Thomas Coburn

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I am not voting for this rule.

Mr. COBURN. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding me this time. I think it is important for people in this country to know what this rule does. If you are poor and you are on Medicaid, this bill takes away the right of your physician to determine when you should be discharged from the hospital. We put that in in committee. We did that on purpose, because you have a right to have quality care and the profits of a health insurance industry should not come above that. This rule does not take it out of Medicare. We put it in Medicare, too. But AARP is such a strong force that we did not have the courage to take it out in the Medicare portion of this bill. So if you are poor, you are blown away. If you are protected by Medicare, you are protected for right now. When it gets to conference, your ability to have quality medical care determining your discharge based on what is best for your health is going to be eliminated in conference. That is the plan. So, America, wake up; this bill determines your health care and your quality not by your physician but by the insurance company that is running the managed care program. I thank the gentleman very much for yielding me the time.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, this is simply an amendment to clarify what our process is. The World Heritage and Man and Biosphere program has never been authorized by this Congress. It has never been presented to any committee of this Congress. A quarter of a million dollars this last year was spend in the State Department's budget for this program. This amendment simply states that until this is authorized by a committee of Congress, that no moneys in this authorization will be spent for this. I will not go into any detail. I plan on reserving my time, but it is my understanding that the chairman has accepted this amendment and that the minority will not object to it. Therefore, I would ask the chairman of the committee if that is his intention.

Mr. COBURN. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if the gentleman from California might confirm for the minority if that is their intention as well.

Mr. COBURN. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I remember hearing the words ``Penny- Kasich.'' I remember hearing the words ``Gramm-Rudman.'' They were promises. We look at the budget resolution that is put before us, and nearly 75 percent of the savings come in the last 2 years of this 5- year program. The National Taxpayers Union has scored this vote on this CAT substitute, and what they have said is the 300,000-member National Taxpayers Union strongly supports the substitute to the 1998 budget resolution because it proposes better control of discretionary spending and larger tax cuts. A vote for the budget resolution will be a plus on the National Taxpayers Union score card, but it will be a plus for American families. It will be rated three times as heavy if my colleagues vote for the CATS budget. Remember Gramm-Rudman, remember Penny-Kasich. Vote for this budget.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. The purpose of this colloquy is to discuss the grant program under the provisions of H.R. 3, and to ask the chairman as to his consideration for the youth challenge programs as presently run by the National Guard. There are 15 of them, and they have done a wonderful job in terms of improving the opportunities for young people. There have been now over 30,000 young people go through that program. There is only one now incarcerated in the entire United States that has worked through that program. It is one of the Government programs that is effective, that works, that restores self-respect, restores dignity, and restores responsibility in young people that are at risk. My question, Mr. Chairman, is will these youth challenge programs in the State of Oklahoma and other States qualify under this bill for the grant, the block grant moneys?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman. That is exactly my point. We have never as a body in this Congress authorized the U.S. Man and Biosphere project. We have, in fact, authorized moneys that then have been spent on it for an unauthorized program. That is exactly why we should support this amendment and not allow agencies to spend money on unauthorized projects. Again, I would reemphasize, if this program has good merits, it should come before the appropriate committees of Congress, receive its authorization and receive its funding. To fund it any other way is, first of all, inappropriate and is deceitful. Yes, there is in the far Western States certain paranoia about this, but why should there not be if we are funding it and not bringing it for authorization? So I would say we understand that it does not have anything to do with about whether we are environmentally friendly or not. The fact is that, if it is a legitimate program, then let us bring it before the committees, let us authorize it and then let us fund it.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would ask the gentleman from California [Mr. Brown] to please clarify that for me.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make one point. I believe it was a mistake in language, but I would like to ask the gentleman a question. This program has never been authorized by any Congress of the United States; is that the gentleman's understanding?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just thought I would give us a rundown of where the $700,000 came from last year so we can all know where it came from since none of this was authorized and it came from several different agencies. The Air Force gave $50,000. That is really defense of our country. The Bureau of Land Management gave $20,000; the EPA gave $18,000; the Forest Service gave $75,000; the National Biologic Service gave $30,000; the National Park Service, $60,000; NASA, $50,000; NOAA, $50,000; the National Science Foundation, $50,000; the Peace Corps gave $11,000 of their budget to the Project Man and Biosphere. The State Department gave $240,000 of their money to the biosphere program last year. The State Department; I am having trouble connecting what that has to do with the State Department in terms of protecting that. USAID, which is not quite biosphere, it gave $60,000. We spent $7,000 in Denmark out of this money, we spent $11,000 on the European market, we spent $11,000 in the Mexican biosphere project, and we spent $23,000 in the Russian biodiversity information project. So I guess the question comes is if this is a legitimate project, let us bring it through the Congress, let us bring it through the Committee on Science, let us authorize it and then put the money there. Let us not let bureaucrats decide how we are going to fund something that we may think is right, and all we are asking with this amendment is that we not fund money for an unauthorized project, and if it has merits, let it stand on its own merit and go through the process that any other thing in this Congress is supposed to do. That means come through the committee process, be authorized and be voted on by both Houses of Congress, and get the money.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, I would just say to the gentleman I have read everything available to use on this program. The people I represent wholeheartedly disagree with this program. Even though it does have benefits they still disagree, and that even though a ridiculously small amount like $700,000 in terms of what we spend does seem small, but when the average family income in the district is $13,000, that is a tremendous amount of money, and when we are trying to balance a budget and not take money from our grandchildren, $700,000 on an unauthorized project is a tremendous amount of money.

