Congressional Record UNUM

E PLURIBUS

United States

of America PROCEEDINGS AND DEBATES OF THE 104th CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION

b This symbol represents the time of day during the House proceedings, e.g., b 1407 is 2:07 p.m.

Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor.

H 4959

House of Representatives

Vol. 141 WASHINGTON, TUESDAY, MAY 16, 1995 No. 81

The House met at 9 a.m. and was

called to order by the Speaker pro tempore [Mr. RADANOVICH

f].

DESIGNATION OF SPEAKER PRO

TEMPORE

The SPEAKER pro tempore laid before the House the following communication from the Speaker:

WASHINGTON, DC,

May 15, 1995.

I hereby designate the Honorable GEORGE

P. RADANOVICH to act as Speaker pro tempore on this day.

NEWT GINGRICH,

The SPEAKER pro tempore. PursuSpeaker of the House of Representatives.

MORNING BUSINESS

fant to the order of the House of May 12,

1995, the Chair will now recognize

Members from lists submitted by the

majority and minority leaders for

morning hour debates. The Chair will

alternate recognition between the parties, with each party limited to not to

exceed 30 minutes, and each Member

except the majority and minority leader limited to 5 minutes, but in no event

shall debate continue beyond 9:50 a.m.

The Chair recognizes the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. SCHROEDER

AMERICANS ARE GETTING SMART

] for 5 minutes.

ABOUT THE BUDGET

fMrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I

am very proud to take the floor today

to talk about how fortunate we are

that the American people are so smart.

I mean, as we go into this budget debate, there are a lot of people who

think they were not paying attention.

But when you look at the polls today,

let me tell you, they were paying attention. They figured it out, and they

do not like it.

Sixty percent of Americans in the

polls released today reject both the

Senate and the House Republican budgets. Now, why do they do this?

Well, we have heard over and over

again that they should be very happy

because the cuts are going to be distributed across America, and that the

Democrats are terrible people because

they are inciting class warfare and

they are doing all sorts of things like

that.

Well, OK, so now the American people have figured out, yes, the cuts really are distributed across the entire economic gambit of Americans. But it is

for middle- and low-income people.

They are cutting programs, such as

cuts in Medicare, cuts in school

lunches, cuts in student loans, cuts in

all sorts of programs that have helped

them, that have helped them get up.

Now, what do the rich people get in

the line of cuts? They get tax cuts.

Would you know, they have all figured

out that tax cuts are a whole lot better

than program cuts. And guess who

comes out on the short end of those

cuts?

Well, once again, it is the middle

class who is going to come out on the

short end of those cuts. We are having

to cut like mad so people over $200,000

a year are going to get these phenomenal tax breaks. I think that is totally

unfair. But it is not just what I think,

now the American people are beginning

to agree.

If you look at student loans, for example, in my State of Colorado there

are almost 90,000 people on student

loans. So they are saying the minute

they get them they should start paying

interest. It is absolutely no different

than when you get a car, except when

you get a car, you get the car. You get

to use it right away. So it makes sense

to start paying interest right away, because you are using the car right away.

When you are going to school, you

cannot use that education until you

get to the end of the schooling and you

get diploma in hand. That is why we

have not charged people interest until

they had diploma in hand. That is like

having the real car.

So when they try to tell you this is

the same, it is not the same at all. And

it is going to end up causing people to

borrow even more money to pay interest on the money that they previously

borrowed.

I think it is outrageous that these

young kids are having to graduate

from school owing so much money. No

wonder they do not dare get married

before they are 40. I mean, the next

thing we are going to have to do is figure out how octogenarians can be fertile or nobody in the middle class is

going to be able to afford a family until

they are in their eighties at this rate.

I think American families have figured this out, and that is why the polling numbers today are very different.

The average American family feels like

a squirrel in one of those wheels. They

run and they run and they run, and

they run harder and harder and harder

every year. And you know what? At the

end of the year, they are even more exhausted than they were the year before, their tongue is hanging out, and

they never get out of the bottom of the

wheel.

If they are suddenly going to have to

deal with cuts in their parents’ Medicare so that they have got to start

picking that up and helping them out

to the tune of about $1,000 extra a year,

if their kids are going to get double

whammied with interest from the time

they take the loan out so they are

going to have to borrow even more, if

all of these things come crushing in on

them and they see many programs in

schools that have enriched the schools

through science, nutrition standards,

and so forth being cut, guess what?

They are going to have to run even

faster, and they are still not going to

get out of the bottom of the wheel. But