Lloyd Doggett

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6600) to amend title II of the Social Security Act to prohibit the inclusion of Social Security account numbers on Medicare cards, as amended.

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. There are 44 million seniors and individuals with disabilities who carry in their wallets or in their purses something that makes them unnecessarily more vulnerable to identity theft, and that is their Medicare cards. Apart from the Social Security card, itself, the Medicare card is the most frequently issued government document displaying a Social Security number. This practice invites foul play. To protect both the savings and the peace of mind of Medicare beneficiaries, I've introduced with the assistance and the encouragement of my colleague from Texas, the ranking member on the Social Security Subcommittee, Mr. Johnson, the Medicare Identity Theft Prevention Act. This bipartisan legislation would require Medicare to take the steps that private companies and that other government agencies have already taken to protect the identities of our seniors. Every time a senior or an individual with a disability hands over a Medicare card, that person is handing over the keys of financial security. With increasingly sophisticated thefts by identity thieves, inaction is unacceptable. Seniors have saved and have built over their lifetimes their financial security and their reputations. Their savings and their credit should not be put needlessly at risk if someone steals their Medicare card. Just as a doctor swears an oath to do no harm in practicing medicine, Medicare should make sure that it does no harm to the financial security and credit rating of its beneficiaries. The Medicare Identity Theft Prevention Act will help to ensure that the government better protects seniors from identity theft, denying thieves access to this critical data. The private sector and government agencies, including the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense, have begun to protect Social Security numbers from identity thieves. But Medicare has not yet taken appropriate steps to do this, hence this legislation. Inaction jeopardizes the safety of millions of our seniors and individuals with disabilities. This legislation has the support of the Consumers Union, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the National Silver-Haired Congress, and the Texas Silver- Haired Legislature, as well as the Elder Justice Coalition. Seniors confront many threats to their retirement security these days. This bill is one way to prevent their falling victim to swindlers. I urge the adoption of the bill. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield back my time.

Mr. DOGGETT. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is an all-Texas act this afternoon, but it's about a measure that affects seniors and individuals with disabilities all over this country. General Leave

Mr. DOGGETT. Let me first ask unanimous consent that Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to add any extraneous material in the Record concerning H.R. 6600, as amended.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Perhaps the sixth time will be the charm. This is the sixth time that this House has approved this legislation to encourage more renewable energy, more solar energy, more wind energy, and provisions that I authored that will encourage plug-in hybrid vehicles and geothermal heat pumps and will promote small business development of biodiesel. American innovation can fuel new jobs and increase exports abroad. We can put more green where it really counts, in the wallets and in the purses of the working families of America. The choice is ours. We can either run this new economy that is less dependent on fossil fuels, or we can get run over by it. Now, really this is not a House/Senate dispute. This is about the Republicans taking the renewable energy bill hostage. Their approach boils down to this: They absolutely refuse to let us take America forward into a less fossil fuel-dependent economy unless we borrow the money to do it. We all know what the George Bush approach has been for 8 years. ``What, me worry?'' Well, his philosophy is ``just swipe the debt on the national credit card.'' Just borrow a little more money, whether it's the cost of the Iraq war, or it's $700 billion for a Wall Street bailout. ``Don't worry, it's a free lunch. What, me worry? No, just put it on the credit card.'' And that's what they're saying this morning. They will not let us move forward with renewable energy and a new green economy unless we borrow more money. How much more money do they think the American people can stand to borrow? Under President George Bush we have added almost $4 trillion, more than all the presidents before him put together borrowing from foreign sources. And they want us to borrow even more before they will allow us to do what the American people want, and that is, to look to the future. If this George Bush bailout proposal has taught us anything, it is the danger of over-borrowing.

Mr. DOGGETT. The President's answer to us this morning regarding an over-leveraged Wall Street is to further over-leverage the American people. Today's bill doesn't make that mistake. If it's worth doing, it's worth paying for. That's what we do.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Madam Speaker, in somber terms last night, President Bush described a crisis as if it had emerged on Wall Street from outer space. Never accepting any personal responsibility, this is the man who chased the sheriff off Wall Street while it had a party, a grand old party. That infamous Republican earmark, that Bridge to Nowhere up in Alaska, it carried a hefty price tag, $223 million. Well, what President Bush is now asking Americans to do is to pay for the equivalent of 4,500 Alaskan bridges, a $1 trillion gold-plated, diamond-encrusted bridge to Wall Street. And our job here in Congress is to ask, is this just another Bridge to Nowhere, and ask why is it that the party-goers don't have to pay for the party? Why should American taxpayers and future generations of Americans have their future mortgaged to pay for a party they never participated in?

