Gene Green

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman, who is a good friend of mine, did he know that in his district, 19,900 more working families would have their taxes increase if this bill passes? And in my own district, 57,757 families would have their taxes increased if this bill passes today, 57,757 in my district in the State of Texas.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I am not asking the gentleman from Ohio for a parliamentary inquiry. I am asking you for a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. I do not have that information. But I would imagine in my district, to my colleague and my friend, who is chairman of my committee, my district has a $25,000 median income, and they will not even be eligible.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to know how many Members on the Republican side have had a chance to read this bill. Maybe if they had, they would notice two things in the bill. One of them is that it cuts student loans, but also that in relation to that, the quote from our majority leader on the Senate side that said, ``I was there fighting the fight, voting against Medicare in 1965,'' and now he is proud to be doing it again. I hope they would look at that bill in relation to these quotes from this week. There is an old saying that only the ignorant fear education. I rise today to urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' against ignorance and to vote ``no'' against this careless and irresponsible bill we have today. The Republicans, in their zeal to balance the budget, eliminate the stafford student loan 6-month grace period. This attack on students will increase college loan costs by $3.5 billion nationwide and $331 million in the State of Texas alone. College students will have to take out additional loans just to pay the interest. This shows the Republicans' commitment to education, in addition, the commitment on the plus loan, or raise the interest rates for parents.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, does my colleague, the gentleman from Texas, know that in his district, if this bill passes, 51,213 taxpayers will pay in increased taxes because of changes in the earned income tax credit and in Texas he will lose $337 million in student loans?

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. They will. Under this bill, there will be less earned income tax credit.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, conservative estimates of the tax increases for earned income tax credit constituents will increase. I am opposed to the bill because my taxpayers will pay more, but do not take my word for it. Take Jack Kemp, who last week said: I hope you guys do not go too far on removing the EITC because that is a tax increase on low income workers and the poor which is unconscionable at this time . . .

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, in answer to my chairman of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 28,588 constituents lose----

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, in response to my colleague from Ohio [Mr. Hoke], the last speaker, does the gentleman know that in his district 22,659 working families will have their taxes increased by this bill?

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the number, the 11,000 number is based on the number of constituents you have that are eligible for the earned income tax credit.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I am only in my second term in Congress, but I remember last year one of the issues I heard a great deal was how many Members of Congress when we passed one of those massive bills has read the bill. I would like to throw that down today as a challenge for the folks who happen to be watching tonight, Mr. Speaker, in that they would look at both H.R. 2491 and H.R. 2517, and tomorrow we are getting ready to vote on this bill. I am sure the reason all our colleagues are not here is they are pouring over the pages of these bills tonight before they vote on them and I hope they would because if they had the chance to look at this, they would also see one section I am going to talk about tonight. This morning, members of the Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities that I am a member of and the Committee on the Budget held a press conference in a joint effort to alert American workers and retirees what effect the bill will have on their pension plans. Several weeks ago, Republicans in the Committee on Ways and Means proposed changes in the Internal Revenue Code allowing employers to take assets from pension plans and use them for any purpose. This dangerous proposal would allow companies to take money from employee pension plans that they say are more than 125 percent funded. Those excess pension assets, the funds not needed to pay immediate pension benefits, can be used freely for purposes that may not certainly be in the interest of those retirees or potential retirees. Allowing companies to strip so-called surplus pension assets from the employee pension plans would take us back to the early 1980's, when companies took away $20 billion from over 2,000 pension plans, covering nearly 2.5 million workers and retirees. Prior to the 1980's, the reversions of pension assets to employers were almost nonexistent. Pension assets were returned to employers only after the plan had been terminated and after all benefits to plan participants were paid. However, as pension assets grew because of the inflation in the late 1970's and the rising stock market of the 1980's, corporations began to take these excess pension funds. In fact, in 1983, the Reagan administration issued guidelines making pension reversions easier, in other words, to get at that pension increase. From, 1982 to 1990, over $20 billion was taken