Date: 1997-10-21
Speaker: GERALD SOLOMQN (republican)
Chamber: H

Republican from the State of New Yorks 22nd Congressional District. When we look at the mix of defense expenditures. gasoline taxes and return for transportation costs. the expenditures for Medicaid. aid to families with dependent children or welfare. when we look at the whole mix and put it together. military expenditures. also. New York still comes out as a donor. It gets back more from Medicaid and Medicare than most States. but we are forced to pay 50 percent of the total MedicaidMedicare costs. whereas in Mississippi the Federal Government pays 70 percent and the Federal Government only pays 50 percent of our costs. Per capita we have a larger number of people so we get back more Medicaid and Medicare funds than probably any other State per capita. But when we balance that off against what we get back for transportation. military contracts. when it all is balanced out. the taxpayers of New York in 1996 were still paying into the Federal Government $14 billion more than they received back. This is worthy of a debate. Mr. Siegel. get yourself a copy of the book. arouse your fellow journalists and editors and let us go to work. Let us take a close look at the pages of a book which spell out the situation State by State and educate the people of New York as to what is the problem with respect to their taxes not returning to improve their quality of life and how are they being swindled. Let us look at Alabama on page 1. Alabama is a recipient State. They receive far more than they pay into the Federal Governments coffers. Alabama continues to retain its positive fiscal relationship with the Federal Government with a balance of payments surplus of $1.421 per person. the eighth highest in the Nation. They get back $1.421 for each person in the State than they pay in. Relative low per capita income results in tax collections of about 13 percent below the national average. Alabama ranks fourth in the Nation for payments to individuals and 14th for defense spending. leading to overall Federal spending that is 16 percent higher than the national average. The State of Alabama receives 16 percent more. its Federal spending. receipt of Federal funds is 16 percent higher than the national average. It has consistently been that way for a long. long time. certainly the last 10 years. Our dollars flow to Alabama. Alabama is not grateful. Alabama talks a great deal about States rights and not having people outside interfere. The State of Georgia. let us read the synopsis on the State of Georgia. Georgia is almost equal to the national averages for both taxes and spending. varying by less than 1 percent in each direction. It began and ended the period from 1981 to fiscal year 1996 with moderate balance of payments surpluses. In the early to mid1980s. rising Federal tax payments fueled by economic growth outpaced the States success in attracting defense dollars. with the result that its balance of payments surplus fell slightly. The dramatic decline in defense spending in the late 1980s dropped the State into a deficit position in fiscal year 1988. Defense spending increased in fiscal year 1992 and went up again in the past year. so Georgia ends the 16year period with a balance. a small balance of payments surplus of $66 per capita and a rank of 27th. Over the years. Georgia has received per person as high as $434 more per person than it has paid in and it presently receives $66 more when you take the whole State into consideration. In a previous year. this book zeroed in on some counties and they found that the county that Speaker GINGRIcH represented was the county that received the highest per capita in amount of Federal spending than any other county in the country. New Mexico ranks at the very top. It is number one when it comes to recipient States. New Mexico receives more than any other State in the Union. New Mexico. the synopsis reads. leads the Nation with the greatest balance of payments surplus. Per capita Federal spending is about 45 percent above the national average. assisted by strong defense spending. While the average State receives about $865 per capita in defense spending in fiscal year 1996. New Mexico received nearly 3 times that. $2.400 per person. The State also ranks high for intergovernmental assistance. particularly Department of Interior grants to minerals management and Native American programs. Per capita income is very low and tax collections are about 23 percent below the national average. They collect very little. send very little to the Federal Government but the amount that they receive is the greatest in the whole country. In past years they have cited New Mexico as also being the recipient of a tremendous amount of agricultural subsidies. The agricultural subsidies also were driving the amount of per capita Federal spending in New Mexico up. They have always had an interesting record. If we look at the record of New Mexico all the way from fiscal year 1981 to fiscal year 1996. they have always been above the $2.500 mark in terms of per capita. For each person in New Mexico. they receive more than $2.500. It generally has run much higher than that. $3.048 per person in 1981. $3.005 in 1985. $3.313 in 1986. $3.421 in 1987. $4.464 in 1988 and on and on it goes. always very high in terms of what they receive per person versus the amount that they pay in. Likewise. on the other end of the spectrum. New York has always had a negative balance. We have received less consistently since 1981 per person. The $14 billion overall from 1996 translates into $773 we receive less per person in New York than we pay in. That is what the overall figure of $i4 billion translates into on a per capita basis. In 1981 it was $312 less. It went as high as $1.016 per person less in 1989. $1.101 in 1994. $1.070 in 1995. receiving per person in New York that much less than we are paying into the Federal coffers. New York once again finds itself among the States with the largest per capita balance of payments deficits. The deficit fell by about 20 percent in fiscal 1996 but the total deficit of $14 billion still ranks third in the Nation. New York ranks near the bottom for most Federal spending. almost 12 percent below the national average of 