[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 3]
[House]
[Pages 3291-3295]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING THE NATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Ose). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.


                        On Ritalin Prescriptions

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, before I begin with the comments that I came 
to make tonight, I would like to say that I think the previous speaker 
has pointed out some very important things about the prescriptions of 
Ritalin in this country. I remember a few months ago reading in the 
Knoxville News-Sentinel that a retired DEA official, in fact I think he 
was second in command of the DEA at one time who now has retired to 
east Tennessee, he wrote an article pointing out that our medical 
community was prescribing Ritalin at over six times the rate of any 
other industrialized nation. I think there is a serious question as to 
whether or not that very serious drug, that very serious controlled 
substance has been overprescribed in this country, and I think we need 
to be very, very careful with that and make sure that it is not being 
used in cases where particularly small children and particularly small 
boys might simply be a little more active or rambunctious than some 
others. I do raise that cautionary note.


                    Administration Proposed Spending

  Mr. DUNCAN. Mr. Speaker, I would also like to comment about the last 
comments of the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) who mentioned the 
some 80 new programs that the President proposed in his State of the 
Union address. The National Taxpayers Union put out a report saying 
that those programs if all were enacted would cost us $288.4 billion in 
the first year. Newsweek had an even more interesting table a few weeks 
ago and had a chart which showed that if we enacted all of those 
programs that the President proposed, that it would lead to a $2.3 
trillion shortfall in the first 15 years. We have a good economy now 
but if we do something like that and allow at least a $2.3 trillion 
shortfall to accumulate over these next 15 years, we could not pay the 
Medicare bills, we could not pay the Social Security bills, we could 
not do many of the most important things that the people of this 
country want us to do.
  I rise though, Mr. Speaker, today to speak on several unrelated but 
very important issues facing this Nation right at this time. First, we 
are bombing Iraq and sending troops to Kosovo without votes by the 
Congress to do so. We still have troops in Bosnia in 1999 even though 
the President originally promised that they would stay in Bosnia no 
longer than the end of 1996. Yes, 1996. A few years ago, as I have 
mentioned before on this floor, the front page of the Washington Post 
had a story reporting that our troops in Haiti were picking up garbage 
and settling domestic disputes. Then about a year ago, I heard another 
Member of this body say that we had our troops in Bosnia, among other 
things, giving rabies shots to dogs. Certainly none of us have anything 
against the Haitians or the Bosnians. We want to try to help them, but 
I believe, Mr. Speaker, that most Americans believe that the Haitians 
should pick up their own garbage and the Bosnians should give their own 
rabies shots. We have spent billions and billions of hard-earned tax 
dollars in recent years in Haiti, Rwanda, Bosnia and Somalia, and now 
in Kosovo we are going to be spending more, trying to settle or end 
ethnic or religious conflicts that have gone on in many cases for 
hundreds of years. We have spent several billions, and I am saying 
billions with a B, over the last few months in Iraq bombing people that 
our leaders tell us are not our enemies. Saddam Hussein is a ruthless, 
mentally ill dictator who apparently has killed many people in order to 
stay in power. I would agree with any bad thing you wanted to say about 
Hussein. In fact, I voted for the bill at the end of the last Congress 
to spend $100 million to try to help remove him. Eight years ago I 
voted for the original Gulf War. But at that time Hussein had moved 
against another country, Kuwait, and he was threatening others. He had 
what at that time was considered to be the most powerful military in 
the Middle East, although we now know that his military strength had 
been greatly exaggerated or overestimated. But we had to stop Hussein 
from moving throughout the Middle East and taking over several other 
countries.
  Now, though, his military was almost wiped out by the earlier war. He 
had been greatly weakened even further by the years of economic 
embargoes and sanctions since then. Hussein did not move against us or 
anyone else this time or even threaten to do so. We justify this 
bombing by alleging that Iraq had weapons or has weapons of mass 
destruction but they were weapons that U.N. inspectors did not find. 
Also, several countries have weapons of mass destruction, including us 
and most of our strongest allies. We cannot bomb everyone or every 
nation which has a weapon of mass destruction.
  Robert Novak, the nationally syndicated columnist, called this war 
against Iraq a phony war. He is correct, but unfortunately it is a 
phony war that is costing U.S. taxpayers billions, billions that we 
could be using for many better purposes.
  Former Congressman and Cabinet Secretary Jack Kemp said this: ``The 
bombing is wrong, it's unjustified, and it must stop. The Iraqi people 
have done nothing to America or Great Britain to warrant the dropping 
of bombs in Baghdad.''
  U.S. News & World Report said: ``Displays of American military might 
often leave the rest of the world puzzled, and this one was 
particularly discomfiting to both the usual carpers and friends. People 
spread around the world were left to wonder, like many Americans, 
whether this was a justified attack, or just a tack, by an American 
President desperate to forestall impeachment.''

