May 18, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S6843

meet their annual tax obligations

while trying to maintain their style of

living. They are still pursuing the

American dream, but the ever-increasing tax burden keeps pushing it out of

reach.

The $500 per-child tax credit takes

money out of the hands of the Washington bureaucrats and leaves it in the

hands of the taxpayers.

It is truly a tax break for the middle

class: nearly $9 out of every $10 of tax

relief goes to families making $75,000 or

less. They are the ones who need our

help the most, and we cannot ask them

to wait another 6 or 7 years.

Mr. President, I promised my constituents in Minnesota that tax relief

will be my top priority in the Senate,

and during the next week, I will do just

that.

The freshman class also promised

American families that we would balance the budget. With or without a balanced budget amendment, we will deliver.

Now, my good friend, the Budget

Committee chairman, and his counterpart in the other Chamber, have crafted documents the naysayers said could

never be achieved.

The budget resolution we begin debating today, that brings the budget

into balance by the year 2002, is proof

that we are serious about living up to

our pledge. Having to live within its

means will be a new experience for a

Congress that has only balanced its

budget eight times in the past 64 years,

and has not spent less than it has

taken in since 1969.

Even the Clinton administration, despite all its rhetoric about shrinking

the deficit, has seemingly washed its

hands of the deficit problem.

Under the President’s own budget

plan, the deficit would increase from

$177 billion this year to $276 billion in

2002, and add another $1.5 trillion to

the national debt. Only Republicans

have offered an alternative to this fiscal madness. And I hope my colleagues

on the other side of the aisle will find

the courage to vote for a balanced

budget. We’re offering a plan to balance the budget, and we have done it

without slashing Federal spending,

without putting children, seniors, and

the disadvantaged at risk. Most of our

savings are achieved by slowing the

growth of Government. Will there need

to be some sacrifices? Yes, although

the Government will have to sacrifice

more than the people will. Will belts

need to be tightened? Yes. But if we do

not tighten the belts today, they are

destined to become nooses around the

necks of the coming generations, who

will someday become the innocent victims of our negligence. Mr. President,

as Senate freshmen, my colleagues and

I heard it over and over during our

campaigns: the American people are

willing to make those sacrifices, if

they believe their Government is serious about making change.

This Congress is serious.

Finally, we promised that our budget

will protect Medicare and Social Security. For the sake of America’s senior

citizens, we must protect, preserve, and

improve Medicare, to make sure it is

there for the next generation as well.

The fact is, Medicare is in trouble, in

large part due to fraud, waste, abuse,

mismanagement and misuse. By 1997,

Medicare will pay out $1 billion more

in benefits than it collects in revenue,

and 5 years later, it will go bankrupt.

Again, in our budget plan, we are

working to preserve, protect, and improve the Medicare System. In fact,

Medicare will remain the fastest growing program in the Federal budget.

Over the next 7 years, we will spend

$1.7 trillion to keep Medicare a healthy

and viable health care provider for this

generation of senior citizens.

Social Security must receive the

same care, although as a self-funded

entity it will be taken off budget and

dealt with separately from other programs.

Clearly, the Government must honor

its contract with our senior citizens,

and the budget that Congress produces

this year must ensure that the Social

Security Program will survive and be

there for older Americans. The best

way to achieve that is to bring the

Federal budget into balance.

A budget that works for America will

meet the needs of all our citizens,

working men and women and their

children, senior citizens, and the disadvantaged, while providing middleclass tax relief, balancing the budget

by the year 2002, and protecting Social

Security and Medicare.

Mr. President, that is what we promised the people, and our promises were

not made lightly. I remember hearing

about a commencement speech given

by Winston Churchill toward the end of

his life. He sat patiently through the

introduction, rose, and went to the podium. All he said was ‘‘Never, never,

never give up.’’ Then he sat back down.

Mr. President, this committed class

of freshmen Senators has taken the

pulse of the people, and we are not

planning to give up on the ambitious

agenda they sent us here to carry out.

Like the latest chapter in the ‘‘Die

Hard’’ movie trilogy, we will be here—

with a vengeance—to remind our colleagues just what America’s message

last November was all about.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New York.

Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, before addressing the matter that brings

me to the floor, may I congratulate the

Senator from Minnesota for the very

forceful and, I hope, prophetic statement. The concerns that he has raised

are real. They have been addressed

without large consequence in this

Chamber for some 15 years now, as I

can attest. And I for one, and I think

many others, welcome the energy and

conviction, the commitment of the

freshman class, as he chooses to describe it, that came to the Senate in

January. I look forward to working

with him in the years ahead—months

ahead—weeks ahead, to be specific.

