[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 27076]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               REPUBLICAN EFFORT TO PRIVATIZE GOVERNMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to discuss something I believe goes 
virtually unsaid in this institution every day, not merely the 
ramifications of what Congress does on a daily basis, but rather the 
underlying intentions of those in the majority. And that is how this 
majority, in concert with the administration, is acting to remake how 
our Nation governs and thinks of itself. Indeed, it is remaking the 
very role of government itself.
  I think it is particularly appropriate that we discuss this matter at 
a time when Congress is heading toward its annual appropriations 
endgame, when many of the most important budgetary decisions affecting 
millions of citizens are being made behind closed doors by a handful in 
this Republican majority. So this week I am going to be talking about 
Republican efforts to privatize functions that are currently the 
responsibility of government and specifically how that relates to our 
failure to meet public commitments.
  Let me be clear: the goal is not more government. Far from it. In 
most cases, we want our business enterprises and the market to 
flourish. But there are some very important areas where we want 
community values, not the market, to prevail or to set limits on 
behavior. There is a reason we have public schools, environmental 
regulation, and retirement programs, because there are things we want 
to ensure for all individuals, whatever their station in life or 
wherever they live in the country.
  For nearly 75 years, our approach to government has reflected the 
idea that our society can act with a shared sense of purpose and 
responsibility to address tasks before our country. But it is no secret 
that this leadership has some very different ideas about the role of 
the Federal Government and helping us meet those challenges. 
Accordingly, the budget Republicans put forward earlier this year was 
designed simply and efficiently to destroy the capacity and obligation 
of the government to provide key social support. Their plans are to 
debase the quality of public services so much that citizens will give 
up and turn, out of necessity, to the private market.
  The examples are many, and they are far-reaching. The twin pillars of 
our retirement security safety net, Social Security and Medicare, 
environmental protection, transportation safety, education, all public 
commitments historically the responsibility of the Federal Government, 
all undermined by this administration and majority.
  Republicans pass legislation to create new tests and higher standards 
for public schools, then support a budget that cuts the funding to 
enforce those standards by $8 billion, in effect guaranteeing failure 
and providing a justification for the shift to vouchers and private 
education.
  Their Medicare plans offer prescription drug coverage for seniors, 
but moves seniors into the private insurance market and into HMOs for 
their Medicare coverage. The budget cuts coverage for Medicare at the 
same time the administration reduces hospital reimbursements, denies 
beneficiaries information on coverage and limits rights of appeal on 
denial of coverage. All are part of a concerted effort to turn Medicare 
into essentially a Third World health program for seniors. They want to 
privatize Medicare.
  The story with Medicaid, child care, Head Start, and job training is 
little different. They propose to turn these programs into block grants 
for States, offering less and less funding. They say they are offering 
Governors flexibility; but considering the fiscal crises our States are 
experiencing, this becomes flexibility only in deciding how to cut 
services, the flexibility to decide which recipients to jettison.
  As a Member of the Committee on the Budget, I was privy earlier this 
year to witness Republicans on the committee taking the breathtaking 
step of instructing other congressional committees to cut Federal 
mandatory programs by $98 billion, in effect an instruction to reduce 
benefits and to limit eligibility. If it had been successful, it would 
have forced the government to cut funding, but not to end the 
commitment that we have in each of these areas.
  So although America has committed itself to helping disabled 
veterans, to providing loans for college education, to offering school 
lunches to children and providing school assistance, housing and health 
care to families, the government would have been forced to breach those 
commitments and those contracts.
  Now as we near the appropriations end game, we are seeing the impact 
of these budgetary sleights of hand. For example, last week we saw the 
imminent privatization of 69 air traffic control towers. This despite 
the fact we have the most productive and safest air traffic control 
system in the world.
  Or ``worker efficiency studies'' at Department of the Interior 
designed to justify the shift of public jobs to private corporations, 
the results of which studies have been dubious, to say the least. We 
have spent $16 million in outsourcing studies at the Bureau of Land 
Management that have generated $600,000 in savings; $18.6 million in 
outsourcing studies at the Forest Service that found that 47 out of 
1,000 jobs studied should be handed over to private contractors. The 
only waste of public funds found in these studies was their own price 
tags.
  And these are but two examples of Republicans seeking to establish 
that citizens cannot depend on public commitments--even ones that 
embody America's shared values about service to country, opportunity 
and help for those most in need.
  The time has come to call them out on this bait-and-switch maneuver--
to fight this initiative and promote the capacity of our country to act 
together on our shared values. And so I look forward to further special 
orders in the coming days and weeks on this subject, and invite 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to join me in this discussion. I 
think it will be a very enlightening one, indeed.
  Mr. Speaker, I will continue over the next several days and several 
weeks to talk about how this administration and this majority is not 
about cutting one program after another, but, in fact, starving the 
Federal Government of the resources it needs in order to meet its 
public commitments.

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