from the over 2,000 retirement plans covering those 2.5 million workers and retirees. From 1982 to 1985, the size of the reversion grew rapidly: $404 million reverted in 1982 alone to $6.7 billion reverted in 1985. As retirees were left without adequate retirement, Congress took strong action to stem the tide of the pension reversions or the raiding of the pension funds. Beginning in 1986, Congress imposed a series of excise taxes. A 10-percent excise tax on the amount of the reversion was in the Tax Reform Act of 1986, a 15-percent excise tax in the Technical and Miscellaneous Revenue Act of 1988, and in the Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1990 a 20-percent tax was on employers who established a successor plan with similar benefits or they had to pay a 50-percent tax if no successor plan was established. So they could not just come in and raid the taxes, the pension plans from 1986 to 1990. So with these congressional measures, the number and size of the reversions substantially fell. So today we see increased pension plans, the assets of the pension plans that, by the way, Mr. Speaker, they are investing in our country. We hope they are investing in jobs and in our country. So it is for savings, but that money is not sitting somewhere and not earning money because we want those retirees to earn from the benefits of our country. The effect of the reversion on the American worker in the Republican proposal would encourage employers to take billions of dollars out of these pension plans, leaving them possibly with insufficient funds to protect the future of current retirees. Money previously set aside for workers' retirement would now be pocketed by these same corporations and used for any purpose over that 125 percent. The removal of these funds from pension plans increases the risk of loss to workers, retirees and their beneficiaries at a time when the need to make sure we have a strong pension system is great, when we worry about if social security is going to be there. And we all talk about that Social Security is not where people can survive on but it is just a beginning, and here we are going to hurt private pension plans by allowing employers to take money from them. Pension plans are not the employers' money. Workers pay into those pension contribution funds and oftentimes accept lower wages, and I did that in the 1970's. We actually accepted, when I was in the printing business, a lower amount in our paycheck to make sure we paid into the pension plan. So today, Mr. Speaker, I am now a beneficiary of the printers pension that I do not know how much I will receive when I am 65. But under the current pension and tax regulations, pension funds are in trust to be used only for the exclusive benefit of workers and retirees and should not be considered as piggy banks. This irresponsible provision encourages efforts to pilfer workers' pensions. This proposal is bad public policy. A pension plan with excess assets today can quickly become underfunded if those assets are taken away. Because most pension plans are tied to the stock market, any downward turn will have a negative effect on the plan. In addition, a reduction in the interest rate of 1 percentage point, together with an asset reduction of 10 percent, reduces the funding level from 125 percent to 96 percent. The American public must let the majority Republicans in Congress know that pension assets are held in trust for the exclusive benefit of plan participants and their beneficiaries. Taking money away from pension plans will reverse the progress made to increase the national savings rate. Let us not permit companies to take pension assets from the American worker. Let us ensure that pensions will be safe and available for those who saved for their retirement. Mr. Speaker, in closing I would hope that our majority tomorrow would realize what it will do to the future of the pension plans and, hopefully, the U.S. Senate will change that or, as Secretary Reich said today, this is veto bait in this bill.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Florida for, one, bringing this motion to instruct to the floor and also for yielding myself 3 minutes. Mr. Speaker, when the debate came up not only in our committee, and I serve on the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, I supported the line-item veto both in the committee and also on the floor. I served 20 years in the legislature where we lived under the line-item veto, and I always joked I had the distinction of having line-item veto by both Republicans and Democrats when I was in the legislature, so it was bipartisan. During my campaigns for a couple of years people said, ``Well, we need the line-item veto to control Federal spending.'' It is not the panacea to control Federal spending. It is just a small weapon in the arsenal to do it. I guess my concern and the reason I am rising today in support of my colleague from Florida is that the line-item veto has a great deal of bipartisan support; and it seems amazing, here we are at the end of the tenth month of this year and we have not seen it come back to us out of conference committee. In fact, again, as my ranking member on the committee mentioned, this is the second instruction that we have had. We need to see that as part of the Contract With America and one of the items I supported to my colleague from Massachusetts, because I think it is a good program, it is something that not just future Presidents, but this President should do. Mr. Speaker, I remember several months ago that this bill was part of the Republican's Contract With America. In fact, the majority took great pains to pose on former President Reagan's birthday and provided, as my colleague Mr. Obey tells us, holy pictures and likes to say and show their devotion to the Contract With