done it every day for the past year. Unless we change 
the way we are doing business here in our Nation's capitol, we will 
spend at least a billion dollars on the national debt tomorrow, the 
next day, and every day for the rest of our lives.
  What do we get for that? It does not educate one child. It does not 
build one inch of highways. It does not build one war ship to defend 
our Nation. It does not pay the kids in uniform. It is squandered down 
a rat hole and most appropriately, and something most Americans would 
find very disturbing, is about one third of the interest on our 
Nation's debt is fully paid to foreign lending institutions. See German 
and Japanese lending institutions actually control the papers on about 
one third of our Nation's debit.
  For my father and your fathers, those who fought the great World War 
II to save us from the tyranny of then Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, 
you have to imagine how upset they would be to realize that the nations 
they saved us from now control America's financial future because they 
control our debt.
  Madam Speaker, I often wonder how this incredible misperception of a 
big budget surplus could come from, because we hear it every day. I 
hear otherwise educated people talk as if they are mindless idiots. So 
when they talk about an alleged surplus, I really wonder again where it 
comes from.
  I think I know one of the places that it came from. This was an ad 
that was run in several national publications, including the USA Today. 
It was run December 6 of 1995, and it features then head of the 
Republican National Committee, a face that most of you would remember, 
a guy named Haley Barbour from the State of Mississippi.
  It is a full-page ad. He is holding a million dollar check, and it 
says up top, heard the one about the Republicans getting Medicare? It 
says down here the fact is that the Republicans are increasing Medicare 
spending by more than half. I am Haley Barbour. I am so sure of this 
fact that I am willing to give you this check for a million dollars if 
you can prove me wrong.
  He goes on down here to have the actual terms of that challenge. Here 
is why you have no chance for a million dollars. The Republican 
National Committee will present a cashier's check for $1 million to the 
first American who can prove the following statement is false, in 
quotations, in November of 1995, the U.S. House and Senate passed a 
balanced budget bill. It increases total Federal spending on Medicare 
by more than 50 percent from 1995 to the year 2002 pursuant to 
congressional budget standards.

  Madam Speaker, what was called to his attention in a hand-delivered 
letter just a few days later is that the bill that they passed for that 
year to run the Nation was not a balanced budget bill.
  For you at home, for me, for our Nation, for my State, a balanced 
budget is when you spend no more than you collect, where you are 
collecting your salary and what you spend or what this Nation or my 
State collects in taxes and what they spend. If you spend more than you 
are collecting, then it is not a balanced budget, that is a deficit 
budget.
  Remember this change was made on a budget that passed in November of 
1995, so that would have been the budget for the fiscal year 1996, 
running from October 1 1995 through September of 1996. As we can see, 
and this is for those of you who have your computers at home, the 
source for this is the United States Government annual reports for the 
fiscal years 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999, all taken from the monthly 
Treasury statements for the month of September for those years.
  What you can see is for the fiscal year 1996, the first year that the 
challenge would have been in effect, the Republican Congress passed a 
budget that was $221 billion, $960 million in deficit. That is almost a 
billion a day that they were spending more than they were collecting in 
taxes, so maybe they did not get to the balanced budget quite as quick 
as they thought they could.
  For fiscal year 1997, Federal funds were $145,217,000 in deficit. As 
you can see, these are the trust funds, things like the Social Security 
trust fund, but for the Federal trust funds, the real portion that we 
determine, there was no balanced budget. Fiscal year 1998, $88,088,000 
in deficit. Fiscal year 1999, $82,998,000 in deficit.
  All of these years later, the Nation finally turned a surplus in 
September of the year 2000. It was not easily accomplished. I came to 
the House floor in the month of July to point out that through the end 
of June, our Nation was running an $11 billion annual operating 
deficit. Again, these are from the monthly Treasury statements, 
Department of Treasury, table 8, page 30.
  What you do not see is and what you do not hear is when they talk 
about a big surplus, they are not telling you that that surplus is in 
the Social Security trust fund, the military retiree trust fund, the 
Medicare trust fund, the highway trust fund. The key word in each of 
these sentences is the word trust.
  These are taxes that are collected from a specific group of people 
and set aside by people who trust our Nation to spend them on nothing 
but that one purpose. When my young daughter teaches sailing lessons 
during the summer and she pays Social Security on that paycheck, she 
trusts that money will be set aside so that years from now when she is 
a senior citizen that money will be available for her Social Security.
  When you go to the gas pump and pay gasoline taxes, you trust that 
that money will be set aside to build roads.
  When a military person serving our Nation in places like Korea, 
places like Bosnia, Kosovo pays into his trust fund, he trusts that 
that money will be set aside for when he retires so that his retirement 
check is sent every month.
  When someone pays into the Medicare trust fund, all of us are 
counting on that money being set aside so that when we need those 
services, that money will be there.
  The only surpluses that are out there are in the trust funds. So to 
say that I am going to have a big tax break or we are going to spend a 
whole lot more money because of these big surpluses, my question to 
those people are, who are you going to steal it from? Are you going to 
take it from people's Social