[[Page 3292]]

  We are basically bombing a defenseless nation, and most Americans do 
not even feel like we are at war. It is unbelievable that we are 
dropping bombs on people and not even giving it a second thought.
  After the President's apology last August was such a monumental flop, 
he then ordered bombs to be dropped on Afghanistan and the Sudan, some 
people felt, to draw attention away from his personal problems. We now 
know from national press reports that we bombed a medicine factory and 
other civilian locations.
  Also, we know that the President rushed into that bombing without 
notifying the Joint Chiefs of Staff or even the head of the FBI who is 
usually notified of actions against terrorists.
  Also, the Sudan and Afghanistan bombings were done over the 
objections of the Attorney General. Now most people do not even 
remember that we did those bombings last August. Now we are bombing 
once again a country that cannot take one hostile or overt step against 
us and did not even threaten to do so. We are making enemies all over 
this world out of people who want to be our friends.
  We started this latest Iraqi bombing on the eve of impeachment 
proceedings in the House, once again very questionable timing. We found 
out later from U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter that the UNSCOM 
report had been rigged with the White House in a lame attempt to try to 
justify the bombing.
  The Christian Science Monitor, one of our leading national 
newspapers, and a newspaper, I might say, that usually supports the 
President, reported a few days ago that there are conflicts, fighting 
going on right now in 46 different locations around the world. Are we 
going to send troops to all 46? Are we going to send troops into every 
country? Obviously we cannot do this. It would cost far too many 
billions, and even our wasteful Federal Government does have some 
limits.
  Right now our young people and many others are concerned about the 
future of Social Security. We really do not know how we will pay the 
staggering medical bills of the future. At a time when both air 
passenger traffic and air cargo traffic are shooting way up and all 
economic development is so tied into aviation, the President's budget 
is cutting aviation spending by several billion by reducing the Airport 
Improvement Program and eliminating the general fund contribution to 
the FAA. Yet we are spending billions to turn our military into 
international social workers.
  We should try to be friends with every nation in the world, but we 
should not mortgage our own future in the process. We should send 
advisers in every field to help other nations which want us to do that. 
But we cannot continue sending billions and billions every time some 
other nation has a serious problem. Also, where there is an 
international tragedy of some sort, we need to quickly convene a 
meeting and ask Sweden and Germany and France and Japan and all other 
nations how much they will contribute. Right now we are carrying far 
too much of these burdens on our shoulders alone.
  And we basically are following a CNN foreign policy. We seem to get 
involved in a big way in whichever situation is being given the most 
prominence at the moment on the national news. Now we are going into 
Kosovo against the recommendations of former Secretary of State Henry 
Kissinger, columnist Charles Krauthammer and many, many others.
  George Washington in his farewell address warned us against 
entangling ourselves in the affairs of other nations. Dwight 
Eisenhower, a career military man, warned us against the military-
industrial complex.
  Why are we doing these things? Why are we attempting to be the 
world's policeman? Why are we so eager to drop bombs and doing so in 
such a cavalier, even careless manner?
  Part of it involves money, the military-industrial complex that 
President Eisenhower warned us about. Eisenhower believed, and I 
believe, that national defense is one of the most important and most 
legitimate functions of our national government. But some leaders of 
the military, now that most Cold War threats have diminished, are 
desperately searching for military missions so that their 
appropriations will not be cut. How else can you explain such eagerness 
to send troops or to drop bombs on countries which are no threat 
whatsoever to our national security and where no vital U.S. interest is 
at stake? Those should be the key tests, whether our national security 
or whether a vital U.S. interest is at stake. Certainly that is not 
present in Kosovo or many of these other places where we have gone and 
where we have spent so many billions in recent years.
  Then, too, I think we are doing it in part because of the psychology 
of power and of human beings. Most men when they are running for 
President want that position more than anything they have ever wanted. 
But I think they soon become dissatisfied with running only the United 
States and then start wanting more. They want to be seen as world 
statesmen, great leaders of the world, not simply just a great leader 
of the U.S. alone. It seems to be human nature to always want more or 
something different, and this is especially true of hard-charging, 
ambitious, driven people. And these desires, these ambitions are always 
encouraged and supported by companies which benefit from billions in 
military expenditures, the military-industrial complex about which 
Eisenhower warned us.