America. Well, I am sorry that President Reagan has not been able to enjoy the actual gift that they were going to give to him. The problem is, evidently, that maybe they like the idea of line-item veto, but maybe not for President Clinton. Again, I have had the honor of having items vetoed by both Republican and Democrat Governors in Texas and what is good for the goose is good for the gander. I would hope that before we stay here too long that we will see that come out of the conference committee, a real line-item veto that the President can deal with. Again, I regret my colleague from New York, Mr. Solomon, our chairman of the Committee on Rules, talking about my colleague being listed by some lobby group as a big spender. That group that he mentioned, I noticed a lot of folks from both parties are on their list. Sometimes I wonder if people are more interested in perpetuating their groups than they are actually looking at the Federal budget. Mr. Speaker, with that, I would hope that my Republican colleagues, to paraphrase St. Augustine, will remember saying, Lord, I am really for the line-item veto, but just not yet.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, an editorial ran in yesterday's Houston Chronicle that affirmed what a lot of us have been saying for months. It is ridiculous to cut taxes at a time when the Federal Government is desperately trying to balance its budget. In fact, Congress' own analysts pointed out that the tax cut would needlessly add almost $100 billion to the swollen national debt and increase taxes for working people who make under $30,000. No one likes to pay taxes. It would be great to give every taxpayer a tax cut. We should balance our budget first. Speaking of the budget, the new majority has been backslapping and congratulating themselves for weeks about passing a balanced budget, but wait a minute, there is a problem. I see on page 3 of the budget conference report, it says in the budget document in the year 2002 that we will have a $108 billion deficit. Only in Washington could a deficit of $108 billion be considered balanced in the year 2002, when we are supposed to have a balanced budget. In their heart they know the budget is not balanced. All this pomp and celebration is one big joke on the seniors of this country. Do they know why? Yes, because that $108 billion will come out of the Social Security trust fund to balance that budget. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record an article from the Houston Chronicle of Tuesday, October 24, 1995. [From the Houston Chronicle, Oct. 24, 1995] Breath and Taxes--Balanced Budget Should Come Before any Tax Cut Democrats are arguing that Republicans in Congress are trying to cut the taxes of the rich and the benefits of the poor. Republicans counter that the Democrats are waging a campaign of fear and class warfare. There is some truth to both these charges, but most Americans are neither rich nor poor. They should view the political battle as logic vs. irrationality. So far, logic is losing. Take for instance, the recent vote of the Senate Finance Committee to cut taxes by some $245 billion. No American enjoys paying high taxes, but a large majority of Americans believe that the nation's No. 1 priority is lowering the federal deficit, a goal that the tax cut would make more difficult. Republicans say they can cut taxes and still balance the budget in seven years. But Congress' own analysts point out that the tax cut would needlessly add almost $100 billion to the swollen national debt--debt that no balanced budget will ever diminish. Balancing the budget requires hard choices, such as the necessity to curb spending on Medicare. But why make the choices any harder than they have to be? While the GOP tax cut would give parents a tax credit of up to $500 per child, the Medicare plan would increase fees-- taxes--on the elderly. What's the point of giving with one hand only to take away with the other? The Republicans in Congress deserve the credit for their efforts to balance the budget. The Democrats who held sway for decades had the power to balance the budget--even when Republicans occupied the White House--but never did. But with the tax cut, the Republicans erode the chances that the budget will actually be balanced in seven years and signal a fragile economy that their spirit may be willing, but their commitment is weak. President Clinton has done little to clarify the debate. While vowing to veto the GOP tax cuts, he worried in Houston recently that he might have raised taxes too much in 1993 in his successful attempt to temporarily bring down the deficits. If taxes are too high, then why his opposition to reducing them? Now the president says he just misspoke, but such wavering at the top will not produce public understanding. One can debate whether the GOP tax cuts amount to a ``giveaway for the rich'' (much of the money will flow out in dribs and drabs to the middle class). However, one feature of the Republican agenda would drastically affect the large number of Americans who make up the working poor. There is a national consensus that the federal welfare system needs reform. Congress' proposed welfare reform would limit and eventually end welfare for hundreds of thousands of families, but the Republicans' inconsistent budget plan would reduce the Earned Income Tax Credit program that helps keep poor Americans on the job and off the welfare rolls. How can members of Congress insist on passing a tax credit for middle-class parents if they have to make things tougher on the poorest families in order to pay for it and still balance the budget? Conservatives argue that the Earned Income Tax Credit is rife with fraud and abuse, but the proper response is to step up enforcement against the abusers.