[[Page H11770]]

Security trust fund? Are you going to take it from their Medicare trust 
fund? Are you going to steal it from the military retirees? Are you 
going to steal it from the people who bought gasoline and paid the tax 
on that?

  Madam Speaker, the one bright light of this year, I think, as far as 
this Congress is concerned is that for the first time in 30 years, the 
Nation collected more than it spent. It collected about $8 billion more 
than it spent on expenditures for the Nation. So for the first time in 
30 years, there actually was a surplus.
  What that fails to note is that there was an extraordinary amount of 
money collected in the month of September and a reduction in normal 
operating expenditures. It was an accounting game that was played so 
that we could have a surplus.
  One of the games that was played was a very unfortunate trick to the 
people who serve our Nation in uniform. They are normally paid on the 
last of the month, but because September 30, 2000 fell into fiscal year 
2000 and October 1 was in fiscal year 2001, Congress voted to delay 
their pay to October 1, so that that $2\1/2\ billion accounting cost 
would go on this year and not on last.
  If you are a Congressman, and everybody knows congressmen make good 
money, having to wait between a Friday and a Monday for your paycheck, 
not that big of a deal. But if you are an E-3, an E-4, an E-5 out 
there, if you are a young lieutenant with a couple of kids running 
around the house, that weekend of waiting to buy baby formula or 
Pampers or whatever was an incredible inconvenience to them.
  So from my Republican colleagues who are regularly telling me that 
they support the troops, I ask my colleagues if they support them so 
much, why did they delay their pay just so they could pretend to 
balance the budget?
  Madam Speaker, this is the American financial portfolio that the next 
President of the United States will inherit. There is no surplus. Our 
Nation is almost $6 trillion in debt. The public debt on September 30, 
2000 was $5,674,178,209,887.
  For George Bush or Al Gore to say because we had an $8 billion 
surplus that we should go out and start great, new spending programs or 
cut taxes by over a trillion dollars is literally like a fellow who has 
not made his way for 30 years.
  He has not broken even 1 month for 30 years, and he finally clears a 
profit of $1,000 and he is getting ready to celebrate with that $1,000 
and going on a spending spree, totally ignoring that during those 30 
years he has grown the equivalent of $686,000 of credit card debt, 
$686,000 versus 1; that is what $8 billion compares to this debt that 
we owe and we continue to pay a billion dollars interest every day.
  Madam Speaker, that is the public debt of the United States, again, 
contrary to what my Republican colleagues are saying, they are not 
paying it down. It increased by $17,970,308,271.43 last year.
  For those of you who doubt my figures, I would encourage you on your 
computers http://www.publicdebt.
treas.gov/opd/opdpenny.htm. It is public record, that is what we owe.
  Mr. Barbour, since my Republican colleagues have made such a good 
point about the need for people to be honest, to be forthright, to 
stick to their word, I am asking you tonight on national television to 
stick to your word. You made a promise. You made a pledge. You laid 
down a challenge. I accepted your challenge. I hand delivered my 
response to the Republican National Committee a couple of blocks from 
here.