                              {time}  1815

  Many liberals and big-government types, even some big-government 
conservatives, resort to name calling and childish sarcasm against 
anyone who opposes spending all these billions overseas. They will not 
discuss these issues on the merits but simply dismiss as isolationist 
anyone who speaks out against any foreign adventure that they dream up.
  Our first obligation though, Mr. Speaker, as the Congress of the 
United States, should be to the citizens and taxpayers of the United 
States. It should not be to take billions and billions of their money 
and spend it on problems in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and on, and on, and 
on. What we need are foreign policies that put this Nation and its 
people first for a change. What we need is an American-first foreign 
policy, even if it is not politically correct or fashionable to say so.
  Apparently, many people accept wasting all these billions today 
because they think our economy is stronger than it really is. Well, I 
might just say a few things about that. Levi Strauss has just announced 
that it is moving 6,000 more jobs to other countries. Last year, that 
company closed its largest facility in my hometown of Knoxville; and 
2,200 people lost their jobs.
  Last year was a record layoff in this country, a record year in this 
country for layoffs. Personal bankruptcies are at an all-time high, 1.4 
million this past year alone. Our trade deficit hit a record 170 
billion which means conservatively, according to the economists, we 
lose at least 20,000 jobs per billion, 3.4 million jobs, 3,400,000 jobs 
to other countries.
  Many college graduates today cannot find jobs except in restaurants, 
and certainly there is nothing wrong with working in a restaurant, but 
you hope that people who get bachelors and masters degrees from 
colleges can find something a little better than that.
  Our trade deficit with Japan reached 64 billion. The deficit with 
China was 57 billion, 57 billion. This is the same China that funneled 
millions in campaign contributions to influence the last presidential 
election.
  The President has done several things, this administration has done 
several things, that will be very harmful for this Nation for many 
years long after he has left office and the administration has left 
office, when the problems that have been caused will be blamed on 
someone else. One involves the Chinese. The President ordered the sale 
of missile technology to the Chinese unbelievably over the objections 
of the State Department, the Defense Department and the Justice 
Department. Now the Chinese have, according to our intelligence 
reports, at least 13 nuclear warheads aimed at the U.S., missiles they 
could not have gotten