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I rise as an enthusiastic supporter of the legislation that has been prepared by the gentlewoman from New York. Credit card abuse is rampant, and her legislation helps us to correct some of the most egregious abuses. I have just come from the Subcommittee on Health on which I serve. It's well known that the number one item in terms of credit card debt is for medical bills and that health care costs are the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in this country. When we wrote the bankruptcy bill a few years ago, what began as a reasonable reform to deal with problems with debtors became an entirely one-sided piece of legislation that ignored these rampant abuses in the credit card industry. So it's appropriate here, under new leadership and a Democratic Congress and the leadership of the gentlewoman from New York, we are finally belatedly addressing some of these abuses. But all of this will be for naught unless this measure becomes part of the great Wall Street bailout that the President has proposed. Once again, the proposal being advanced from this administration, not unlike our old debate about the bankruptcy laws, is all one-sided: give to those who cause the problem, give taxpayer money to those who cause the problem, and let those who cause the problem decide how that money is distributed. It's all one-sided. If such a bill in any form is to be passed--and I think there's great debate about the wisdom of approving anything in this area of the type that has been advanced--but if such a measure is to be approved, it is essential that we do just a little bit for the consumers who have been entrapped, in many cases, with massive amounts of credit card debt. And incorporating the modest but very important reforms that the gentlewoman from New York has advanced into this legislation is absolutely essential. We need not negotiate just over the unsatisfactory proposal that was advanced by the Treasury Department.

