Lindsey Graham

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. The facts are as follows: There are 900,000 financial aid applications that are backlogged, and the article, Chronicle of Higher Education, the article entitled ``Sorting Out a Foul Up In Student Aid'' says the following. Student aid experts say their backlog of 900,000 financial aid applications was caused by mismanagement of the Department of Education and that it calls into question the department's ability to manage the student aid system. I congratulate the gentleman for having oversight hearings in this whole area of the Government trying to do for the private sector what we know the private sector can do best, volunteering and run a program of lending money. If the administration has its way, the student loan portfolio will be turned over to the Federal Government through the Department of Education, and they will not only process the applications, they will become bankers collecting the money for the taxpayer, lending the money as a bank would do. I suggest to you, Mr. Hoekstra, that would be a disastrous event, that they have a 900,000 backlog in just processing applications. Can you imagine if they also lent the money and had to collect the money? And their excuse for a 900,000 backlog is it snowed and the Government shut down 21 days. Both are false. The private sector gets up and goes to work when it snows because they are in it as a way of making their living. The Government shutdown did not effect the ability to process these loans because contractors are the main source of doing the processing. It just shows how inefficient the magic bureaucrats are, and, when analyzed against the facts, they do not do very well.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing legislation to allow professional services firms which contract with the Federal Government to pay their professional employees on an hourly basis or a salary basis, without defeating their exemption from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The FLSA exempts from overtime requirements professional employees who meet a duties test laid out by the Department of Labor's regulations under the act. Professional employees must also be paid on a salary basis, meaning that they must be paid on a salary or fee basis but not on the basis of number of hours worked. If the employee does not meet the duties test for a professional or the salary basis test, the Department of Labor and the courts have held that the employee is not exempt from overtime and therefore must be paid time-and-a-half for all hours worked over 40 within a 7-day period. When the Federal Government contracts with private firms for professional services, most requests for proposals for such contracts require that the contractor submit bids as to the fee for the professional services that are based on hourly rates. However, because the contractor must bid the contracts on an hourly basis and, as a practical matter, calculate the pay of the professional employees working on the contract on an hourly basis, these employees may not meet the requirements for the overtime exemption under the act. In addition to adversely affecting contractors, the salary basis requirement under the regulations can have the effect of requiring overtime pay for well-compensated, highly skilled employees, many of whom are lawyers, certified public accountants and financial analysts-- simply because the employer compensates the employee on an hourly basis, as opposed to a salary basis. This legislation will enable those firms contracting with the Federal Government to pay their employees in the manner which meets the requirements of the contract without running afoul of the FLSA.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Welfare as you know it, we want to change it. One key difference, President Clinton's welfare bill says you cannot stay on welfare for more than 60 consecutive months. You can get off for 1 month or 1 day, and have 60 more months waiting on you. Our bill says 2 years, 5-year lifetime, big difference.