(The remarks of Mr. MOYNIHAN pertaining to the introduction of legislation are located in today’s RECORD

under ‘‘Statements on Introduced Bills

and Joint Resolutions.’’)

Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under a

previous order, the Senator from North

Dakota is recognized to speak for up to

20 minutes.

Mr. DORGAN. Thank you very much.

It is my intention to speak for a couple

of minutes at the beginning and then

to yield the remainder of the time to

Senator AKAKA

ffrom Hawaii.

THE BUDGET DEBATE

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, we will

begin in a matter of a couple of hours

the debate on the budget resolution.

I do not want anyone to despair

about the disagreement that will exist

on the floors of the Senate and the

House on the budget. The disagreement

that exists ought not to be a cause for

despair, because there is not any disagreement about the destination. We

all believe that the budget ought to be

balanced. We believe it ought to be balanced by the year 2002, and I am prepared to support that and vote for that.

There is a vast disagreement, however, on priorities: How do you get

from here to there? If we agree on the

destination, there is certainly disagreement on the routes. How do you

achieve a balanced budget? This is the

time and this is the place to have a vibrant and healthy debate about priorities.

Now, I expect there will be some

skepticism about statements from

those of us on this side of the aisle, so

I want to today, as we begin the discussion, quote from a Republican political

analyst, author, and commentator,

Kevin Phillips. This is not from a Democrat. Here is what Kevin Phillips says

about the budget that is going to be

brought to the floor by the Republicans.

‘‘Anybody who thought the greed

decade ended several years ago,’’ Mr.

Phillips says, ‘‘hasn’t yet had time to

study the new balanced budget proposals put forward by the U.S. Senate and

the U.S. House.’’ He said it is ‘‘special

interest favoritism and income redistribution. Spending on Government

programs, from Medicare and education to home heating oil assistance,

is to be reduced in ways that principally burden the poor and the middle

class while simultaneously taxes are to

be cut in ways that predominantly benefit the top 1 or 2 percent of Americans.’’

Again, this is a conservative commentator writing that fiscal favoritism

and finagling is what is involved here.

If it was not that, he said, ‘‘we’d be

talking about shared sacrifice, with

business, Wall Street and the rich, the

people who have big money, making

the biggest sacrifice.’’ But Kevin Phillips says:
S6844 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE May 18, 1995

Instead, it’s senior citizens, the poor, students and ordinary Americans who’ll see programs they depend on gutted, while business,

finance and the richest 1 or 2 percent, far

from making sacrifices, actually get new

benefits and new tax reductions.

He says:

In short, aid to dependent grandmothers,

children, college students and city dwellers

is to be slashed, while aid to dependent corporations, stockbrokers, generals and assorted James Bond imitators survives and

even grows. And if the deficit is substantially reduced under a program like this,

there’ll be a second stage of further upward

income redistribution from upper bracket

profits in the stock and bond markets.

Again, Kevin Phillips, a Republican

says:

If the U.S. budget deficit problem does represent the fiscal equivalent of war—and

maybe it does—then what we are really looking at is one of the most flagrant examples

of war profiteering this century has seen.

Mr. President, the debate will be

about priorities. We ought to balance

the budget, we ought to do it by the

year 2002, but there are a lot of ways to

get to that destination. You do not

have to run down the road and stop and

pick up a few dollars from those who

cannot afford it and then make another

stop and give to those who have a substantial amount already. That is the

purpose of, I think, the discussion of

the Senator from Hawaii.

We are talking about the Republican

party that brings a budget to the floor

and gives very big tax cuts for the

wealthy and takes it from things that

are important—kids who go to school,

working families and the elderly. We

think that these priorities are not in

step or keeping with the best interests

of this country.

Mr. President, I yield the remainder

of my time to the Senator from Hawaii, Senator AKAKA.

Mr. AKAKA addressed the Chair.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii.

MAJORITY’S BUDGET PROPOSALS

FOR MEDICARE AND VETERAN’S

fADMINISTRATION HEALTH CARE

PROGRAMS

Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, I want to

say good morning to my friend who is

now presiding, Senator INHOFE, from

Oklahoma, and wish him a good day.

I am here to express some of my concerns about some parts of the budget,

and particularly Medicare and Veterans’ Administration health care programs.

Mr. President, earlier this week the

Republican-controlled Budget Committees unveiled their 7-year budget resolutions. The House resolution provides

a generous tax cut for wealthy Americans. The Senate resolution would

allow not one, but two tax cut proposals. The first would be $170 billion in

tax cuts once the Congressional Budget

Office certifies that the savings from

cutting Medicare, education, VA health

care, and the other programs targeted

for reductions are, in fact, achieved.