                              {time}  1900

  Your response to my challenge was to sue me and about 80 other 
Americans who did nothing more than to answer your challenge.
  I am a Congressman. It is pretty easy for a Congressman to find a 
lawyer. Some of the people that you sued served in the United States 
military. Many of them were retirees on fixed income. I call that low-
balling tactics. So in response to your suing me, I have also had to 
hire an attorney. But I will make this promise to you when you keep 
yours. And after I have to pay the attorneys that I had to hire because 
you sued me, I will take that million dollar check and what I do not 
have to pay to the lawyers and donate it to the University of Southern 
Mississippi.
  But I am going to remind every American that I do not want to hear 
you or any of my Republican colleagues talk about honesty in government 
until you keep your word.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
Stenholm).
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Mississippi for 
yielding to me, and I thank him for continuing to come to the floor and 
to make the very valid points about this so-called surplus.
  I also appreciate him bringing up the word ``honesty.'' Because each 
and every one of us that is elected to this body are basically honest 
people, 435 Members; but many times in the heat of political battle we 
tend to stretch the truth when it is perceived to be politically 
advantageous.
  And when we start talking about the debt and the fact we are here 
tonight, Mr. Speaker, three of us in this Chamber right now working, at 
least three of us are working, and I would renew the invitation to any 
of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who might be back in 
their offices working to come to the floor and to participate in this 
discussion, challenge the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) on 
that which he has said and challenge me on some of the things that I am 
going to say. Because I do not intend to misrepresent the truth 
tonight.
  But things are getting a little ridiculous around the House of 
Representatives. The Senate went home today. ``With the budget 
unresolved, the Senate agreed to adjourn until after the election.'' 
And they are gone. But yet, we have already heard speakers on this 
floor today saying we are going to work throughout the weekend.
  I would like to work throughout the weekend to resolve this budget 
impasse before the election, because I am not real sure we are going to 
do a very credible job after November 7, any better than we are doing 
before. There are a lot of people out in the country now beginning to 
talk about the job that the 106th Congress is doing.
  The San Jose Mercury News, on October 24: ``Congress has been doing 
very little but doing it very expensively. What the Republicans have 
not needed from Clinton is any encouragement to spend money. Facing a 
close election, they have not only been giving Clinton what he wants 
but pumping money into their own districts with a fire hose.''
  Eight of the 10 appropriations bills that Congress has passed and 
sent to the President would spend more than the President had 
requested. According to the estimates of the Congressional Budget 
Office, the 10 appropriations bills that this Congress has sent to the 
President would spend $505.5 billion in outlays, which is 10.7 more 
than the $494.8 billion the President requested including the 
supplementals calculated by the Congressional Budget Office.
  The increase in discretionary spending caps for fiscal year 2001 
adopted by the House on a party line vote as part the Foreign 
Operations appropriations conference report, rollcall No. 545, would 
allow Congress to increase discretionary spending above the amount 
requested by the President by $13 billion in the budget already and $8 
billion in outlays.
  Now, what has this got to do with what the gentleman from Mississippi 
(Mr. Taylor) has just been saying? Everything.
  Discretionary spending is that which the Congress appropriates. The 
only way we can spend that money, the only way the President can spend 
that money, and we keep hearing about the President spending money, and 
I have now been privileged to serve in this body with four Presidents 
and they are all alike regarding the Constitution, but no President may 
spend money that the Congress does not first appropriate, whether it is 
for foreign aid, whether it is for highways, whether it is for 
agriculture, whatever it may be.
  According to the bipartisan Concord Coalition, if discretionary 
spending continues to increase at the same rate it has over the last 3 
years under the Republican Congress for the next 10 years, nearly two-
thirds of the projected $2.2 billion surplus that is non-Social 
Security will be wiped out.

  Now, that is a fact. That is why the chart of the gentleman and what 
he says about the surplus is critical to the actions that we are taking 
today.

