H 4906 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE May 12, 1995

willing to take the hits that we knew

were going to come from the other side

of the aisle? ‘‘Oh boy, are you guys

cruel and unreasonable.’’ The fact is,

there is going to be less money coming

into the Medicare trust fund in the

next 2 years than the payouts. There is

a little reserve there in part A that is

going to allow us to continue until

2002, and then it is bankrupt.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman

will yield back, what is bothering me is

we still seem to have folks on the other

side of the aisle debating that Medicare

is fine and dandy and there are no

problems. We can go on ad infinitum

with Medicare.

We cannot do that. We are driving

straight into a brick wall that we will

collide with a bus full of senior citizens

in 7 years, period.

The tragedy of this is look at the

wisdom on the Democrat side. I am envious as I look at the Democrat Party.

They have a lot of talent and brains

over there. I would like, as the Republican Party, to recruit some of their

folks. Some of the people I would rather not recruit. I am sure there are folks

over here they would rather not recruit. But good gracious, the wisdom of

getting the two parties together to

come up with a solution for Medicare,

would that not be the responsible thing

to do for senior citizens? We are wrapping ourselves around momma’s bath

robe in the name of Mother’s Day. We

have heard the speeches for the last 40

minutes. What my momma told me to

do is put aside party differences and do

what is right. That is what we need to

do.

Medicare needs to be reformed. The

Clinton administration, Senator

KERREY, many Democrats, have come

out front and said that. Republicans

have certainly said that. Take it a step

further: To reform it, the American

people need the Democrat and the Republican Parties working together on

this.

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. I was just

saying on reform, testimony before our

Committee on the Budget indicated

there was $40 billion of fraud and abuse

in the system. So, for a start, last year

we had a proposal by the administration that the Federal Government

should take over all of the medical

health care needs in this country.

The fact is that we have seen Medicaid and Medicare grow at the rate of 10

and 12 percent a year. The private practice health care has been 6 and 7 percent. In fact, last year it was about 4

percent, with many parts of the country being zero. The private sector is

growing at 4 percent, the public sector,

where we have Medicaid and Medicare,

where the Government is responsible,

has been growing at 10 and 12 percent.

To say it is a solution to have the Federal Government take over everything

does not jibe. We have got to do something the corporations and the rest of

America are doing. We have got to

make smart shoppers out of every

American, including senior Americans.

Mr. KINGSTON. I think the gentleman ran out of time a little while

ago. I wanted to hear about your

charts. Alice Rivlin said today there

are other places to cut in the budget.

She said where the Republican Party

was cutting was idiotic. I am sure

there are things that the administration does that the Republican Party

and Americans think are idiotic. Has

the administration cut the budget in

their proposal, in the President’s budget proposal?

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. KINGSTON, what I learned is I am not a better

number drawer when I have extra time

than I am with short time. All this

says is that the only budget that—and

I do not want to be partisan, but that

the President has sent the Congress is

figured in the same way as the Republicans are figuring their budget as far

as deficits. These are the deficits that

are going to exist under the President’s

budget that he sent us about 8 weeks

ago, and the Republican budget passed

out of the House, very similar to the

one passed out of the Senate.

In year 1996, the deficit under the

President’s plan is $211 billion, $156 for

the Republican. Every year you see our

deficit keeps going down and down. We

are trying to brag about it. We are saying for the first time since 1969, the end

figure is zero as far as the deficit. The

zero at the end is the fact we are balancing revenues with expenses. The

projection down here for the President

is going up on the deficit in those out

years.

Mr. KINGSTON. The figures are

right. It is atrocious, your momma is

ashamed of you. But if I read that correctly, in the year 2001, the President’s

budget has a $276 billion deficit. The

Kasich Committee on the Budget proposal has a $108 billion deficit. The

year 2002, the President is at a $318 billion deficit. We are at a $15 billion surplus.

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. We are actually starting to pay back some of this

huge, gigantic, $6 trillion debt that the

kids and grandkids are going to owe at

that time if we do not change.

previous order of the House, the gentleThe SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

fwoman from Ohio [Ms. KAPTUR] is recognized for 5 minutes.

[Ms. KAPTUR addressed the House.

Her remarks will appear hereafter in

the Extensions of Remarks.]

previous order of the House, the genThe SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

ftleman from Guam [Mr. UNDERWOOD] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mr. UNDERWOOD addressed the

House. His remarks will appear hereprevious order of the House, the genafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

ftleman from Texas [Mr. GONZALEZ] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mr. GONZALEZ addressed the

House. His remarks will appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

COMMENTS ON THE DEBT

fprevious order of the House, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. SMITH] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, just some comments on the debt.

You know, we have made a decision in

the U.S. Congress to require that the

Senate vote, that the House vote, that

the President sign, any time that we

increase the debt ceiling. Right now we

have a debt ceiling of $4.9 trillion. That

was done 2 years ago, when this administration came into office.

Now, that is good, no more charts.

That debt ceiling was increased 2 years

ago in 1993 to $4.9 trillion. Today—

today our debt, subject to the limit, is

$4.77 trillion. We are going to hit the

cap of $4.9 trillion in September or October. So this House is going to have to

decide, do we want to vote to increase

the debt limit again.

Several of us, Congressman CHRIS

SHAYS, myself, about 20 others, are

saying look, if we are going to vote to

increase the debt limit, should we not

have something solid to get us on a

glide path to assure that we are going

to have a balanced budget sometime in

the next 4 to 7 years? And I think the

answer is yes.

So I think we need to send a strong

signal to the President of the United

States, look, unless we are on that

glide path, unless we have got a law, a

reconciliation bill, a balanced budget

amendment, or something that can

somehow guarantee to the American

people that we are not going to pick

their pockets any more, we are not

going to vote to increase the debt

limit.

So we are sending that message to

the President. We are also sending a

letter signed by about 25 of us to the

majority leader in the Senate, to the

Speaker of the U.S. House, saying look,

do not plan on our vote to increase

again the debt ceiling of the U.S. Government unless we have got the kind of

firm, absolute, tough legislation signed

by the President that helps make sure

we are going to get there.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman

will yield, I want to ask you, because

you are a distinguished member of the

Committee on the Budget: Now, on the

tax increase decrease, can we decrease

taxes and balance the budget? Are we

being hypocrites?

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. The gentleman has as good an answer as I do,

so I will let you complete the answer.

My part of the answer would be that

most economists that appeared before

our Committee on the Budget agreed

that increasing taxes is not the way to

balance the budget if we want to stimulate job growth in this country. And

as everybody knows, or should know, 2

years ago in 1993, what this Congress