Mr. DOGGETT. We need not be limited by just trying to improve an unsatisfactory proposal advanced by the administration; we need to add to that negotiating list key consumer reforms like this so that the protection is just not for the wrongdoers on Wall Street, but it's for the average consumer struggling to make ends meet with a huge credit card debt. And I applaud the gentlewoman from New York for her leadership.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, a few months ago, President Bush accurately diagnosed the problem he just dumped in the lap of Congress: ``Wall Street got drunk, and now it's got a hangover,'' he said. Mr. President, you gave them the keys to the liquor cabinet by failing to enforce our laws, and now you are really demanding that Americans who didn't get invited to the party must pay for everything destroyed in the drunken brawl. These late-night negotiators have not asked the President, ``where do we find $700 billion?'' It is time to demand that the bailout supporters outline the revenue measures necessary to pay for it, and the place to begin is with those who enriched themselves as Republicans removed the cop from the corporate beat. We need an alternative to just raising the credit card limit, an alternative to more irresponsible borrow-and-spend policies from a President who has borrowed more from foreigners than all previous presidents in American history put together, and who seems determined to continue to mortgage America's future.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his help and leadership on this measure. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6064, the National Sliver Alert Act, which I authored and on which we have had very good bipartisan cooperation. I appreciate the statement, the concern and cooperation of the gentleman from Florida who has recounted a very serious incident that occurred in his State, and I appreciate the leadership of the gentlewoman from North Carolina. We merged our proposals in committee and have reauthorized through this legislation the National Center for Missing Adults. Our seniors, who have worked a lifetime building families, giving back to their communities, deserve dignity and respect in their retirement years. And when some of them are unable to care for themselves, they need our support. There is no silver bullet to providing that support, but one meaningful way of helping is through the national Silver Alert system that this measure would establish nationwide. Silver Alert is a public notification system triggered by the report of the missing senior with dementia or other mental impairment, similar to Amber Alert which has worked so successfully to find missing children, where we rely on postings on the highways, radio, television, and various forms of media to broadcast information about missing persons, to locate them, and bring them safely home. Sixty percent of those with Alzheimer's wander away from home at some point during their disability. If not found within 24 hours, up to half will suffer serious injury or death. Only 4 percent of those who leave home are able to get back without some assistance. Silver Alert provides that assistance. Responding to this need, 11 States, including my home State of Texas, have already enacted such programs, and another five States are seriously considering State legislation. While this is successful and important, we believe that every American should have the benefits of Silver Alert and that all States can benefit from learning about best practices that are occurring around the country. The National AMBER Alert law, which Congress approved in 2003, has provided the national leadership to coordinate State programs, link States to resources and best practices, and fund the technology and improvements necessary to assure the best assistance that we can provide. National Silver Alert will do much the same, coordinating from the Justice Department with the Federal Communication Commission, the Department of Transportation and the Administration on Aging to avoid duplication of efforts. This is a voluntary program that will help States initiate Silver Alert programs and sustain those that are already underway. In short, coordination saves lives. Reuniting missing seniors with their families requires a rapid, united response. What's missing from efforts to locate missing seniors is sufficient Federal support, and this bill closes that gap. With National Silver Alert, communities can use and build on existing resources to help keep our seniors safe. And as the population of the United States ages, more and more seniors will need this kind of support. Since its inception in Texas last September, Silver Alert has been invoked 52 times. Forty-eight of the missing seniors were located safely, and 13 of these recoveries were directly attributable to Silver Alert. One of these successes involved an 85-year-old man in my district in Austin. He left his home in Austin, drove south to San Antonio, then turned around and drove back, all the way through Austin to Dallas, a total of 325 miles. If it had occurred, instead of on I-35 in Texas, if it occurred here in the Northeast, he would have traveled through seven States. He was finally located in a parking lot at a department store late at night in Dallas. The responding officer had heard about the Silver Alert, knew there was a missing person from Austin in a dark green Buick. They were able to connect him back, after some treatment for dehydration, and get him back the next morning to his family in Austin. A National Silver Alert program complements other existing programs like Project Lifesaver, the Missing Alzheimer's Disease Program Alert Program, and I believe that Silver Alert will be effective with a unique ``wide net'' approach. The ability to broadcast the alert beyond the immediate vicinity will complement existing programs and assure more missing seniors are found within that crucial first 24 hours. I especially want to thank two Texans, Bill Cummings and Carlos Higgins of the Texas Silver Haired Legislature, who first asked me to develop this legislation to replicate nationally the success that they experienced through Texas Silver Alert. This bill shows that it is still possible, at least on a rather occasion, for an individual citizen who has a good cause but no lobbyists to get the attention of Congress and get legislation, creative solutions adopted. Since they first proposed the bill to me it has gained the endorsement of the Elder Justice Coalition, the National Silver Haired Legislature, the Child Alert Foundation, the National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home Reform, and the Assisted Living Federation of America. I appreciate the cooperation of my colleagues in getting this measure approved. I urge its adoption, recognizing that by working together we can take an important step toward making our seniors safe.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. The President offers a very simple Medicare fix: Seniors pay more. Taking a bigger cut from our seniors and our disabled individuals for their drug benefit premiums is hardly a true fix. You know, down in Texas, Mr. Speaker, we have steers that have been cut. They've been fixed. They've been fixed for all time, and that's the kind of fix that I think these Republicans have in mind for Medicare. Contrast the President's fix on Medicare this week with the President's veto on Medicare last week. These Republicans are so eager to privatize Medicare, they're willing to spend $1,000 of taxpayers' money every year for every person that they can get to leave traditional Medicare. By our overriding the President's veto, we saved billions of dollars in unnecessary waste. But there are tens of billions of dollars of additional waste right there in the system. And you know what? They deserve a Texas-type fix. They need to be fixed and removed.