[[Page 3293]]

here without the technology that millions of campaign contributions 
apparently got for them. Some apparently came from top executives of 
the Hughes Electronic Corporation, which sold some of this technology 
to the Chinese.
  Now the Chinese have missiles pointed at Taiwan, our ally that we 
have a legal obligation to defend. We will now have to spend billions, 
extra billions, in the years ahead to defend against this Chinese 
threat, the same Chinese who are eating our lunch in trade to the tune 
of a $57 billion trade deficit with that country alone last year.
  Nations like China at 57 billion, I might repeat, would be 1.4 
million jobs, 1,400,000 jobs lost from this country to China last year 
because of that trade deficit. Nations like China, like Japan, nations 
all over this world need access to our markets far more than we need 
theirs. We need free trade, but it needs to be free in both directions, 
and we have economic leverage that we have not used in recent years 
because we have not put our own country first. We need trade policies 
that put America and its workers first even if our President and the 
national media and multinational businesses do not agree.
  Another example of how the President's policy will hurt people for 
many years to come is the decision to lock up the largest low-sulfur 
coal deposit in the world in Utah, once again apparently in return for 
hundreds of thousands or possibly millions in campaign contributions 
from the Riady family of Indonesia, the owners of the second-largest 
low-sulfur coal deposit. Because our utilities are required to buy 
mostly low-sulfur coal, people all over this Nation will have to pay 
higher utility bills for years because of a political decision done in 
secret which had the double whammy effect of gaining huge campaign 
contributions and pleasing environmental extremists.
  That brings me to another but related point. Environmental extremists 
are the new radicals, the new socialists, the new leftists in this 
country today. Many people do not realize how extreme many of them have 
become. They almost always, these environmental extremists almost 
always come from wealthy or upper middle income backgrounds and usually 
have sufficient wealth to insulate themselves from the harm they do to 
the poor and working people of this country. Everyone wants clean air 
and clean water, but some of these environmental extremists are not 
satisfied that we have the toughest clean air and clean water laws and 
other tough environmental laws, the toughest in the world. They 
constantly demand more, often supported by large contributions from 
many of our biggest corporations.
  And I might say that the administration is trying to convince us to 
enter into the Kyoto agreement. Well, the Kyoto agreement is really 
just an attempt by some people that are upset that we have only 4 
percent, a little over 4 percent of the world's population, yet we have 
about 25 percent of the world's wealth, and they want do a massive 
transfer of that wealth to other less developed countries. And so there 
is something like 125 less developed countries who do not have to 
participate and abide by the Kyoto agreement, but we have to.
  And if we go through with that, if the Senate was to ratify that or 
if we try to go through the back door and enact all the Kyoto protocols 
in appropriations bills and in various other ways through regulations, 
we will destroy so many thousands of jobs in this country and drive up 
prices, and once again the people that will be hurt the most will be 
the poor and working people of this country.
  I mentioned that many of these environmental extremists are supported 
by some of our biggest corporations. The big corporations can comply 
with all the rules and regulations and red tape. They have the money 
and the staff and the lobbyists and the political connections to do so. 
And what happens? The big keep getting bigger and the small and now 
even the medium-sized business struggle to survive or go by the 
wayside.
  When I was growing up, a poor man could start a gas station. Now, 
primarily due to all the environmental and governmental regulatory 
overkill, only the wealthy or big corporations can do it. Environmental 
extremists destroy jobs and opportunities, drive up prices and in the 
process become the best friends extremely big businesses have ever had.
  There is a big move now to cut down on agricultural run-off or spill-
off. Here again the regulations are making it even harder for small 
farmers to survive while big corporate farms, agra-business really, can 
benefit by seeing much of their competition with small farmers removed.
  Big government in the end, Mr. Speaker, has really helped primarily 
extremely big businesses and the bureaucrats who work for the Federal 
Government, and that is really all they have. The poor and the working 
people in this country and the small business people and the small 
farmers get the shaft. Everyone else gets the shaft. The intended 
beneficiaries get a few crumbs from most programs, but more jobs would 
be created and prices would be lower if more government money was left 
in the private sector.
  In fact, government money does create jobs, but money left in the 
private sector creates on the average about two and one half times as 
many jobs. Why? The private sector, especially small business, is 
simply less wasteful and more efficient in their spending. They have to 
be to survive.
  Edward Rendell, the Democratic mayor of Philadelphia, said in a 
congressional hearing a few years ago, quote:

       Government does not work because there is no incentive for 
     people to work hard, so many do not. There is no incentive 
     for people to save money, so much of it is squandered.

