H 4966 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE May 16, 1995

The cuts in the budget are certainly

not painless for the seniors in my district or across the United States. In

fact, the Republican majority has proposed to slow growth or, as most of us

would say, dramatically cut billions

from Medicare over the next 7 years.

The Republican cuts would result in

an increase in copayments, deductibles,

and premiums for senior citizens in

Houston, TX and across the country.

The budget plan is a broken promise to

working families and their parents.

The Republican majority has promised us they would balance the budget

without devastating families and senior citizens. That is one promise they

cannot say they kept. While I understand and promote the need for a balanced budget, there is a right way and

a wrong way to do it. Balancing the

budget on the backs of senior citizens

while you give tax breaks is not what

the American people want or hopefully

the Republican majority would want.

(Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked

BASIC MATH

fand was given permission to address

the House for 1 minute and to revise

and extend is remarks.)

Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland. Mr.

Speaker, I spent 24 years of my life as

a teacher, and I thought for a few moments today we might go back to

school.

Here, as you might remember from

kindergarten, is a number line. What

we were supposed to learn from that

was that 3 is greater than 2 and 6 is

greater than 4. But apparently some of

us are slow learners.

As you will see from this next graph,

these are the numbers for Medicare

payments per recipient. On a scale that

is uninterrupted so it is not distorted,

as a result of the Republican plan to

balance the budget. Please notice that

we are now spending $4,700 per recipient in Medicare. By the year 2002, that

will increase to $6,300. That is bigger

than, larger than $4,700.

Let us see if we have got it right now:

$6,300 is bigger than $4,700. So Republicans are not cutting Medicare.

HANG TOUGH ON AUTO TRADE

fSANCTIONS

(Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given

permission to address the House for 1

minute and to revise and extend her remarks and include extraneous material.)

Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, at this

very moment our United States trade

ambassador is announcing proposed

trade sanctions against Japan for its

unfair trade practices. After a decade,

the executive branch of our Government has taken seriously Congress’

mandate to open Japan’s auto market.

Imposing penalties on Japan has my

full support. In the weeks ahead, as

Democratic cochair of the auto caucus

here, I urge United States representative Mickey Kantor to hang tough for

America and fight as hard as he can to

increase our access to Japan’s market.

If this Nation were to achieve auto

trade equity with Japan we could build

100 new factories in this country, each

employing 5,000 people. That is how big

the gap really is.

The United States has trade balances

with every other major trading partner

in the world but for Japan. So for

Japan, the time has come.

fb 1200

TOP 10 TACTICS OF THE NEW MINORITY IN THE POSTCONTRACT

PERIOD

(Mr. HAYWORTH asked and was

given permission to address the House

for 1 minute and to revise and extend

his remarks.)

Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, from

the home office in Scottsdale, AZ—

here are the top 10 tactics of the new

minority in the postcontract period.

No. 10. Change the name of ‘‘Medicare’’ to ‘‘Mediscare’’;

No. 9. Hire Freddy Krueger as the

new liberal Democrat spokesman;

No. 8. Get Leon Panetta to take

likeability lessons;

No. 7. Set up a new political action

committee—the ‘‘Whine producers’’—

w-h-i-n-e;

No. 6. Insist that it is relevant to

carp, complain, and sit on the sidelines

instead of offering policy alternatives;

No. 5. Put an ostrich ranch here on

the Hill to mimic the practice of putting heads in the sand to hide from

problems;

No. 4. Insist that a bigger Federal

Government is the only way to meet

any challenge;

No. 3. Get the Department of Education to change the name of ‘‘addition’’ to ‘‘subtraction’’;

No. 2. Revise history to say the credibility gap was a good thing;

And the No. 1 postcontract tactic of

the new minority—grouse, grouch,

grumble, and mumble—do anything but

cooperate.

SIMPLE ARITHMETIC: TAX

BREAKS FOR THE WEALTHY

fPROVIDED BY BUDGET CUTS

(Mr. VOLKMER asked and was given

permission to address the House for 1

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, and

people back in the Ninth District,

those who I talked to while I was out

there, it is flim-flam time. You heard

the Republicans on the other side say

they are not cutting Medicare. CBO

says they are cutting Medicare. They

say the increase they give is far below

the level that is estimated that is needed to maintain the current level of

Medicare benefits required under current law. They say ‘‘Yes, we are increasing it,’’ but what about all the

other people, for current beneficiaries,

they say, ‘‘What about all the other

people that are coming?’’

Mr. Speaker, if you take the tax

break, the big tax break out of the

budget, out of their budget, there is no

need to cut Medicare one penny. There

is no need to cut student loans, there is

no need to cut agriculture and veterans’ benefits, there is no need to do

those things. They are doing it in order

to give tax breaks to the wealthy.

It is very simple arithmetic. We had

a gentleman there talk about classrooms. Yes, do the arithmetic. Take

the tax break for the wealthy out of

the budget and see what that equals.

That equals more than the Medicare

cuts for the elderly and the agriculture

cuts and the student loan cuts.

IT IS TIME TO BALANCE THE

fBUDGET

(Mr. CHABOT asked and was given

permission to address the House for 1

minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, once

again I think we can see clearly that

Medicare spending goes up from $4,700

per recipient up to $6,300 per recipient.

It is not a cut, it is as simple as the figures right here.

Mr. Speaker, in 1969 Neil Armstrong

set foot on the moon. Joe Namath predicted a Jets victory in Superbowl III

and my home State, Ohio State, won

the Rose Bowl. In 1969, that was the

last time that Congress passed a balanced budget.

Today, 26 years later, the Republican

majority is trying to repeat history.

We have submitted a historic plan to

once again balance the Federal budget.

For the past 26 years, Congress let the

Federal budgets grow and grow and

grow. The social spending programs of

the sixties ballooned and blossomed.

They raised taxes, but they could not

kick the spending habit. It is time, finally, that we balance this budget. We

begin this week.

THE BOLD REPUBLICAN BUDGET

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, we have seen

the charts, but there is one line they

do not have on the charts, where they

say that there is an increase because it

goes up to $6,300 by the year 2002. They

do not have the chart that shows where

there is a $1,000 cut for every senior

citizen beyond what their expenses

would be. They do not have the chart

that shows the increased co-pays for

senior citizens. They do not have the

chart that shows the increased deductibility. They do not have the chart

that shows the increased insurance premiums, not only for senior citizens, but

for all insurance premium payers. They

do not have those charts, because they

do not want to show them to you.

The fact of the matter is cutting

Medicare goes for a tax cut for the

upper income. Mr. Speaker, I have