Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to discuss a couple of items tonight. A previous speaker on the other side of the aisle actually stood in the House Chamber just minutes ago and said that there is no problem with Medicare, that Medicare is not going bankrupt. I just find that unbelievable, that somebody would be still arguing about the April trustees' report, when it was offered by Clinton appointees, including Secretaries Shalala, Reich and Rubin, who are all appointed by Clinton. They are his right arm, for crying out loud. Drawing partisan lines on a trustee report that really is a Democrat report. I am flabbergasted, after a month back in the district talking to senior citizens, that somebody is at that stage of the debate. The stage on this side of the aisle, number one, is that this is a bipartisan problem. People that get Medicare, they do not care if they are Democrats or Republicans who are writing the legislation. They want health care. We are not going to get into a partisan debate on Medicare. What we are going to do is try to preserve and protect it so that it will be there tomorrow, and we are going to try to slow down the rate of increase. Medical inflation on average is about 4.5 percent. Medicare growth has been 11 percent. We are going to increase the benefit to each recipient from about $4,800 to $6,400. So the door is open. Any ideas from either party are welcome, but we are going to solve this problem in a bipartisan way. We are going to simplify Medicare, and protect and preserve it. The gentleman from the 9th District of Georgia [Mr. Chambliss] joins us, and I yield the floor to him.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think the point the gentleman has also made on taxes is that in reality we have not passed a tax cut. We have not really passed anything, because the House, while it has done all kinds of work, all kinds of reform legislation to reduce the size of government and the micro-management out of Washington, legislation which has increased personal responsibility and increased personal freedom, these great pieces of legislation have not moved in the other body, nor have they been signed by the Executive Branch. Here we are coming into a rude awakening October 1st.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. What we have done is we have eliminated, where we can, we have consolidated, we have reduced, and, in spending we have increased in others, tried to hold the line on. But, for example, there are 163 different Federal jobs training programs, 240 Federal education programs; there are 30 different nutrition programs. Clearly some of these can be eliminated or consolidated so that we can get more money to the needy, where that is required, and balance the budget more than anything. Out of the 13 appropriations bills we have passed, 12 of them in the House, they all move us toward a balanced budget by the year 2002. I wish, and I know you do, I wish we could do it sooner. But we are working on the process. For the first time ever, when we pass that last appropriations bill, the DC appropriations bill, we have passed a budget that moves towards a balanced budget with a clear ending in sight. Unfortunately, as you have pointed out, the folks on the other side of the Capitol, the other body, have not passed a lot of the legislation because not only are we trying to balance the budget, but we are trying to reduce the bureaucracy, reduce the micro-management out of Washington, the regulatory burden, and so forth, and increase personal responsibility. They have not done a thing over there, not one thing. On October 1 the fiscal year ends, and the Federal budget, it is time for a showdown. It has been called up here the great train wreck will be coming, but I think it is going to be the rude awakening or the reality check. Do you want the status quo to continue? The President is going to make that decision. Should the Government continue or is he going to want to shut it down?

Mr. KINGSTON. Just to underscore what you are saying, when Price Waterhouse came in to do the audit, it was Price Waterhouse that came in, they could not audit the House books. There were too many old-ball ways of doing business. So too many----

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, it is interesting to note that part of the debate today was interrupted for a Joint Chiefs of Staff briefing to Members of Congress on Bosnia. It is still a very dangerous world. I believe the military budget is still down 30 or 40 percent of what it was 10 years ago. We are at $244 billion, I believe it was up to about $250 billion. I am not 100 percent sure on those numbers offhand. I have them in my office, but I know that the military budget has fallen tremendously from where it was in the mid-1980's.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. We have 163 different Federal job training programs. We have 240 different miscellaneous education programs that the Federal Government funds, 30 different nutrition programs. There is clearly room to consolidate. Yet, if you picked up the headlines and heard that Fox or Kingston moved to cut 25 different job training programs, people back home would think you have gone berserk, but yet you still have some 135 other job training programs left. I think what Congress is doing is trying to set an example that, in eliminating 25 committees, we are taking this real serious. I was a member of two of the committees that were eliminated. Last year I served on the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries. In the coastal area of the district I represent we have a lot of marine issues, shipping issues, dredge issues, Corps of Engineers, and so forth. However, that committee has been eliminated, those functions rolled into other committees that were duplicating what the Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries were doing.