Mr. GRAHAM. Let me give one option that would be put on the market if our bill passed. It is called a medical savings account and I am going to apply it to two people I know and love,my aunt and uncle. When my parents died, I was about 21, I had a sister who was 13, we were taken in by an aunt and uncle whom I am very close to. They worked in the textile industry all their lives in South Carolina. I doubt if they ever made over $8 an hour but they had a good job and proud to have the job. They are retired now, been retired about 3 years. They live off Social Security, they have Medicare as their primary health care, and they have a paper route. They are healthy seniors and God has been good to them. But under the current Medicare system, they have about $46.10 taken out of their Social Security check. That is their part B premium. That money is taken out of their check and it is taken out of Ross Perot's check if he happens to be Medicare eligible and it goes into a fund and it pays doctor bills for senior citizens, 30 percent of the doctor bills. All doctor bills paid under Medicare the funding comes from two sources, a senior citizen premium, like my aunt and uncle pay out of their Social Security check, and 70 percent of it comes out of the Treasury. Medicare has been growing at 12 and 13 percent a year. A huge bill is being sent to the taxpayer because of Medicare growth. They have $110 a month they pay for a Medicare supplement policy because under Medicare it does not pay everything and seniors know this very well. You have got deductibles, copayments. They are paying out of their pocket over $300 a month for the Medicare system that we have today. A medical savings account option, if available, would have saved my aunt and uncle $10,000 in the last 3 years and would save the government a great deal of money. Here is how it would work. The average senior citizen gets about $5,000 a year from the Federal Government on Medicare. We are going to take a portion of that money, the vast portion of that money, and put it into a medical savings account and do something really extreme, we are going to let my aunt and uncle manage their own health care and take care of the money. They can take out of that account about $4,000 and buy a catastrophic health insurance plan that will be sanctioned by the Federal Government, that will take care of their health needs as Medicare would for any illness over $10,000. They will have a catastrophic health insurance plan bought by the Federal Government, not money out of their pocket. There will be $1,000 left over, and the game goes as follows. From zero to $10,000 is the game that they are going to be willing to play. In my aunt and uncle's case, in the last 3 years, they have never spent over $450 to go to the doctor or to the hospital. They have been lucky. They have taken care of themselves. Under the medical savings account plan, $1,000 would be left over in this account. They could use it to manage their health care needs. That $1,000 would have taken care of every medical bill they have had. They would have had no out-of-pocket expenses, they would have saved over $10,000 over the last 3 years and the Federal Government would have saved money. Why should that option not be available and if they did get sick, if they did have a catastrophic illness, they would have been able to opt into another plan.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, along those lines, President Clinton had a good quote. A good definition of insanity was doing everything the same and expecting different results. That would be crazy. If you do everything the same, it will probably turn out the same. The budget debate is often talked about in my district, ``Why can you not come to an agreement on the budget? What is wrong with all you guys and ladies up there?'' I ask this to the audience that comes to my town meetings: ``Have you ever had a disagreement in your family about how to spend and how much to spend?'' And everybody laughs and everybody raises their hands. It is probably not uncommon for American families to have arguments at times over how to construct the family budget and how much to spend and where to spend it. That is exactly what is going on in this Congress right now. We are having an overdue, long overdue debate about how much money to spend at the national level and where should it be spent. Let us kind of give people at home an update of where we are right now in the process. Here we are in March 1996. We have had a couple of budgets vetoed. One budget that would have balanced in the year 2002 was offered by the Republicans that spent $12 trillion, $12.004 trillion, to run the Federal Government over the next 7 years. When you compare that $12 trillion expenditure to the last 7 years, it was a 26-percent increase in Federal spending. This harsh budget that you hear about that the Republicans have offered increased Federal spending 26 percent, it increased Medicare spending 63 percent, it increased Medicaid, welfare, by over 50 percent, it increased spending on student loans by 50 percent. Instead of being accused of being harsh, I ought to be apologizing to people for spending that much money to run the Federal Government over the next 7 years. Again, it is a 26-percent increase for the next 7 years compared to the last 7 years. Most people are not going to get that much increase in pay. So the first thing you have to come to grips with is, is $12 trillion enough. I guarantee you, it is enough for Lindsey Graham. If you spend 63 percent more on Medicare over the next 67 years than you did in the last 7 years and that is not enough, there is something wrong with Medicare; and there are two things wrong with Medicare. It is very inefficient, and it is going broke. Our budget addresses the Medicare problem. It addresses the entitlement problem, because when we look at the budget and we look at the national debt, which is $5 trillion, under the Republican budget, it goes up to $6 trillion. The budget we came up with is not one bit harsh. As a matter of fact, we should apologize for taking 7 years. The freshmen put a budgets together that balanced in 5 years. You can do it in 5 years and not hurt anyone if you just have a little discipline, you work together, and you work smart. But one thing you have to understand about $1 trillion, most people do not know what it is. I certainly still cannot imagine $1 trillion. But if you spent $1 million a day, do you know how long it would take you to spend $1 trillion. Two thousand seven hundred years. It you started at the time of Christ spending $1 million a day, you still would not have spent the first trillion. We have appropriated $12 trillion, not $1 trillion. To get $1 trillion in taxes from the American public is the equivalent of $3,814 from every man, woman and child in America. The truth is, every man, woman and child in America is not paying taxes. Those of us that are paying a lot. So $12 trillion is enough. You need to say no somewhere, and $12 trillion is where I am saying no. But when you look at the budget and figure out why you are $5 trillion in debt, one thing jumps out at you, I believe: 50 percent of the Federal budget is entitlement spending, 16 percent of the budget is interest payment. The interest payment on the national debt this year will be over $400 billion. We will pay more in interest this year than the entire Defense Department budget. That is a fact that astonishes me, that we have to really do something about this debt situation. Fifty percent of the budget is on auto-pilot. Entitlement means the following: There is a computer somewhere in this town that takes Medicare and Medicaid and welfare spending, looks at the growth of these programs, builds into the computer their growth rate, and in Medicaid it has been 19 percent growth rate since 1990, adds inflation to the growth rate, anticipates the number of people who are going to be on the program, sends us a bill in Congress, and we cannot say no. No matter how out of control Medicare is, no matter how inefficient Medicaid is, no matter how unwise welfare is, we cannot say no to the bill. And when the bill comes to Congress, 50 percent of the budget is on autopilot and we cannot say no. We do not have enough cash on hand to pay that bill, and we have to go borrow money. That is why we are $5 trillion in debt. We are going to talk about the President's budget, but let me tell you the difference between the President's budget. He is over four in balancing the budget, and on the fifth try he got to a balanced budget in the year 2002, but here is what he did not do. That 50 percent of the Federal budget that is on autopilot that led us to a $5 trillion national debt, Medicare alone went up 2,200 percent since 1980. All the President has done is for a 7-year period he has slowed the growth of spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare, but he has not changed the reason we got in debt. In other words, he spends less on welfare, but he does not change the reason people stay on it a decade. He has spent less on Medicare, but he has not changed the reason that the program has grown 2,200 percent. He has spent less on Medicaid, but he does not change the reason it is growing at 19 percent. He has suppressed the growth, but he has not changed the reason we got in debt. I will not vote for a budget that does not address the reason we got in $5 trillion worth of debt. If that is harsh, mean, cruel, so be it. I think it is wise. I think it is smart. I think it is long overdue.