[[Page H11771]]

  Let me quote another newspaper. Everybody gets all upset when we talk 
about newspapers from the Northeast, but let us talk about the Des 
Moines Register, October 27: ``If nothing else, this session of 
Congress should lay to rest the cliche about Democrats being the party 
of big spenders and the Republicans being the party of less government. 
The Republicans that control this Congress are setting the record for 
big spending. The Republican majority stands accused of wallowing in 
classic pork barrel politics.''
  Now, here is the main point that I want to plug into the discussion 
tonight. We should have completed our work we said by October 5 or 
October 6. We are now 32 days into the new fiscal year, and we still 
have not gotten an agreement.
  Now, there is a lot of finger-pointing going on. And, oh, have we 
heard it again today, who is to blame for the stalemate, and a lot of 
rhetoric about who wants to work. And I think it is going to get even 
more ridiculous tomorrow. Because here we are basically having 
completed our work for today at 4 o'clock in the afternoon as far as 
legislation is concerned and we will not go back into the session for 
any work, ``legislation,'' until 6 o'clock tomorrow evening. But most 
of us and my colleague and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) 
and I, we understand that the work we are talking about should be going 
on in a conference between the appropriators and the House, majority 
and minority, and appropriators in the Senate, majority and minority.
  But we have already heard the Senate has gone home. There are no 
meetings going on. And again, if someone can clarify this, if there are 
meetings, then I want to stand corrected. Because I do not wish the 
Congressional Record tomorrow to have me saying something that is 
untrue. If there are meetings going on at this moment or were there any 
meetings to work out the differences yesterday, I would love for the 
Congressional Record to show documentation that there was one meeting 
to resolve the budget differences that we are talking about that have 
kept the House in and that are going to keep us here through the 
election.
  This is the rhetoric going on. That is fine. We can talk about work 
all we want to. But if there is no work going on, who are we kidding? 
Why did the congressional leadership not accept the President's offer 
to meet yesterday to discuss an agreement on responsible tax relief and 
a Medicare package that provides assistance to health care providers as 
well as beneficiaries instead of providing over 40 percent of the 
funding for HMOs? Why was there not that invitation?
  You would think, based on the rhetoric that we have heard on the 
floor, that the President has been out of town campaigning. But I 
believe if you check the White House attendance record you will find 
that the President was available all day last Friday, all day last 
Saturday, all day Sunday, of which the first meeting that occurred, the 
first work that occurred in the Congress over the weekend occurred 
beginning at 10 o'clock Sunday night and concluded at 1:20 with an 
agreement that then blew up. The President was available all day 
Monday. He was available until 1 o'clock yesterday. He was in town 
today. His schedule is flexible for the remainder of the week. Why has 
the leadership of the Congress not engaged the President on any one of 
those days? That is, I think, a serious legitimate question.
  The administration and the Democratic negotiators tell me that they 
continue to be available and will be available to meet with the 
Republican leadership to negotiate on these items. Can anyone from the 
other side tell me of a single invitation to meet and negotiate over 
the remaining items that the administration or Democrats from Congress 
have refused to attend?
  Now, we can stay here and pretend that we are working by having one 
vote each day or two. We will approve the Journal and then we will have 
a 24-hour extension. But who are we kidding? Who are we kidding if 
there are no negotiations going on between our leaders?
  Now, I think it is important to remember that the leadership of this 
House said early this year we were going to complete our work on time, 
we were going to run the trains on time, but we would not negotiate 
with the President of the United States. That is fine. That is a 
prerogative of leadership to make a plan. But I think again a little 
practical constitutional reminder is in order.
  This President, the previous three Presidents, the next President, 
you cannot be a President in the Congress unless you have two-thirds of 
the vote. You can disagree. You can dislike him. You can call him 
names. That is one of the great privileges that we have in this country 
is to criticize the President and criticize the Congress. It is one of 
the marvels of our system. It is called freedom of speech. We can be as 
critical as we want to. But in the end, it is incumbent upon the 
Congress to get our work done.