1996. Defense spending has fallen sharply since the mid 1980s and New York ranked 46th in defense spending last year. New Yorks success in attracting grants to State and local government can be traced to Medicaid assistance. AFDC and surface transportation grants. New York ranks 12th in the real per capita income and tax collections are about 4 percent above the national average. I know that statistics can be boring and maybe these are boring but they are certainly not incoherent. There is a story here that we must listen to in the statistics. Mr. Siegel and other journalists have to pay more attention to these statistics. New York is to be applauded for the fact that this year its economy. partially as a result of the booming stock market. New York State. its economy is such that they have placed in the budget more money for schools. more money for education. It has also voted to launch a bond issue for school construction. more than $2 billion bond issue to help construct schools. It is to be applauded for as a State moving ahead to try to fill the gap. In New York City in 1996 we had 91.000 children who did not have a place to sit in a classroom. This year we cannot find out the number because this is an election year in New York and they kept secret the exact number of children who did not have a place to sit. The estimate is that at least there were 80.000 who did not have a place to sit at the start of school. They have to shuffle about and find places in the hallways and the closets. and. in some cases. the bathrooms were converted in order to have a place for the kids to sit. Again. we continue to have a situation where some children are forced to eat lunch at 10 oclock in the morning because the school is so overcrowded until the lunchroom cannot take all the students. They have to have three or four lunch periods. so the first lunch period has to begin at 10 oclock in the morning. That is child abuse. to force a child to eat lunch at 10 oclock. but that is the case in a number of schools in New York City. So New York State has begun. at least to do more than just wringing its hands about its need for more schools. New schools. renovated schools. et cetera. will do more when we get the bondissue passed. But in the meantime we are paying more money into the Federal coffers than we are receiving back. The Federal Government ought to float a school construction initiative. The President proposes a mere $5 billion over a fiveyear period. and that was dropped out of the negotiations. We need to come back to that. We need to understand that if we are not willing to launch a school construction initiative to make sure of the schools across the country. The General Accounting Office estimates that the problem is about $120 billion in infrastructure needs across the whole country. There are rural schools. suburban schools. a number of places where they need new schools. not just in the innercities. The total tab would be. according to the General Accounting Office estimate. about $120 billion. Here we had a proposal in the State of the Union message for a mere $5 billion and they dropped that. If you are not willing as a Nation through the Federal budget to deal with the problem of school construction and some other acute problems in places like New York. then give us our money back. Give us back the $14 billion or give us back half of it. We can solve our own problems. We have a situation where it is an involuntary transfusion. It is blood sucking. really. when you have a State which has an acute poverty problem. a city like New York. which has 2 million people who are poor out of a population of close to 8 million. but 2 million are poor. We need our money back. I want to repeat and emphasize the fact that this is not stated enough by journalists. by columnists. by editorial boards in New York City and New York State. When Mr. Siegel says that this Congressman is one of those who has not addressed the problem. I want to read and close out with a couple of quotes from my previous statements on the floor of this House. I think just last March 12. 1996. I made the following statement: New York State is a State in the Nation which provides the greatest amount of surplus in terms of Treasury. When you compare what New York State receives from the Federal Government. what it receives from the Federal Government in terms of aid. it is much less than it pays in. That has been true for the last 20 years. This is my quote from last year. In 1994. the last year they had figures available. New York State paid the Treasury $18.9 billion more than it got back from the Federal Treasury in State aid. New York was the most generous of the States. We were at the very top in 1994. I quoted from the booklet in 1994. This was. for the benefit of Mr. Siegel and the other journalists who want to check it out. this is in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD. March 12. 1996. H2117. On that same date. I made several statements about Medicare and Medicaid. If New York State stood alone. it would be in receipt of $18.9 billion that it does not have now. If you gave us back the $18.9 billion in 1994 that we .paid into the Federal Government. which was greater than the amount we got back in terms of aid. we could solve our budget problems. In fact. just give us back half that amount. I am like a broken record. the same things I am saying tonight. I have said it many times before. It is not incoherent. Mr. Siegel. It is repetitious. I confess. but it needs to be repetitious because nobody seems to pick up on these important messages. If we had $9 billion. the New York State budget could be balanced and you would have a lot left over. We could take care of our own summer youth program. our own construction problems. If you give us back the greater amount of money we pay in. we couldstop waiting for the Federal Government. I mention this because the criticism on the floor of the House repeatedly aims at New York and calls New York a welfare State. I think during that same discussion I talked about the Speakers home State of Georgia. meanwhile. is one of the large number of southern largely Republican States that receives far more from the Federal Government than they send out in taxes. I quoted Mr. MOYNIHAN at that time.