Further tax cuts would be permitted

if the budget is reduced by an amount

that is greater than the reductions already proposed by the Senate budget

resolution. We can clearly see that Republicans in the House and Senate have

laid the foundation for implementing

the tax proposals outlined in the Contract With America. To pay for their

tax cuts they must reduce programs

that help working families and the elderly.

The Senate budget resolution proposes a $256 billion cut in Medicare

spending over 7 years, but provides no

guidelines on how these savings will be

achieved. This will be the largest Medicare cut in history, and the impact on

beneficiaries and providers will be very

painful.

If Medicare cuts of this magnitude

are approved, the Department of

Health and Human Services estimates

that senior citizen’s out-of-pocket expenses will increase by $900 a year, or a

total of $3,500 over the 7 years. Eightythree percent of Medicare benefits go

to beneficiaries with incomes under

$25,000.

It is obvious who will be hurt by

these cuts. Our Nation’s low-income elderly, who can least afford it, will bear

the brunt of the Medicare cuts.

In addition, cuts to providers will

have serious ramifications on health

care costs since they are passed along

to other health care consumers. Provider cuts could have a devastating impact on urban hospitals which already

bear a disproportionate share of the

Nation’s growing burden of uncompensated care. Reductions in Medicare

payments will also endanger access to

care in rural areas. Nearly 10 million

Medicare beneficiaries—25 percent of

the total Medicare population—live in

rural areas. There is often only a single

hospital in their county. Significant

cuts in Medicare may force rural hospitals to close or cause more providers

to refuse to treat Medicare beneficiaries.

The Senate Budget Committee was

given the opportunity to restore the

cuts in Medicare funding. Two amendments were offered to scrap the tax cut

for the rich in order to fund Medicare.

Unfortunately, they were rejected on

party-line votes. This massive cut in

Medicare funding would not be necessary if the majority abandoned their

tax cut for the wealthy.

Under the Republican plan, the

wealthy will gain while our elderly

population suffers more pain. Instead

of cutting Medicare, we must work to

ensure that any effort to maintain the

solvency of the Medicare trust fund

does not put Medicare beneficiaries at

risk. And, we must protect the program for future enrollees. This problem

can and should be solved in the context

of health care reform.

I recognize the critical need to ensure long-term stability in the Medicare Program and I support efforts to

balance our budget. However, I am opposed to arbitrarily cutting Medicare

to finance a tax break for wealthy

Americans. I look forward to working

with my colleagues on addressing these

important issues.

Just as health care benefits are being

cut for our senior citizens dependent on

Medicare, the freeze proposed on veterans health care programs would be

equally devastating for our elderly veterans.

At first glance, the majority budget

seems to have little impact on veterans

health care programs. The chairman’s

mark shields the Veterans Health Administration from cuts, and freezes

funding at the 1995 level. However, if

you examine the long-term impact of

the proposal, you find that the proposed freeze will have a debilitating effect on health care provided to our Nation’s veterans.

The budget resolution contains only

half of the annual cost-of-living adjustments [COLA], so the Veterans’ Administration must absorb the remainder of

the increase from a budget that is already being held flat. This will mean

that fewer resources will be available

to veterans seeking access to veteran

health care programs.

In fiscal year 1996, the majority’s

proposal will cut $640 million from the

Veterans Health Administration’s

budget compared to the President’s

budget request. The options to cope

with this cut include the elimination of

8,200 health care providers and support

staff or closing Veterans Administration Medical Centers [VAMC] to

achieve a total reduction of 1,500 patient beds. In terms of direct care services, 57,000 inpatient and 1,300,000 outpatient visits for 142,000 patients would

be foregone in fiscal year 1996 under

the Republican proposal.

Under their proposal, by the year

2002, 53,000 full-time-equivalent positions would be eliminated or 35 Veterans’ Administration medical centers

would have to be closed. Over a 7-year

period, one-fourth of the current medical care positions would have to be

eliminated and 35 of the 159 Veterans’

Administration medical centers currently serving veterans across the

country would be closed if the Republican proposal is implemented.

Health care facilities and personnel

are not the only areas which will be affected by the majority’s proposal. Medical research within the Veterans’ Administration would also be frozen at

the fiscal year 1995 appropriation level.

This will significantly impact the specialized services the Veterans’ Administration provides, including spinal

cord and prosthetics research. In fiscal

year 1996, over 150 projects would have

to be terminated to meet the budget

constraints imposed by the majority.

The cumulative impact for Veterans

Health Administration services over 7

years would decimate the Veterans’

Administration health care system as

we know it. By the year 2002, the Veterans Health Administration budget

would have lost $20.6 billion over 7

years. Over 1.5 million inpatient and 34