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is very simple. What it does is limit the amount of money that the NSF can spend for the United States Man and Biosphere Program and related projects. It is important that the people recognize that the Biosphere Reserve and World Heritage sites are under the guidance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization also known as UNESCO. The United States withdrew from that Organization in 1984 because of gross financial mismanagement. Over 68 percent of our national parks, preserves, and monuments have been designated as United Nations World Heritage sites, Biosphere Reserve or both. There are currently 47 of those sites in the United States, covering an area the size of Colorado. Under the relative agreements, the United States is promising to manage lands in accordance with international guidelines. Many times local government, private properties are never consulted in these management plans. This is a clear violation of private property rights. The biosphere programs, including the United States Man and Biosphere Program, have never been authorized by any Congress, never been authorized, but still received this past year and this year will receive over $700,000 of taxpayers' money. The National Science Foundation distributed more than $400,000 in grants to this unauthorized program despite the fact that the program has never had a consideration or vote in Congress and has never been approved by a body of the Congress. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important for us to recognize that if we are going to balance our budget, the one thing that has to happen is that the Congress has to decide whether or not we are going to authorize programs. If we are going to authorize programs, then we ought to fund them. But if we are not going to authorize programs, we should not let other agencies do our job instead. The fact is, is there are over 15 different Government agencies that are contributing moneys for other purposes to the biosphere program. It is my feeling and many others that this should not happen, that it gives away a responsibility of Congress, that in fact being unauthorized, and also invades the personal property rights of those people who own land around these parks and reserves. The Committee on Science, it also should be noted that we did vote to take out money out of NASA that was used for this very purpose on a voice vote in the Committee on Science markup. All we are doing is extending the same guidance to the National Science Foundation as was given to NASA. It would be my request that this body consider this amendment in the spirit in which it is given: No. 1, in terms of fiscal responsibility we should not be giving moneys to unauthorized programs; No. 2, especially programs that violate the very spirit of freedom and control of personal property rights that our citizens enjoy. I would ask concurrence from other Members in this body on this.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. I think we should. One thing I want to address is this bogeyman everybody talks about called the Consumer Price Index, or the CPI. Because, in fact, when we ask politicians and we ask Members of the House of Representatives how many of them want to talk about that with their constituency, very few will say, ``Yes, I will be happy to talk about that.'' They are afraid of that issue. I think we should talk about that issue. The very people who are receiving Social Security today are the people in this country that went through the Depression and fought the great war. They won World War II. And the real issue surrounding the CPI is, does the CPI accurately represent the increase in the cost associated with the standard of living for people on Social Security?