  How true that statement is.
  The easiest thing in the world, Mr. Speaker, is to spend other 
people's money. Also, when it comes to politicians, usually those who 
proclaim their compassion the loudest usually have the least with their 
own personal money.
  Talk about the efficiency of the private sector. I had the privilege 
of meeting a few days ago with the head of Embraer, a Brazilian company 
that produces regional jets. He said that when Embraer was a government 
corporation in late 1994, it was producing $40,000 of product per 
employee. The company privatized in December of 1994 and now produces 
$240,000 per employee, six times as much in just a little over 4 years.
  When speaking of the great benefits of a private, free-enterprise 
economy, we should remember that private property is one of the keys, 
one of the foundation stones of prosperity. Today, however, the Federal 
Government owns over 30 percent of the land in this country, and State 
and local governments and quasi-governmental units own another 20 
percent. Approximately half the land today is in some type of 
government control, and the really worrisome thing is the rapid rate at 
which governments at all levels are taking on even more.
  In addition, governments are putting more and more restrictions on 
what private land owners can do with their own land, taking away or 
putting limitations on a very important part of our freedom. They also, 
if they take over much more land, will drive out of reach for many 
young Americans a big part of the American dream, and that is to own 
their own homes. Once again, much of this is done or accepted in this 
misguided worship of the environment, leading to a very great expansion 
of government control over our lives.
  Some environmental extremists even advocate something called the 
Wildlands Project, which has the goal of turning 50 percent of the 
United States into wilderness where it is not already designated that 
way. This may sound good on the surface, but it would require moving 
millions of people out of their homes and off of land that they 
presently own.
  People take better care of land they personally own than they do of 
property that is publicly owned. Look at the big city housing projects 
that have had to be blown up after just 15 or 20 years because no one 
felt the pride of ownership, and the properties deteriorated 
unbelievably fast.

[[Page 3294]]

  We would be better off and could sustain a good economy far longer if 
we had more land in private ownership and less in public or government 
control. Yet we are going very rapidly in the opposite direction, and 
our wonderful environmental extremists fight the Federal government 
giving up even one acre of land. They want more and more and more.
  What an environmentalist should realize is that the socialist and 
communist nations have been the worst polluters in the world. Their 
economic systems did not give people incentives or put pressure on them 
to conserve and instead really encouraged or at least did not prevent 
wasteful use of resources.
  Also, our environmentalist should realize that only capitalist free 
market economies can produce the excess funds necessary to do the good 
things for the environment that we all want done. Environmental 
extremists have done such a good job in recent years brainwashing young 
people that I bet very few even realize that we have far more land in 
forests in the U.S. today than we did 50 years ago or that forests, to 
remain healthy, some trees need to be cut.
  When control of Congress changed, and I will talk about the economy 
again for a minute, when control of the Congress changed hands in 
November of 1994, the stock market was at 3800. Today, the Dow Jones 
average is almost at 9400. The economy has done well for several 
reasons, among which are we reformed the welfare system against two 
presidential vetoes and several million people are now contributing and 
paying in rather than taking out. Also, the Congress brought Federal 
spending under control by passing a balanced budget, once again against 
three presidential vetoes, but at least we brought Federal spending 
under control.
  There is a misunderstanding or misimpression among some that we have 
cut Federal spending. Federal spending has gone up each year. It is 
just that instead of giving, as we routinely were, just 8 or 10 years 
ago giving 10 and 12 and 15 and 18 percent increases to almost every 
department and agency, we are now giving 2 or 3 percent increases.