  And the majority party in the Congress is responsible for getting our 
work done. It is not the minority. You cannot blame it on the minority 
leader as some are doing now. You cannot blame it on the minority in 
the Senate. Oh, you can do it. It is the easiest thing in the world to 
say it. But the truth is, under our constitutional form of government 
and our rule of majority, the only action that can be taken is that 
which is approved by the majority.
  Now, if you want to override a Presidential veto, there is a way to 
do it. You find 73 Democrats to vote with you, assuming all Republicans 
are in agreement. It is called two-thirds. To get two-thirds, though, 
you have to at least try to work with the other side of the aisle. At 
no time in these last few days as we are talking about working has 
there been any serious overtures over to this side of the aisle that I 
am aware of to begin working on compromises. We are basically down to 
three or four things that are keeping us from completing our work and 
going home for the election. Immigration. A lot of controversy on that 
one. But there is a good solid middle ground that I think the majority 
on both parties can support. School construction. Again I think there 
is a good solid middle ground that could be worked out if folks sat 
down and just worked on that issue or awfully, awfully close.
  The appropriators, the gentleman from Florida (Chairman Young) and 
the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), have done great work and they 
are deserving of no criticism. And I mean no criticism of the gentleman 
from Florida (Chairman Young) and the other appropriators. That is not 
the problem.
  We have a crisis of leadership of refusing to do that which is 
necessary to get the work of the House completed. And here I have seen 
charts, bringing up charts here saying, ``How much is enough?'' I hope 
we have burned those charts because they are inaccurate. They are 
inaccurate. We have stated how much money is going to be spent in 2001. 
The majority party very clearly voted to increase the cap by over $100 
billion more than the budget that they had originally called for in the 
1997 Budget Act.

                              {time}  1915

  So that is all behind us. Anyone that is proposing to spend new money 
or more money, whether it is the President or anyone else, knows that 
if it is an appropriated dollar, that it is going to have to come out 
of somebody else's pocket. The gentleman from Mississippi has pointed 
out that when we start talking about spending, we are taking it out of 
somebody's pocket. It is coming right out of somebody's pocket, no 
matter how you choose to spin it.
  Well, I hope that sometime tonight, or tomorrow or by 6 o'clock 
tomorrow that the leadership of this House will realize that it makes 
no sense to continue to say that we are working if nothing is going on.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I thank the gentleman from Texas. The 
gentleman from Texas and I come from different parts of the country and 
therefore represent different interests. The gentleman from Texas comes 
from an extremely agricultural part of Texas. He chose to serve on the 
Committee on Agriculture. As a matter of fact, he is the ranking 
Democrat on that committee. I come from an extremely patriotic part of 
the country. I happen to be fortunate enough to know two living Medal 
of Honor recipients, and we have a number of military installations and 
defense contractors in

[[Page H11772]]