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in support of the minimum wage increase, and later this evening the gentleman from New York, Major Owens, has organized a special order in support of the minimum wage. I join my colleagues from the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities in my support for an increase in the minimum wage. Fifty seven years ago today the Congress first approved a minimum wage of 25 cents. This anniversary finds us with mixed emotions. On the one hand, we are thankful that the Congress recognized the need to guarantee a livable wage. On the other hand, we recognize that millions of people earn at or below the minimum wage and that the last increase in the minimum wage occurred on April 1, 1991. As if this was not enough, the real value of the minimum wage has been on a fairly steady decline for the past 15 years. Today, the minimum wage has fallen 45 cents in real value since its 1991 increase. I am afraid that if the majority party has its way, we may never see an increase in the minimum wage. Many people, writing or speaking on either side of this issue, quote from 57 years of studies on how the increase of the minimum wage affects employment, wages and the economy. There are studies on both sides. My contention is we should base the argument on the facts and not theory. Based on my experience, real life is never constant nor completely equal. First, the idea that an increase in the minimum wage could lead to increased numbers of welfare recipients is simply not correct. In fact, the opposite is true. Today, a full-time minimum wage worker is paid $8,800 a year. The U.S. Census reports that the average family in my Houston district is 3.2 people. According to the census guidelines published in the Federal Register [February 9, 1995], the 1995 Federal poverty level for a family of three is $12,590. Using these facts, the math is simple. A full-time minimum wage worker supporting a family of three will make almost $4,000 less than the Federal poverty level. However, with an increase in the minimum wage to $5.15, and figuring in their maximum earned income tax credit, which was passed by the Democratic Congress, this same family would be $1,500 above the poverty rate and off welfare. Let me repeat that. Off welfare. It is also argued that the minimum wage is a wage for lower- to middle-class teenagers and is, therefore, an entry level wage. While this may have been so in years past, the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that more than 4 million Americans earn at or below the minimum wage. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, current minimum-wage earners are two-thirds adult, with over 50 percent being 26 or older, while 62 percent are women. The minimum wage is no longer just for teenagers. Finally, the argument is made that raising the minimum wage would lead many employers to use more efficient machines, to relocate their factories, or to use part-time and temporary workers. Statistics show that minimum-wage earners, due to their lack of skills, work harder and longer hours to compensate for that shortcoming. I am not advocating the position that employers are unfeeling, but we must all face the fact that most employers, with some exceptions, are driven by the bottom line and not the betterment of society. One recent study between New Jersey, which raised their minimum wage, and Pennsylvania, which did not, showed no job loss and only a very slight increase in the cost of a fast food meal. I find it very confusing when the majority argues the minimum wage increase will cause job loss by increasing or continuing farm subsidies is never given to the same rhetoric. Both the farm subsidies and the minimum wage provide a level at which the producer, either farm produce or labor, can earn a profit. Americans need an increase in the minimum wage, because it will lift them out of poverty, it will give them a living wage, but more importantly, it will get them off of welfare. Instead of concentrating all of their efforts on tax-cuts for the wealthy. the majority should act to provide a minimum wage that will lift workers out of poverty and off the welfare rolls.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Chairman, it is a sad day that the House is about to pass this crown jewel of the contract which slashes a $270 billion from Medicare in order to pay for a budget busting $245 billion tax cut. The bill that is about to be passed by Speaker Gingrich and the Republican majority will add hundreds of dollars every year to seniors' out-of-pocket medical costs and force seniors to give up their life- long doctors, without saving Medicare past the year 2006 and without cutting, in fact increasing the problems, of fraud, abuse, and waste. This bill is about as much designed to save Medicare as the grim reap is designed to bring happiness to our lives. Mr. Chairman, I urge everyone to continue this fight. The decision today is just round one. The Democrats will continue to fight this extreme bill if it is enacted. The senior citizens in my district and around our country deserve better. I hope the Senate will change it. If not, I pray the President will veto it.