May 12, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE H 4903

one examines the record, you see a consistent pattern. That consistent pattern says if you are a pregnant woman,

you are out of luck, and if you are an

infant baby, certainly you do not

count, and if you are from rural America, you can be ignored, and if you are

poor, you do not matter, and if you are

a senior citizen, you are too late.

This weekend we will celebrate

Mother’s Day. Mothers have always

taught us, and we are reminded on

Mother’s Day, get your priorities right.

How we spend our moneys and where

we spend our moneys says a lot about

us. It says what is important. It says to

America that those who spend more

than $200,000 certainly are of more consequence than those who earn less.

It says to America that mothers do

not count. It says to the working

America we have nothing at all to celebrate this Mother’s Day.

(Mr. CHABOT asked and was given

WHERE IS THE CUT?

fpermission to address the House for 1

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, where is

the cut? This chart shows that under

the Republican budget plan, Medicare

spending will increase by nearly $100

billion over the next 7 years.

Now, this second chart that we are

going to show here shows that spending

per recipient for welfare recipients will

go from $4,700 up to $6,300 per person.

Now, I know this has to come as a

complete shock to my friends on the

other side of the aisle who spare no opportunity to scream about imagined

Medicare cuts. They look at America

and they see only two kinds of people:

The wealthy and the victimized. The

wealthy are, of course, evil and in need

of punishment. The victims need protection, and they think that only liberal Democrats here in Congress can

provide that protection.

Well, the liberal political world view

has been almost totally rejected by the

American people. Americans are tired

of excuses. They are tired of the slick

blame game, and they will not be

scared by the liberal Democrat shrieks

they hear here in Congress anymore.

These are imaginary cuts. They do not

exist.

(Mr. DOGGETT asked and was given

REPUBLICAN MEDICARE CUTS

fpermission to address the House for 1

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, with

Mother’s Day on Sunday, we are reminded of the commandment to ‘‘honor

thy father and thy mother.’’ And, my,

how our fathers and our mothers and

our seniors all over this country have

been honored this week. They have

been honored with $300 billion, almost,

of Medicare cuts, and they can bring

charts up here all day and all night and

all week long.

Apparently, they want to limit the

time to discuss this to the bare minimum, but they cannot deny the fact

that under existing law they are cutting Medicare by almost $300 billion.

It is not a matter of what happens

here in the Halls of Congress. It is the

way the American people will view

these cuts. If you do not understand a

cut is a cut, go out and ask the seniors

across this country and the people that

care for them what it means that in

order to get the same level of care,

your medical deductible is doubled,

your premiums go up every month,

suddenly you have to pay for home

health care and for lab services.

You may not call that a cut, but a

senior citizen that faces the decision of

whether to eat or whether to get

health care is going to view it as the

very serious cut that it is.

ENTERING THE BUDGET DEBATE

WITH FACTS

f(Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given

permission to address the House for 1

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, you

know, Sunday is Mothers’ Day. I do not

remember my mother in the 40 years

that I have been her son, worrying

about the Federal budget on Mother’s

Day. I just do not see ourselves sitting

around the house and ringing, ‘‘Oh, my

goodness, the Democrats are not going

to get their way in Congress. Mother’s

Day is ruined.’’

You know, my mom, my family, we

do just fine without the Federal Government running our lives, and that is

what the American people want: less

Federal Government intervention in

the family.

The families of America want the

Federal Government out of the picture.

The best way to protect the family is

to make sure that we have a balanced

budget so that there will be a Government that is not totally bankrupt in

our future, which my mother’s grandchildren and their grandchildren will

enjoy.

You know, a great political campaign

was run on this slogan: ‘‘If not us, who;

if not now, when; if not this, what?’’

The Democrats’ answer to that question, ‘‘Well, if not us, somebody; if not

now, someday; and if not this, we do

not know.’’

You know, it is time to come to the

table with specifics. Are you going to

balance the budget, or are you going to

sit here and scare everybody in America that the sky is falling? Let us get

responsible, let us enter the debate

with the true spirit of facts and not

rhetoric.

MEDICARE IS ON THE BLOCK

f(Mr. WISE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. WISE. Mr. Speaker, the previous

speaker and I can probably agree on

one thing; and that is, we hope everybody has a happy Mother’s Day, We

hope they are not worried about the

Federal budget and the deficit problems.

However, I would observe I have

looked at this budget carefully, I have

seen what it does to Medicare. As

someone observed yesterday, the best

thing you can do for mother this year

is do not send flowers, send a check.

Because the fact is there is a real cut

in Medicare, $300 billion, and, yes, I

have heard that, well, the spending increases. But what happens if, instead of

two people there are now three people

entitled to it? What happens if you now

have higher deductibles when you go to

the physician? You have to pay more

out of pocket. You are now paying for

lab fees you did not pay for before.

And, yes, medical inflation in this

country still rises faster than regular

inflation.

The fact is the matter is that in

order to keep current or even slightly

current, there is a real cut that is proposed in this budget in the program

that affects all of us. So Medicare is on

the block, and I think it is an important statement.

Finally, what is more obnoxious to

me about this cut it does not do anything about the deficit. It does not do

anything for seniors. What if does is

pay for a tax break for the wealthiest

Americans in the tax cut package that

has already passed here.

ACHIEVING A BALANCED BUDGET

(Mr. SMITH of Michigan asked and

fwas given permission to address the

House for 1 minute and to revise and

extend his remarks.)

Mr. SMITH of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, I just came over because I was hearing some of the comments.

What concerns me very, very much is

what is happening from the Democrats

while Republicans have designed a

budget that will balance in the year

2002. Everybody, I would hope, thinks

that there is some good in achieving a

zero deficit, balancing our budget and

not spending any more than we take

in.

Yet the other side of the aisle, and I

usually am not partisan on these

things, have seen this as an opportunity to criticize every one of these

cuts that the Republicans are making,

without presenting to us their idea of

where we should be.

If you just look at what the President sent over here as far as his budget, his deficit spending, his spending

more than what we are taking in in the

year 1996 is 211, Republicans 156; in the

last year, 2002, the Republicans’ proposal is down to zero, zero deficit. We

are living within the budget, within

the revenues that we are taking into

this Government. The President is 318.

Mr. Speaker, the other side should

not criticize. They should be forthright