south Mississippi, one of them being Ingalls Shipbuilding, built over 
half the ships in the fleet.
  One of the misstatements that is often said on this House floor is 
that it is somehow President Clinton's fault that the fleet is 
shrinking, that there are fewer airplanes, fewer people in uniform. I 
would like to remind my colleagues that say that, and I am sorry that 
none of them are on the floor here tonight, to read the Constitution of 
the United States. Article 1, section 8, that part that gives Congress 
its responsibilities, says it is Congress' job to provide for the 
national defense, that it is Congress' job to provide for the Army and 
the Navy.
  I would further remind my colleagues that article 1, section 9 of the 
Constitution, and I encourage all of you to read it at home, says that 
no money may be drawn from the Treasury except by an appropriation by 
law. So what does that mean, when they say the President did not build 
enough ships, he did not build enough airplanes? No, what it really 
means is that they have not put enough money in their budget that 
passed with an overwhelming majority of their votes to build those 
ships.
  Specifically, Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the American public 
that on January 1, 1995, the day the Republicans officially took over 
the responsibility of running both the House and the Senate, our 
Nation's fleet had 392 ships in the Navy. Today, the fleet is 318 with 
the Cole being out of commission. So it is 317. Our fleet is now the 
smallest it has been since 1933. This with a Republican majority in the 
House and the Senate that can put all the money they choose to, if they 
choose to, into the defense budget.
  Mr. Speaker, my criticism is that in search of tax breaks geared 
mostly toward the wealthiest Americans, you have shortchanged the 
troops. We have got kids flying around in old helicopters 30 years old. 
The newest Huey out there that our soldiers are flying around in is 
over 30 years old. The newest C-141 out there that our Air Force crews 
are flying right now is nearly 30 years old. We have the smallest 
number of ships that we have had since 1933 during the Depression. 
Again, article 1, section 9 says that no money may be drawn from the 
Treasury except by an appropriation by Congress.
  Now, somebody out there will say, maybe the President vetoed those 
defense bills. And he did veto some of them. But never over spending. 
He vetoed them over social issues, and I disagreed with him on those 
social issues. I do not think we ought to be performing abortions at 
military hospitals. I was not for the ``don't ask, don't tell'' policy. 
But those are social issues. He never vetoed a defense bill over 
spending. So when I hear people come to the floor and say, Well, it's 
Clinton's fault, I beg to differ. It is your fault. In search of tax 
breaks for the wealthiest Americans, you have shortchanged America's 
defense, and I will scream it from the highest mountaintop because I 
know it to be true.
  One of the things that I hope the next President will concentrate on 
is America's defense, because again I hear many of my Democratic 
colleagues talking about everything but defense, and quite frankly I 
hear far too many of my Republican colleagues talking about everything 
but defense. We have a Nation that wants to get involved in school 
construction. Where I come from that has traditionally been a local 
responsibility. We are talking about getting involved in all sorts of 
things that are normally State and local responsibilities when the 
greatest national responsibility is to balance our budget and defend 
the Nation. That is what we ought to be doing, and that is what we 
ought to be doing very well.
  I want to point out to my colleagues that I do not think my 
Republican colleagues have done that very well.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, another area that we have been very 
derelict on in the 106th Congress and that has to do with energy 
policy. We paid a pretty good price, it was not nearly as bad as it 
could have been, with Desert Storm. But we had to send our youngest and 
finest into harm's way, and it was one of the toughest votes that I 
have had to cast in support of President Bush's move to send our troops 
over to the Middle East. Everyone knew we did not go over there to put 
the emir back on his throne in Kuwait. We went over there to defend the 
Free World's access to oil.
  There for a while after that, I thought that Congress and the 
administration would begin to recognize that the lack of an energy 
policy in the United States is a national security policy. But we have 
gone through one more Congress now and one more administration without 
dealing with an energy policy. Oh, the finger-pointing has been going 
on, but you do not solve problems with finger-pointing. One of the 
things that I think the gentleman from Mississippi and I, and I believe 
the gentleman in the chair fits right into this mix, whether it is 
Idaho, Mississippi or Texas, my folks do not like to hear criticism of 
the other guy. They do not like to hear Democrats criticizing 
Republicans, Republicans criticizing Presidents unless you offer a 
constructive alternative, unless you say, I'm against this but here's 
what I'm for.
  And here I believe that the reason that we are here tonight and we 
still have not completed our work, it has been a failure of leadership, 
of recognizing that we had, or we should have, passed a budget that 
could have restrained spending. We did not agree with the President's 
original call. We, the Blue Dogs, did not agree with the President's 
original spending call of $637 billion. And we did not agree with the 
Republicans' call for $625 billion, because we did recognize there 
needed to be some additional spending, in the defense area in 
particular but in rural America, in education; and, therefore, we 
suggested a compromise between what the President proposed and what the 
majority in the Congress proposed.
  We got 138 Democrats to support our budget, and we got 37 Republicans 
to support it. Hindsight being 20/20, I just wonder where we would be 
tonight had we passed the Blue Dog budget and had 290 votes if that was 
a problem, but I do not see where that would have been a problem with 
the President. If he had 138 Democrats and all of the Republicans 
saying let's hold spending down, I doubt seriously you would have had a 
President saying, let's spend more. We will never know the answer to 
that. That is the kind of rhetoric that everybody has fun with.
  I want to mention one other area and this one really bothers me 
today. That is in the area of health care. The balanced budget 
agreement of 1997 cut the Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement rates way 
too much. We have literally destroyed our small hospitals, and quite a 
few of our large hospitals are having trouble. Therefore, I do not 
choose to say just rural, that happens to be my district, and a lot of 
times communities like Abilene and San Angelo of 100,000 population do 
not consider themselves rural but for purposes of health care come a 
lot closer. But we have reached an impasse. The Senate has gone home 
without even taking up the so-called tax cuts and/or balanced budget 
giveback for 2001. If we should end up doing nothing, we will do 
irreparable harm to the health care delivery system. Nursing homes, we 
have, I am told, over 200 bankrupted today. I know I have several in my 
district that, unless we do our work and recognize that we do have to 
put some more money back into Medicare-Medicaid, we have got real 
troubles.
  But yet the chairman of the committee has said unequivocally we will 
not renegotiate that which the committee did in a purely partisan way, 
with no input from the administration, no input from our side of the 
aisle. The same gentleman that wrote the balanced budget agreement 
health care provisions in 1997 is the same gentleman that tonight is 
saying under no circumstances will we renegotiate the health care 
provisions, because he believes he is right.
  Well, he may be right. But some of the rest of us may also be right, 
and this is where our Constitution provides that you seek compromise. 
Compromise is not a four-letter word. There are sincere Members of 
Congress on both sides of the aisle that would like to sit down and to 
reach a compromise on some of these issues and not have a 
confrontation. But you cannot do that from the minority side of the 
aisle.
  I spent the first 16 years of my life here in the Congress in the 
majority and found myself defending myself from some of the same things 
that I hear my colleagues today accusing me of today, big-spending, 
liberal Democrats. How can this be, Mr. Speaker?