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Congress will vote today on the Republican plan to cut the $270 billion in Medicare to pay for that $245 billion, and my colleague from California, they are stepping up to the plate, but they are being greedy. Even though the Medicare trustees, as the gentleman said, said we need to deal with Medicare, they only said we needed to deal with it for $89 billion and not $270 billion. Speaker Gingrich's Medicare plan takes three times as much to pay for that tax cut of $245 billion. The simple truth is that they do not need the $270 billion from Medicare to make the program healthy. They are cutting Medicare to pay for the tax breaks. Do not be fooled. Seniors will be hurt by Speaker Gingrich's plan. Number one, premiums will double, forcing many seniors to choose between their choice of health care and other living essentials. The choice of doctors will be limited. Earlier this year my Republican colleagues talked about the Washington Post editorial. Before they vote today, I hope they would read today's editorial, where it talks about what they say, ``Who Pays if Medicare Is Cut?'' I include that editorial for the Record. [From the Washington Post, Oct. 19, 1995] Who Pays if Medicare Is Cut? The great question--you could say gamble--with regard to the Republican plan to reform Medicare is whether it will it succeed in fostering competition that will drive down the cost of care, or will simply shift some large part of the cost from the government back to recipients, thereby creating a much more limited program--a half-Medicare. No one knows the answer. What the House and Senate are being asked to do in considering their respective versions of the plan in the next two weeks is to choose between risks. One is the risk of not acting to curb the enormous projected cost of the program, which threatens over time to break the bank--and which the Republicans are right to have taken seriously and sought to address. The other is the risk of shifting too much cost to lower-income elderly and disabled people who can't bear it and who may therefore be left without the care that they both need and currently have. The Republicans have argued that the cuts they propose would fall mainly on hospitals, doctors and other providers, and only to a lesser degree on Medicare recipients themselves. But it isn't certain that this is how it [[Page H 10313]] would work out. The government itself would pay the providers less. But the plan then also makes it possible for the providers to recover if they want by charging the recipients more. The insurers and providers with whom the recipients would deal would not be required to absorb the cuts. Rather, to the extent that competitive pressures permitted, they would be free in various ways to pass them on; the recipients then would have to absorb them. Our own sense is that, as the bills are written, this risk is too great. That's particularly the case because the Republicans would decimate Medicaid, the backstop program for the needy elderly and disabled. The house the Republicans are building has plenty of roof over cost but not enough floor under care. Much has been made in recent days of the deals that House Speaker Newt Gingrich is said to have struck with the American Medical Association and other provider groups to ensure their support for the plan. The assorted deals are small potatoes compared with this structural defect in the plan. It has to be fixed to make the plan worth passing. The plan has, while we're at it, one other provision that would cost billions of dollars while serving no good purpose and ought to be killed outright. We have in mind the medical savings accounts the proposal would permit. Instead of paying a recipient's bills or giving the recipient a fixed amount to help buy an insurance policy or enroll in a managed care plan, the government would put that amount in a savings account in the person's name, partly to buy a high- deductible, so-called catastrophic insurance policy, the rest to be used for other purposes. After a certain amount had accumulated, if the recipient didn't need or want to use the money for health care he could use it to take a vacation, buy a boat--you name it. Healthy and better-off people who could afford the risk would be drawn to this. The government would be putting more in their accounts per year than they currently take from Medicare, thus adding to costs and leaving less to care for the sick and less well-off. It's a skimming operation, and it ought to be dropped without a second thought.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, we need to go ahead and go forward with it because I have 5 minutes on Medicare, and it is a concern. I would be more than happy to sit back down, if the Speaker would like to recognize a Member from the other side because I think the objection has been withdrawn.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I know there was an objection for a Member, and I hope that we do not see that because there was an agreement earlier tonight. But I would hope we would be able to proceed with the order. If the gentleman would like to have someone to stand up over there and ask to speak now, I will wait my turn. [[Page H 10290]] Parliamentary Inquiry

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is ironic I follow my colleague from Arizona. I rise today to present 5,000 signatures from people in the congressional district that I represent and the surrounding community in Texas. On Monday I visited a senior citizens center and was presented these petitions and signatures from senior citizens and working families. They signed their names to these petitions because they are concerned about the broad cut and the extreme reversal of Medicare that is going to be voted on tomorrow in this House. In the 30 years since enactment of Medicare, we transformed what it means to be old in this country. We have lifted our senior citizens out of poverty and restored their health and their dignity. Never again will seniors have to choose between food on the table and Medicare or health care, until tomorrow, because what we see today from the Speaker and the Republican majority is the surrender of that commitment between our Government and our seniors, because the majority feels it is so important to fulfill their campaign promise to provide a $245-billion tax cut and cut Medicare $270 billion. These petitions are from 5,000 hard-working Texans, and I hope we remember that tomorrow.