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the gentleman very much. I have got to let the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] come in on us in a minute. We are talking about how much money we are spending over the next 7 years on Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare. But let us look at the reason why we have spent so much money in the past. Why is Medicare growing at 4 times the private sector? We have increased spending over I think the next 7 years by 63 percent. A lot of money is going to be spent on senior citizen health care at the Federal level. But if you want to get the budget balanced and you want to keep it balanced, you better start now and you better start with entitlement reform. Senator Kerrey, a Democrat, said in his commission report that if nothing changes in the next 17 years, the entire Federal revenue stream, all the money coming to Washington, will be consumed by entitlement spending and interest payment on the debt. That there will be no money for the Department of Defense. That is how quickly the interest element and entitlement spending is taking over the revenue stream.

Mr. GRAHAM. Right. The good news may be that Congress will not get paid, too. They may like that part of it, but they will not like the other parts, the Government they have come to rely on in the discretionary side of the budget. But let us talk a minute about what we have done. We have spent a lot of money in additional spending but we have done the most responsible thing you could do, if you have a chance to participate in this great democracy at this level, and that is change the reason we got in debt. Let us talk a minute about not just how much we spend on Medicare but the improvements we have made to make sure that, one, it does not go broke, and two, that we will have a Medicare system for our generation. What we have tried to do is we have looked at the private sector, which is a new and novel idea up here, instead of looking to another bureaucracy and to another agency and building more buildings in Washington, we have looked outside the institution itself, outside the Beltway, we have looked in the heartland of America and we have found out that there are some great ideas in health care. Let us create some of those ideas and give options to senior citizens, something new and novel in Washington also for people who rely on the Government to have a menu of things to choose from. As a Congressman I think we have 3 or 4 health care plans to choose from.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, a relationship, to work and survive, has got to be honest and we have got to deal with each other in good faith. For a government to govern well, we have to be honest and we have to deal with each other in good faith. The President has vetoed every measure we have sent to him that would balance the budget. He has a constitutional right to do that. If he believes that our budget devastates the elderly, he has a moral obligation to fight us. I will never, never say bad things about somebody that follows their beliefs because that is what they should do. There comes a time, though, that one has an obligation to do more than just say no. Mr. President, if you do not like our view of a balanced budget, give us your view. We cannot negotiate against ourselves anymore. You have a legal and a moral obligation to fight us when you think we are wrong. You have a legal and moral obligation to fulfill your commitment you made 40 days ago to put a budget on the table that balances. Please fulfill your obligation.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, what the Republicans have done is to do what Mrs. Clinton asked us to do. She testified 2 years ago that if we slow the growth of Medicare down to 6, to 7, percent, we can take care of Medicare and balance the budget. We spend 7.2 percent on Medicare. It goes up 62 percent over the next 7 years. Tax cuts. Our budget has $245 billion in tax cuts for the American family and American business. The Democratic party criticizes us for having a tax cut for the American family. I ask, ``If we gave you the money, what would you do with it? Would you put it on the deficit? No, you would spend it on the Federal budget, you would shrink the family budget.'' That is not talk, that is fact, because in President Clinton's budget he reduced our tax package from 245 to 78, he took the money, and he put it on the Federal Government. He shrunk the family budget. Stop shrinking the family budget, stop growing the Federal budget. The American public would love to have it on the deficit. They are not going to put it on the deficit. They are going to spend it up here. Spending needs to stop.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. It was 96.