[[Page H11773]]

 When you are in the minority, you do not control what comes out of the 
Congress. When you control both the House and the Senate, it is your 
game plan. If the President is from the other party, you have got to 
override him. To override him, you have got to reach out to folks on 
the other side of the aisle and the current leadership of the House; 
and I want to say this very respectfully, the current leadership has 
chosen confrontation over compromise. That had something to do with 
political strategy. And we are sure going to find out come next Tuesday 
what worked and what did not.
  But in the meantime, look at what we are doing. We will have a new 
President come November 7, at least elect a President-elect, and we 
will have a new Congress. I do not know whether it is going to be a 
Democratically controlled Congress, which I kind of hope for, or 
Republican, but whoever is in control is really immaterial. It is 
really immaterial. Somehow, some way we have got to get back on track. 
We have got to listen to the gentleman from Mississippi when he points 
out validly that our debt is still going up.
  My last comment at this stage is yesterday I was back home in my 
district, and I had a group of seniors from Paradise High School that 
came out. We got into a little bit of this budget and impasse and you 
do not want to get too detailed because most folks' eyes glaze over 
when we start talking about these numbers, but I made the point of $4.6 
trillion projected surplus and how can you spend projected surpluses 
when you cannot predict tomorrow and that the Blue Dogs have said we 
ought to use most of this money to pay down the debt because that is 
the only way you change the charts of the gentleman from Mississippi 
where they are meaningful is by paying down the debt.
  One young lady raised her hand and said, ``Mr. Congressman, how can 
we have a surplus when we owe $5.7 trillion?'' Try answering that 
question to a senior and getting away with it.
  Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi. I thank the gentleman. Just two last 
points I would like to make because I know the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Mica) has been very patient waiting on us.
  Number one, getting back to defense. I would gladly compare the last 
6 years that the Democrats ran the House versus the first 6 years of 
the Republicans. In the last 6 years of the Democratically controlled 
House, this Nation funded 56 new naval vessels. In the first 6 years 
that the Republicans ran the House, they funded only 33. I have heard 
people this day give speeches about Democrats being weak on defense; 
and yet in the 6 years, the last 6 years we controlled the House, we 
built almost 20 more ships than the present majority.
  I would also remind people that as we begin to look at paying off 
this horrible debt, I would ask every American from a patriotic point 
of view to keep one thing in mind. Almost $5 trillion of this 
$5,676,178,209,886 worth of debt occurred in the lifetimes of those of 
you born since 1980. One of the common misperceptions is that, well, if 
we are this far in debt and our Nation has been around for almost 200 
years that we somehow have done a proportional share of that debt. That 
is wrong.