Mr. COBURN. Mr. Speaker, I have two charts that I would like for the American public to see because I think they very importantly make some cases for where we are today; and I have committed that I will spend the time that is necessary to communicate to the people in my district and people throughout this country what is really happening to us in terms of our budget. We hear a completely different rhetoric today than what we heard just 2 years ago. And the question that comes to my mind is, Why has the rhetoric changed? And I think the rhetoric has changed because people are fearful for their jobs. It was not that the rhetoric was wrong. The rhetoric was right, but the results of not communicating the importance of what our job is and not communicating exactly where we are. I would want people to look at these two charts. One is from 1972, and the other is for this fiscal year, 1997. And they really show the heart of the problem that this country faces with its budget. If we look at 1972, what we realize is that our entire Federal budget was $231 billion. Whereas, in 1997, we are going to spend $1,632 billion, which is a significant, 700-percent increase, in a mere 25 years in the amount of dollars that we actually spend. Critics will say, well, that is not real dollars. But it is a significant increase in real dollars to the 700 percentage points. When we look at the total, the other thing that we first notice is that, of the interest payments that we made on the national debt in 1972, that it was a mere $16 billion, that, in fact, we were spending about 7 percent of our budget on interest; and now we spend 15 percent of our budget on interest, and no small number whatsoever, $248 billion, which is more than the entire amount that we spent on ourselves in 1972. The other thing that these pie charts show is they show the fix that we are in unless we have the courage to make the changes in the programs that are driving the budget deficit. We have three choices. As the yellow portion shows that, in 1972, discretionary spending, the things that your Representative truly gets to make a choice on every year and vote on, accounted for 55 percent of the budget. Today, as we can see, it accounts for 34 percent. In the year 2002, it will account for approximately 20 percent. So what is happening is, the areas where your Representative can make a difference in terms of the discretionary budget is slipping every year in terms of both total dollars and in terms of the percentage of the budget. The other thing to note is that the interest portion of that has risen 1,600 percent. So if we go to the red area and we see that in 1972 mandatory spending was 38 percent and it is now 51 percent and was projected to continue to rise to approximately 80 percent, we can see that unless we make the necessary changes to make those programs viable, efficient, and affordable, that it does not matter if we do not do anything now. We will be in such a financial catastrophe in the year 2012, that we will be forced to do it. So the question is, do we take our medicine now or do we take our medicine later? Do we do the right things? I have a couple of questions that I think are important. One is, remember the debate on Medicare over the last 2 years? Everybody agreed, including the trustees, that Medicare is going bankrupt. We have not heard people talking about it. Is it still going bankrupt? The plans put forward in the last Congress were necessary, quality, good plans to save Medicare. The plans that are being put forward in this Congress are simply band-aids on Medicare. They will not solve the structural problems, they will not solve the long-term equity and viability that is necessary for a health care program for our seniors, and, in fact, every year that we do not make the right decision to fix the Medicare Program, we will, in fact, make it harder and more expensive when we do finally face the fact. So the question is, why are people not talking? Were people untruthful in the last 2 years about the Medicare Program? The board of trustees, matter of fact, last year said we were wrong, 2002 is not right when it will go broke, it is probably going to go broke in the year 2000. I expect the trustees this year to tell us that Medicare will go broke in the year 1999 or very close to the year 2000. So if the problem is still there, why are people not addressing the problem? Why? Because of the falsity and the demagoguery associated with the political system in our country, where if we do the right thing, even though a special interest might not understand the issue, we get beat up on it when we go to run for reelection. So we have to move to the question, what is more important, doing the right thing for our country or getting reelected to this body? And I hope the American public would be incensed that their Representatives had not addressed the problem of Medicare, because if we really care about seniors in this country, we will make the decisions this year, not next year. Not when President Clinton is no longer President and not when the gentleman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, is no longer Speaker of the House, but this year, when it will make the most difference, save the most money and afford health care to the most seniors. It either is going broke or it is not. It is going broke. So why would this body not in fact address the Medicare problem? The second area in this red that we do not have any control over, and we made some attempts in the last Congress, but needs to be addressed, that is further refinement of the food stamp program. The fact is there is a large portion of the $27 billion that the taxpayers pay in this country for food stamps that goes for beer, cigarettes and crack cocaine. The system needs to be changed. The system needs to be a hard ID'd limited program that provides the basic essentials and basic needs for those who are dependent upon us for good reason. We should not be supplying those things that in fact will harm them. To continue to accept a system that will waste $7 or $8 billion of taxpayer money because we do not have the courage to tackle what may be a very controversial issue, means we do not have the courage to be here in the first place. The third point I would make, and if the gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. Neumann] will stay here, the third point I would make within Medicare is we have good testimony, both from the Inspector General, from the FBI, that of the money we spend on Medicare, somewhere between $20 and $40 billion a year is fraudulent; in other words, is billed to the Federal Government through Medicare for services that were not rendered. Why should we accept that? Why should we not completely revamp the Medicare rules and regulations to take the incentive for fraud out of Medicare? Why have your Representatives not done that? Why has the President not led on that? Why have the Senators not done that? They have failed to do that. The same question: What is the issue? The issue is the courage to do the hard thing but the right thing so that the most people in this country will benefit from it. We have home health care in this country. The Inspector General of HHS testified this year before this Congress that somewhere between 19 and 63 percent of every bill that is submitted to Medicare for home health care is fraudulent. The services were not performed. And yet we continue to have home health care guidelines issued by the Health Care Financing Administration that allows that to continue, and we have known that for 2 to 3 years. We need action, and we need action that is based on courage and is based on the principle to do the right thing regardless of what it costs to someone's political career. So we need to fix it to where we can make changes in the red. The area of yellow is going to get smaller, the area of blue is going to balloon in terms of interest, and the area of red is eventually all we are going to have, is blue and red, mandatory spending and interest on the national debt. I do not think that is acceptable for our country. I know it is not acceptable for the future generations that are going to pay for it. I notice my friend from Wisconsin is here and I welcome him to this discussion.

Mr. COBURN. Or a 400 percent increase in the last 25 years in nonreal dollars, or inflated dollars.

Mr. COBURN

Mr. COBURN. And the American public will know what the true size is of the deficit that their Representatives are voting for each year, which in fact is significantly higher than what is reported in the press and by the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget, because it does not reflect this money borrowed from Social Security.