                              {time}  1830

  We have Federal spending under control. Also the Federal Reserve has 
acted in a very conservative manner, and we have reduced the capital 
gains tax and stopped the trend towards higher and higher Federal 
taxes.
  However, Federal taxes are still far too high. They are taking more 
of our GDP than at any time in the last 55 years since World War II. As 
I mentioned a few minutes ago in the colloquy with some of my 
colleagues on the Floor, today the average person, not the wealthy but 
the average person, is paying about 40 percent of his or her income in 
taxes of all types, Federal, State, and local, and at least another 10 
percent in government regulatory costs.
  One member of the other body said not too long ago that one spouse 
works to support government while the other spouse works to support the 
family. Yet, the President said in Buffalo recently, as we quoted here 
earlier, that we cannot give the people a tax cut because they would 
not spend it wisely. They would do a far better job, Mr. Speaker, 
spending it than our wasteful, inefficient Federal Government would.
  One example, and I could give many today, the Federal Government 
spends about $26,000 per year per student in the Job Corps program. 
Most of this money goes to fat cat government contractors and 
bureaucrats, so these students would be shocked to know that we are 
spending this much on them each year. But we could give each of these 
students a $1,000 a month allowance, send them to some expensive 
private school, and still save money, and the young people involved 
would probably feel like they had won the lottery.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me spend a few minutes discussing one topic 
of great importance. Before I get into this final topic, let me just 
give another example of how harmful all of this overtaxation and over 
government spending has hurt the American people, and particularly, 
American families.
  Before I came to Congress I spent 7\1/2\ years as a criminal court 
judge trying felony criminal cases. About 96 or 97 percent of those 
people plead guilty in the criminal courts throughout the country. Then 
they apply for probation. So I received, in that 7\1/2\ years, several 
thousand reports going into the backgrounds of all of these defendants.
  The first day I was judge, Gary Tulick, the chief probation counselor 
for East Tennessee, told me that 98 percent of the defendants in felony 
cases came from broken homes. I would read over and over and over and 
over again reports like, defendant's father left home to get pack of 
cigarettes and never came back. Defendant's father left home when 
defendant was 2 and never returned.
  I know that many wonderful people have come from broken homes, but I 
also know that, particularly with young boys, that the breakup of a 
home has had an extremely harmful effect on many young boys.
  I saw a report in the Washington Times a few years ago in which two 
leading criminologists had studied 11,000 felony cases from around the 
country. They said the biggest single factor in serious crime, bar 
none, nothing else was even close, was father-absent households. How 
true that is.
  In 1950 the Federal Government was taking about 4 percent from the 
average family, and State and local governments were taking another 4 
percent, roughly. Many women had the choice of staying at home to raise 
their children, and many families were able to stay together, because 
most marriages--I saw one study which showed that 59 percent of all 
marriages break up in arguments over finances. That is the biggest 
single factor, disagreements about money.
  But today, and for many years, the government at all levels has been 
taking so much money from the families of America that I think it has 
caused many serious problems. Many families I think have not been able 
to stay together or have ended up getting in serious disputes that have 
led to divorces and the breakup of families because government at all 
levels has been taking so much money from them.
  I believe that the best thing we could do to lower the incidence of 
serious crime in this country would be to greatly decrease the size and 
cost of the government at all levels, so that the families of this 
country could keep more of their own money to spend on their children 
in the ways that they see fit and that they know are best for them and 
their children.
  Finally, Mr. Speaker, let me talk on one last topic for a few 
minutes, discussing something that is of great importance to everyone. 
That is health care.
  Today health care is the only thing all of us pay for through a 
third-party payer system. If we bought food through a third-party payer 
system, millions would be starving. If we bought cars through a third-
party payer system, a Yugo probably would have cost us $300,000.
  Before the Federal Government got into medical care in a big way in 
the mid sixties, medical costs were low and flat for many years. A lot 
of young people ought to look at that, and look back and see how low 
and flat medical costs were for all those years that the Federal 
Government stayed out of it. But when the Federal Government got into 
it in a big way in the mid sixties, we took what was a very minor 
problem for a very few people and turned it into a major problem for 
everyone.
  I remember in the late seventies when the liberals were saying 
Medicaid would save the medical system. Four or five years ago the 
Washington Post ran a series of front page stories about Medicaid. A 
member of the other body, Senator Rockefeller, who I think was one of 
the people who helped found the Medicaid system, was quoted as saying 
about Medicaid, ``It is a horrible system, a vile system, and it ought 
to be abolished.''
  A scholar from the Brookings Institution said about it, ``It is a 
success story of the American political system. We create a system so 
horrible that we are forced to go to total reform.''