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas

Mr. GENE GREEN of Texas. Mr. Speaker, let me answer my colleague's concern about the right to choose. Seniors have the best right to choose today. They can choose whatever doctor and hospital they want to. But under the plan that is going to pass tomorrow they will not have that right because they will be priced out of the market. The cuts we have talked about. They discussed the cuts. Well, it is a cut because, if we have a growing senior population by the year 2002, and they are saying, they do not grow as fast with the improvements in that plan, then we are going to diminish the ability of seniors to be able to have access to health care. That is what they cannot explain. Let us get down to the basics though. We will vote on a $270 billion slowing of the growth for the year 2002 to pay for a $245 billion tax cut. I have heard this for months that we paid for that in the spring. We have not paid for anything since the spring. There has not been one appropriations bill passed here. The one that passed was vetoed by the President. They are going to use $245 billion over the next 7 years to balance off the cuts in Medicare growth, because there are seniors who are going to grow into it. My dad is 80 years old. He is the growth in Medicare because he is going to need it next year. I hope he needs it in 2002. But they are not planning for it because they want to pay for a tax cut now to pay for political promises. On Monday I visited a senior citizens center in Jacinto City, TX, just outside of Houston. I was presented over 5,000 petitions that I left here this morning on the House floor from senior citizens, working families across my district. This signed their names because they are very concerned about the broad and extreme cuts that the Republicans are talking about that we are going to vote on tomorrow. The cuts, $270 billion, in it only fixes Medicare to the year 2006. Up until last [[Page H 10291]] week they were saying they wanted to fix it to the next election. Well, our next election is long before 2006. They want to cut $270 billion when we only need $89 billion to fix it to the same year. Their numbers do not add up. That is their problem. They do not add up to the year 2002 because they are taking $245 billion as a tax cut. In the 30 years that we have had Medicare, it was a Democratic Congress overcoming Republican opposition to enact Medicare. It has been saved eight times in the past 30 years, and hopefully we will save it again for the senior citizens, that is, until tomorrow, when we vote on the Republican Medicare reform proposal. That is a surrender of the commitment that our government made with senior citizens in 1965. The majority feels it is so important to fulfill their campaign promise of a tax cut that busts our budget. They talk about they want a balanced budget. I want one, too, but let us get our financial house in order before we worry about $245 billion in tax cuts and throwing families back to the Dark Ages where seniors have to decide whether they want to pay for rent, utilities, food, or health care. The worst part of their bill is that, rather than the fact that the Medicare is being cut $270 billion, again, it is to pay for that $245 billion tax cut. That is the outrage that people are saying. That is why they wanted to run this through with only one hearing in the House and arresting seniors who came over to testify. This plan had a lot less than the President's health care plan that most of the other side opposed. So I would hope that we would deal with it. Tonight there is a vigil out on our Capitol steps by seniors who are raising their voice in opposition. I would hope that 30 years from now, when we celebrate the 60th anniversary of Medicare, it will be because we voted this down tomorrow. If we do not vote it down, then the President will veto it, and next year the voters in our country will recognize who is really concerned about health care for seniors. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Brown], from Cleveland, who is now the American League champion.