Mr. GRAHAM. What he said to do; what Mrs. Clinton said to do. We are doing what they asked or told somebody to do 2 years ago, and we are getting killed for it by them.

Mr. GRAHAM. Is it not a fact that we are increasing it twice the rate of inflation?

Mr. GRAHAM. We are spending more on Medicare than her testimony. Is the gentleman aware of a speech that the President made to an AARP group in 1993--excuse me, 1995, where he indicated, might have been 1993; I do not want to get my facts wrong--where he indicated that Medicare and Medicaid are driving the country broke. It is growing at 3 times the level of the private sector. If we could reduce it to twice the level of inflation, we could take care of every senior citizen and balance that budget, and that is not too much to ask. Is the gentleman aware that he made that statement?

Mr. GRAHAM. I think that is a very telling point.

Mr. GRAHAM. He cut taxes at $78 billion, and he is $115 billion out of balance. That is pretty good evidence that the money that he took away from our tax cut went to spend more money on the Federal Government.

Mr. GRAHAM. Would the gentleman yield? This has been a fascinating conversation. The gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Largent] mentioned something a while ago; that the game in Washington is not to take the $245 billion in tax cuts and to balance the budget with the money, the game is to spend it. From what the gentleman has been able to tell me, and what the gentleman from Nebraska, John Christensen, has said, I think we have some pretty good evidence that is true. Is it not fair to say that the President's tax cut plan is at $78 billion, I believe?

Mr. GRAHAM. Did the gentleman view the media report a couple of days ago that had Mrs. Clinton testifying before Congress about Medicare saying that if we control the growth of Medicare, if we reduce it from 11 percent to 6 to 7 percent, we can balance the budget and protect Medicare and keep it from going broke? Did the gentleman see that report?

Mr. GRAHAM. I thank the gentleman. Anybody who is trying to bring this to a conclusion and is listening, they need to understand this. If we want to take money from the family budget and spend it in Washington, DC, to get a deal, count me out. If we want to adjust senior citizens' payments to get more money to spend in Washington, count me out. If we want to take $135 billion of so- called new money and spend it on Washington, DC, count me out. I think we are going to find a lot more people saying exactly what I have said. What does $12 trillion mean? If anyone is doubting that there is room for a tax cut and a need for a tax cut, let me tell my colleagues what the Federal Government takes from us--$12 trillion is spent in Washington. If we spent $1 million a day it would take us 2,700 years to spend $1 trillion. We have a $5 trillion debt. To retire $1 trillion of the national debt would be equivalent to $3,814 from every man, woman, and child in America. My colleagues and I all know that every American does not pay taxes. The ones that are paying, are paying a ton of it. I firmly believe that the Washington, DC, budget has got plenty of room to be reduced. The family budget is on a shoestring, and if we are going to let people spend money on a family, let the family people do it and get us out of the business. I want to make one last point. If we divide the population of the United States into the budget of the United States over a 7-year period, the Federal Government will spend $162,764 on a family of 4. To me, that is enough. I yield back my time.

Mr. GRAHAM. Is it not true that our spending on Medicare is at 7.2 percent?