[[Page 3295]]

  I was told yesterday by one of the leaders of the Tennessee 
legislature that TennCare, our replacement or reform of Medicaid, will 
go up 12 percent this year, and maybe as much as 15 or 20 percent a 
year in future years. If it does, we would be in a catastrophic 
situation. Third-party payer systems are inevitably doomed to failure. 
They will never work. In any politicized medical system, those who are 
the best organized or most politically powerful get rich, but it is a 
disaster for everyone else.
  In recent years we have seen some doctors, nursing home operators, 
big home health care operators, and big hospital chain owners get rich, 
but we have turned health care into a major problem for everyone except 
possibly Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.
  In a private free market system, we get much more fairness and we do 
not have the big winners and even bigger losers that we have in a 
politicized big government medical system.
  In fact, the main point of what I have been saying here tonight is 
just that. Poor and working people can get lower prices and many more 
job opportunities and have much better lives in a true free market 
system than in any other way.
  If Members do not believe that, all they have to do is look around 
the world. I remember in the former Soviet Union the leaders of the 
former Soviet Union had, before their total collapse that they are 
undergoing right now, they had their dachas by the sea and their 
limousines and their special department stores. Other people, which was 
the great, great majority, 99-plus percent of the people, had to line 
up for hours to buy, say, a pound of sausage, or something that we run 
into a store for and take for granted as being able to purchase.
  Every place in the world where the people have let the government get 
too big, people have ended up starving. It really is pretty simple, Mr. 
Speaker. Big government means a very small elite upper class, a huge 
underclass, and almost no middle class. A very small government means a 
very small elite, a huge middle class, and very few at the bottom.
  We really should pay for medical care the same way that we pay for 
food. Then it would be cheap. If we could get the government and the 
insurance companies out of medical care, medical costs probably would 
not even be 5 percent of what they are. However, too many doctors and 
nursing home owners and health care providers are getting rich off the 
system the way it is today to get the government and the insurance 
companies out.
  So since we cannot realistically do that, the only real hope is to go 
to a medical savings account or medical voucher system to get the 
consumer involved once again, to give people some incentives to shop 
around for medical care.
  Right now we are distorting the law of supply and demand, because the 
number of doctors is going way up but so are the costs. We need to get 
at least some free market incentives into the system, because we are 
headed for a collapse within our medical system if we do not. Then the 
people will start demanding, if we let it collapse, they will start 
demanding national government-run health care, which is the worst of 
all worlds, as has been shown in country after country all over this 
world. Then we would end up with shortages, waiting periods, rationing, 
the closing of many small and rural hospitals, people having to go 
further and further distances for health care, a rapid decline in the 
quality of care, and on and on.
  If the government had not gotten into medical care to the extent it 
already has, we never would have had HMOs and people being kicked out 
of hospitals way too early, or denied treatment in the first place.
  We need major reform in medical care, Mr. Speaker, but if we give 
even more government control and involvement, the system will become 
even more expensive as it grows worse and worse. The few will get rich 
and the many will suffer, as with any and every big government program.

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