                              {time}  1930

  Almost all of this debt, if you have been born since 1980, has 
occurred in your lifetime on benefits that were there for you, either 
winning the Cold War, building roads, taking care of health care, 
whatever.
  I think that this generation has a moral obligation to pay our bills. 
I am the father of three. I am not going to stick my children with my 
bills. To do so would be morally wrong. As a United States Congressman, 
I think it is morally wrong for this generation to stick the next 
generation of Americans with our bills. I would pray that those seeking 
this office, I would pray that those seeking the office of the 
Presidency of the United States, would come to the conclusion that 
before we talk about trillion dollar tax breaks, mostly geared towards 
those people who could write thousand dollar contributions to their 
campaign, or before we talk about new spending for new programs that 
have traditionally been handled by the States, that we pay our bills 
and not stick our kids with our expenses.
  Mr. STENHOLM. Mr. Speaker, he reminded me of two other points that 
need to be made regarding the debt. Nothing up on your chart shows the 
unfunded liability of our Social Security system; almost $8 trillion 
that that system is unfunded. Now, that will not affect anyone on 
Social Security today. Anybody 55 years of age and older does not have 
to worry about that, but my two grandsons have to worry about it 
because no one disagrees that unless we make some changes soon in the 
Social Security system that our children and grandchildren are going to 
have a real, real problem. That is the relevance of the charts that the 
gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) was pointing out to us a moment 
ago. When you start borrowing from the trust funds, which we did, which 
we did for year after year after year, but now we have an opportunity 
to stop it. When you have an opportunity to stop it, we would like to 
really stop it, not just rhetorically but actually.
  The record is going to show that this Congress has spent a good bit, 
we do not know how much yet because we are not through, will have spent 
a good part of this projected surplus.
  Now, I want to also call attention to the alternative Medicare and 
Medicaid give-back bill that some of us would like to see considered. 
It is a much better bill than the one that we have been told by the 
current majority that we have to take or leave. It offers stronger 
protections for beneficiaries. It makes major improvements for 
beneficiaries, especially low-income seniors, children and working 
families. It will really help your hospitals, nursing homes, home 
health agencies and hospices get the help they need so that they can 
stay open and provide access for seniors. It gives them certainty. 
Instead of giving just 1 year of guarantee of certainty, we say give 
our hospitals, our nursing homes, 2 years so that they can begin to 
plan to undo the terrible damage that has been done over the last 
several years.
  It requires HMOs to offer a stable 3-year contract of service to your 
constituents as a condition of getting increased payments. What is 
wrong with that? Or at least why would we be opposed to giving 3 years 
guarantee if you are an HMO while at the same time saying we cannot 
give but 1 year certainty, why not give a little more certainty to all 
involved in health care? Now, this is an alternative. I mentioned that 
if you are going to be opposed, as I very strongly am, to the version 
that we have been given on a take it or leave it basis, we have offered 
something that negotiators could sit down and not give everybody 
everything of what they want perhaps but at least have a good 
discussion.
  Mr. Speaker, that is the problem. I want to repeat so that every one 
of our colleagues who are hard at work in their offices tonight, that 
we are getting a little bit ridiculous in saying we are going to stay 
here and work when the only people that are required to stay here and 
work are our staffs, when the negotiators that are responsible for 
pulling together this last bit of compromise necessary are not even 
meeting. Some of the most vocal critics on this floor have missed vote 
after vote after vote, which indicates they have been on the floor 
criticizing inaction and pointing the finger at the other end of 
Pennsylvania Avenue but have not been here themselves and working.
  We can stop there. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of folks on our side 
of the aisle that are willing to help stop it, but it has to start 
somewhere and it has to start with leadership. Let me remind everybody 
again, the Senate has gone home. They have said in the climate that we 
are operating in now we cannot get any more work done.
  If that is true, and that was the will of the Senate, the majority in 
the Senate have said let us go home. If we are not going to work, which 
we are not, then what are we going to do, Mr. Speaker? Let us not 
indicate we are going to work over the weekend and all we are going to 
do is cast two votes every day, a 24-hour CR and an approval of the 
journal. We will look awfully foolish. In fact, we have already looked 
rather foolish.
  In the meantime, we are spending this surplus at a record rate. One 
Member, a very, very distinguished Member on the other side of the Hill 
has stated that he has found $21 billion in this $645 billion that is 
questionable spending. Well, that is done. Boy, it really makes

[[Page H11774]]

our challenges for the future greater. In the short term, we are sure 
looking ridiculous as a Congress. Quit pointing the finger at those on 
our side of the aisle. We are in the minority. You cannot blame the 
minority for not getting our work done. That is a responsibility that 
comes with the majority; and I hope after November 7 I can get the 
criticism honestly.

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