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I think a good way to start is to echo what the gentleman from Mississippi [Mr. Taylor] just said. I agree with his analysis of Bosnia, and I hope that we can bring some common sense to bear on that issue. Let us talk about the budget and see if we can get some common sense and a level of agreement on what we are trying to do up here in Congress. A lot of people have said they want to balance the budget. I hope they are sincere. My gut instinct is that some mean it and some do not. The best way to judge whether a person means what they say is to look at what they do. When I was a prosecutor in the Air Force and a defense attorney, I had this as my guide. I never quite believed everything my client told me as a defense attorney, and when the accused said he did not do it, I did not stop the investigation there. I looked behind what people say, and you judge their actions by their deeds. So when somebody comes up here and tells you they want to balance the budget, the first question you need to ask them is are they willing to spend within the revenues generated, because if you want to spend more than you take in, you are not going to balance the budget. Does anybody have any idea how much the Federal Government has grown since 1969? I do not have that answer right now, but I have been told it has been several hundred percent. I am trying to find out how much the Federal Government has grown since we last balanced our Federal budget. I think the number is going to be shocking. We have some folks visiting here today, and those that are listening at home, what is your estimate that the Federal Government spends per person to run the Federal Government, on Federal Government programs? How much do you think we spend per person to operate the Federal government? Let me tell you what it was for the last 7 years. Over a 7- year period, we spent $145,962 on a family of four. We spent $9.5 trillion over the last 7 years to run the Federal Fovernment. We have come up with a new budget that balances, that has been certified to balance. Guess how much we spend as Republicans, the mean old Republicans who want to devastate everything? Guess how much money we have spent? Twelve trillion dollars. Where does that $12 trillion come from? It comes from you, the taxpayer; it comes from you, the senior citizen. It is hard to make the money, it is far too easy to spend the money up here, but over the next 7 years we are going to take $12 trillion of your money and run this Federal Government. I ask one simple thing of my colleagues: Let that be enough. Twelve trillion dollars is enough to spend in Washington, DC. We can argue about how to spend it, we can rearrange the $12 trillion pie, we can move money around, but for the sake of future generations, for the sake of fiscal sanity, please do not spend more than $12 trillion of hard- earned taxpayer money. Do you know what that equates to, for a family of four over a 7-year period? It is $184,373 that will be spent by your Federal Government on a family of four. It is hard to make that much money and it is far too easy to spend it. If you do not like the tax cuts, fine. If you think we have spent too much money on defense, fine. If you think we have not spent enough money on Medicare, fine. Just agree with me and evey other American who knows the facts. Rearrange the $12 trillion pie, and do not go into our pockets any deeper. We do not have much of a picket left as it is. This is not a shoestring budget. Twelve trillion dollars is unimaginable. They tell me that if you spend $1 million a day from the time of Christ to the present, you would not have spent $1 trillion. Mr. Speaker, I ask the people who are listening here, Members of Congress, to agree on one simple fact: That we can run an efficient nation on $12 trillion, we can satisfy legitimate needs on $12 trillion, and that any politician who wants to spend more than $12 trillion has a problem. They do not need to be up here.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Contrary to what many people may believe, this happens on occasion in our democracy where we come to an impasse. I think 7, 8, 9, 10 times since 1980 we have had debates about where to take the country. We have had to go past the end of the fiscal year. This is probably the greatest debate I will ever engage in as a Member of Congress because the single issue is this: Is it not about time, American people, both Houses of Congress and the President joined together and commit to the principle of balancing the budget within 7 years, which is not too hard, which needs to be done? Let me tell you why it needs to be done: We spent more money this year in interest payments than the entire Department of Defense budget. If we do not change our spending ways, in 17 years the entitlement portion of the budget and the interest portion of the budget will consume the entire revenue stream. If we do not do it now, when are we going to do it? Let some objective group, not Republicans or Democrats, look at the numbers. This can end in 30 seconds, not just for veterans and Social Security applicants but for the whole Nation. Let us end it right. Let us give the American people the best Christmas present they could ever have, and that is Congress and the President agree to get the Nation's financial house in order. Now is the time.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be working on something that we can agree on today and really improve the quality of Government. It is not about whether Members can be bought. That is not the issue here. I respect the Members of this body. Nobody is going to be bought because they go to dinner. Mr. Speaker, if Members have a propensity to being bought, they can get bought no matter what rules we have. That is not the issue. The issue is to make this body more businesslike and reflect the value system that the American public wants us to adopt. Mr. Speaker, I came from South Carolina, the legislature there, where we had several people unfortunately go to jail because they did get bought. We had a lot of rules, but they still got bought. We looked at the situation in South Carolina and we said, ``Let us adopt bright-line rules and make people feel better about this institution.'' In South Carolina, legislators cannot take anything from a registered lobbyist. Mr. Speaker, let me tell my colleagues this: Government still works. Lobbyists do not need to give me anything to tell me about their business interest, to tell me what they would like to happen with their Government. We can sit down and we can talk and I will listen and I will do what I think is best for my district. We do not need money to change hands; we do not need gifts to change hands. Military officers, and I was one for 6\1/2\ years, cannot take anything from the contractors that they deal with. Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to do is run this place in a more businesslike fashion and restore public trust. The issue is not about being bought. The issue is changing Congress to make sure that we live in a system that is very similar to the average, everyday American. The gift situation needs to be changed, and I congratulate the Speaker for putting in a zero-tolerance level as the standard. I congratulate the Democratic Party for helping us to get there to restore faith in our Congress. This is a small step forward, but it is a good step forward.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Massachusetts has a very keen mind and I think raises a good point. I am a lawyer, and I do not claim to be a constitutional scholar, but I do believe that the purpose of the amendment fits well within what we are trying to do here in Congress. Mr. Chairman, we are trying to open up the political process so that people can understand how it works, who is involved, and exactly where everyone is coming from. I do believe that it is lawful to regulate lobbying activities in regard to how this body operates. I believe it is an appropriate thing to have lobbyists disclose many facets of their business enterprise, because their efforts are to affect public policy. They have registered. They have set themselves apart as their business, and as their business affects the Nation's business, I think we need to know. Now, we have come to a time to where the media has taken a very, I think, clear and appropriate role in our society in the political process, but I do not believe that their outside activities, who they associate with in terms of lobbying groups, is beyond disclosing as far as the lobbyists themselves. If journalists are going to cover the political process and are going to become a quasi-public figures, I know at least many of these people are, they probably do not meet the legal definition of a public figure, I think people in this country would appreciate as much knowledge they could gain about how laws are made and about how the political process is reported. Unfortunately, every American does not have the ability to hire a lobbyist to come up here and represent their interest in Washington. Many times, the only way to judge the political process and who is telling the truth and who is not and how effective it is is by picking up a newspaper and turning on the television and listening to the media. Mr. Chairman, I do not believe it is violating anyone's first amendment rights for a lobbyist, whose only role is to affect the political process, to tell us exactly who they are paying and where their money goes in terms of the public policy debate. Certainly, part of the public policy debate is the information we receive through the media, whether it be in print or the airwaves, and that helps the American public better understand the political process and who is involved and what bias may or may not exist. That is the role of the lobbyist, to come up and affect the legislation and if at the same time they are giving away money to groups that cover the political process, they do not tell the groups what to say or how to say it, but it does give the public information that I think is very vital to judge how effective the process is and exactly who to believe and who not to believe. No one is hurt here. No one is being affected by doing their job effectively. All we want to know is where money goes in the public policy debate.