Mr. DOGGETT. The Medicare actuary's own reports show that that this $1,000 waste per person per year that the Republicans insist on, that kind of waste, tens of billions of dollars of waste, does not produce any quantifiable benefit, any quantifiable saving through this failed Republican experiment in privatizing Medicare. Improving Medicare's finances requires more than a trigger like the President talks about to extend it for a year. We need a willingness to pull the trigger on Medicare waste that these Republicans have plugged in with these unnecessary subsidies that cost more and deliver less. I say it has something to do with the energy bill, and they're right. These seniors have been drilled by the Republicans for the last 7\1/2\ years. Drill here, drill now. These seniors get drilled when they go to the gas station. They get drilled when they go to the grocery store. What this resolution is about is preventing the President from drilling them on their Medicare also. Let's approve this resolution.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. I thank the gentleman for his leadership. ``Pay more, get less,'' that's the Bush Medicare plan. The President's veto means that taxpayers get an opportunity to pay more unnecessarily to subsidize private insurers, while seniors and the disabled get less. Each person in privatized Medicare costs American taxpayers $1,000 more each year than the cost for one relying on the traditional, more efficient Medicare system. Without change, $150 billion will be wasted on unnecessary subsidies to highly profitable private insurers. Even Medicare's only actuary reports absolutely zero quantifiable savings have occurred through private Medicare, and that savings will never occur through private Medicare as currently set up, a waste of $150 billion bestowed on the insurers. That's the waste that President Bush is so intent on protecting through his veto. We take some of that unnecessary waste and we use it to pay physicians who are working hard and ought not to have a cut in their reimbursement rates, and more importantly, for the many people around this country who rely on those physicians to care for them. The Administration has refused time and again to offer us any legislative fix on this waste in the so-called Medicare Advantage plan, which is nothing but a disadvantage to American taxpayers and Medicare recipients. Today, we must overcome this continued obstructionism of the Administration and its allies here in the Congress. We should reject wasteful corporate welfare, protect our physicians, and override this veto.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, we certainly do need a balanced, enlightened trade policy. But this debate is not about trade, it is about the guiding principle of the Bush Administration--arrogance-- arrogance that has served our country so poorly. This President, personally proclaiming himself to be a ``uniter, not a divider'' at the beginning, quickly transformed himself into the ``decider.'' And that lone decider has unleashed one divisive, disastrous decision after another on our land. Mr. Cheney's current chief of staff, he summed up this attitude very directly: ``We're going to push and push and push until some larger force is going to make us stop.'' Well today, our Speaker, backed up by this House, says ``Stop.'' The go-it-alone, disdain for allies, dismissal of anyone who has a different point of view, has left this White House isolated. It has left us with a disastrous war, and now Mr. Bush's recession. We'll secure a more responsible, enlightened trade policy, but we won't secure it until we trade it for a new President.

Mr. DOGGETT

Mr. DOGGETT. I would just suggest that we could be better off having this done in the unanimous consent agreement itself, since that is what's setting out the terms of this discussion. It is a very, very serious matter when we do the public's business in secret. That is why it has only been done three times since 1825. And it is a very bad precedent for this House to get into the business of conducting any of its business in secret, except, and Mr. Blunt appears to provide the exception, except under a circumstance where there's classified material on something as important as the security of our families. And so long as we have set out all the parameters of the meeting in the agreement, then I have no problem with it. But I don't want it to wander off in debate, which now my friend tells me I can't talk about afterwards, because I came to this secret session about something that maybe didn't need to be secret.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. DOGGETT. I understand the distinction, but I think of my history with the Texas Open Meetings Act, and just the discussing of these matters is part of public business.

Mr. DOGGETT. You ease some of my concerns. But when you talk about the seventies and the eighties and the like, it is three times since 1825. Let me just be sure that I'm clear, because maybe we are in agreement on this. The only purpose of your requesting this secret session is to present to the House, or have others present, matters that you feel you cannot present in public concerning matters that are classified. It may be necessary to discuss other interrelated matters, and you can anticipate what questions you may be asked, but the only reason for convening the House tonight in secret is because there are classified matters that you feel would jeopardize the security of our country if we discussed them in public.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.

Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. DOGGETT. You are saying you were here in 1979, 1980 and 1983 for those three sessions?

Mr. DOGGETT. I would not want to limit the ability of anyone to debate any aspect of this. If their points are clear and justified, I would want them to do that in front of the American people and not in a secret session, unless it in some way compromised the confidentiality and the classified nature of the material. And that is why I am trying to be sure that if I come tonight, as I intend to do, to this session, and I hear an hour or 15 or 20 minutes of debate that has nothing to do with these classified materials, I want to know if I am going to have the right to raise a point of order that this is conducting the public's business in secret and that we have been brought here under false pretenses. I assume that won't happen, but I want to be clear before going into this session what my rights are pursuant to the unanimous consent agreement. Because if the unanimous consent agreement does not protect that, then it would be appropriate, I suppose, at this time, to ask that the agreement be amended to provide something along those lines.

Mr. DOGGETT. I understand. If there is discussion and debate of matters that do not concern classified materials, then under the terms of the unanimous consent agreement and the rules of the House, is any Member of this House who is present for that discussion free to openly discuss in public, during later debate, what was said during that session?