Mr. GRAHAM

Mr. GRAHAM. We have another distinguished Member of Congress about to join us here, the gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Ganske], who is a medical doctor. I want him to comment in a second about Medicare. But when we look at those numbers, we see in the year 2005 we have a $209 billion deficit. That is why no one in the Senate voted for it. But here is the important point about Medicare. He is using Medicare over and over again to justify his unwillingness to get serious about balancing the budget. Even in his 10-year budget that does not balance, Medicare premiums go up. People need to understand, no matter what happens in this Congress, whether the President's plan is adopted, whether our plan is adopted, whether we do nothing, that part B of Medicare, which pays senior citizens' doctor bills, 31 percent of it comes from senior citizen premiums, the other 69.5 percent comes from the Treasury, no matter what we do, the premium part is going to go up. The question is how much it goes up. There is a $7 difference between our plan that balances in 7 years and the President's plan. That $7 per senior citizen will allow us to balance the budget and save $44 billion. But, more importantly, what we are doing is creating options to Medicare that will given senior citizens the same rights we have in Congress to choose medical plans that are more efficient, cheaper and more user friendly. That is the key to Medicare reform, slowing the growth down and giving people options so that not only can we balance the budget, but we can take care of our senior citizens. Because if we do not slow the growth of Medicare [[Page H 12331]] down, part A, the hospital part, is going to be broke in the year 2002. If the President wants to help senior citizens, help us save the trust fund part A.

Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield for a second?