Mr. KINGSTON. The other thing I think is important to emphasize is that we are not sitting around waiting on the line item veto to be responsible, nor are we set back by the fact that the other body did not pass the balanced budget amendment. It is clear that the American people want the budget balanced, so every one of our 13 appropriation bills moves us in the direction of balancing the budget by the year 2002.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate what the gentleman is saying. Having just returned from a series of meetings, what people have said is they are interested in consolidating, eliminating, reducing programs, but at the same time they want to make sure that Congress has stepped forward. If I heard the gentleman correctly, the bottom line of the congressional cuts, about $67 million--is that the number the gentleman mentioned? I was off the floor and I was not sure. I think that is about the figure we are talking about.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, there are four significant changes that are happening in our society that have to do with the field of medicine and the reason that medicine right now is going to be a hotly debated subject in the coming months, in the coming years, in our society. I would say that those changes are philosophical changes, No. 1, in Washington, which I hate to use it but will, is a new paradigm, a new way of looking at things; No. 2, technological changes; No. 3, the possible bankruptcy of Medicare; No. 4, changes in the Medicaid delivery system. Let me start with No. 1, though, philosophical changes in Washington. We have some 80 new freshmen this year, all of whom I would describe as very regular folks who want to cut the budget and go home. They are not trying to be the next President. They are not trying to run for other offices. They just want to do the right thing. They are very attuned to the problems of middle-class America and businesses and employers, and they are just not as political as I would say classes have been in the past. I would say also that the reforms, the changes, are not attributable to the Republican Party alone. President Clinton, his election in 1992 did a lot to trigger the moves of reform and the debate for change in health care. A couple of things that we have seen as evidence of a new philosophy in this House, tangible evidence, the tort reform bill that we for many years debated that never got out of committee, it actually passed the House this year; OSHA reforms, where we are trying to get OSHA to be more technological and employer-friendly and more concentrated on safety rather than concentrating strictly on fines. We are trying to get the FDA to put more money and manpower in faster approval of pills, of medical devices, rather than also being punitive and restrictive in their ways of doing business. Then of course the biggest thing is, we are taking a serious stab at budget reduction. Interest is the third largest expenditure on our national budget right now. In 2 years it is projected to exceed the defense budget, so we have got to do things about it. I would say, No. 1, that philosophical changes, we are looking at doing things differently; No. 2, technological changes. We passed this huge telecommunications bill recently. In that will be new avenues for such things as telemedicine. There is going to be the Internet. I believe the Internet will make medicine a lot more consumer-friendly, because a person back home right now does not know how much a broken arm or broken leg is going to cost. On an Internet system, they can figure it out, figure out what orthopedists are charging, which ones are the best at this, which hospitals will get them in and out the fastest, and so forth. That would be the case with every operation. You could go in there, plug in whatever your ailment is, and see how much it costs for certain treatments, and so forth, and see who is best at it. I think that is going to make medicine a lot more competitive. Those are some of the technological things, but I would say that the Federal Government's way of looking at medicine is with a slide rule, but we are in the world of pocket calculators now and we have to move. We have to make that change. Then, No. 3, Medicare. The April trustees' report said clearly that Medicare will go bankrupt in 6 years if we do not do anything about it. We have to fix it. We have to do it in a nonpartisan way. We need to simplify it, to protect and preserve it. We need to slow down the rate of growth. There are all kinds of options out there that people are looking at and this Congress is going to be addressing, things that will make Medicare more consumer-friendly and again, above all, simplify and protect it. Then, finally, changes in the Medicaid system, most significantly, welfare reform and block granting this authority back to States so that States have the flexibility. For example, I represent Georgia. Our Medicaid problems, our welfare delivery problems may be different than those in New York City or San Francisco, downtown Cincinnati, and we are going to make those changes but it is going to give the States the flexibility that they need. Mr. Speaker, this is a lengthy subject. I look forward to the months of debate ahead, but I would say that the four significant changes again in medicine are philosophical changes, new ways of looking at things; changes in Medicare; changes in Medicaid; and, above all, the new technologies. I thank the Speaker for this time. I will not say it is good to be back completely, but I notice that I am back and it is good to be here and see you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the previous speaker: This is a ``no brainer.'' If our constituents were watching this, but they are probably doing something a little more intellectually challenging like watching Gilligan's Island reruns, they would be appalled to think that we can look them in the eye and say, ``Yes, it is fair that you work all your life to write a $2,000 tuition check to the university of your choice and part of that money goes to a special interest group and the only way you can get it back is to file something like a tax return and then you get your money back.'' That is absurd. If PIRG and all these groups that are benefiting from them are good, let them compete just like the College Democrats and the College Republicans do. All day long we have heard from the left that this bill is bad for students, bad for parents, hurts college tuition. If you want to help college tuition, vote for the Solomon amendment and restore some of that tuition.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I think we have to put this in perspective. What we are arguing here is not ending family planning, it is saying who is going to run it, the Federal Government or the State government, and who has done a good job. Let us look at the Federal plan. 1970 when title X began, teen pregnancy rate, 22 percent. 1992, up to 44 percent. Teenage births out of marriage, 1970, 30 percent. In 1991, 70 percent. The abortion rate in 1970, 19 percent; in 1990, 40 percent. Sexually transmitted disease. Now it is up to one out of four sexually active teenagers. Three million teenagers a year get sexually transmitted disease. Mr. Chairman, it is not working on the Federal level. Let us let the locals take over. If this group was in charge of gun control, they would give all the 15-year olds in America loaded pistols and say, only shoot to graze. Let us be honest. It is not working. Support the Livingston-Smith alternative; let the local people run the family planning.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I do want to say one thing to the gentlewoman from the opposite party. On Pell grants, the Labor-HHS bill increases Pell grants to the highest level that it has ever been increased to, and so perhaps we could provide some information to her constituents on that, or her office, so she can get it to those 3,000 students. But Pell grants are going up higher than ever before. Head Start is also funded at a very high level. It is increased 128 percent over 6 years. Ryan White's funding has actually increased. Special education funding is funded at $3 billion, $230 million more than President Clinton proposed. Perhaps it is just a matter of not agreeing with what the educational priorities are. But I think that clearly, this bill does put a very high priority on education. We may not agree with all of the education programs that the Democratic Party does, but this bill is extremely proeducation, and I hope that the members of the opposite party will look at that, and maybe join in the process of balancing the budget, which I think is very important for us to do on a bipartisan level. Maybe I am just out of it; maybe I do not know the ways of Washington, but I do think that it is very easy to sit there and say well, I would not have cut that, I would not have cut that. I mean, where is your balanced budget? I mean, do not nickel and dime things that you do not like unless you are going to come with a total package of where your balanced budget is. Now, Mr. Speaker, if I could get those charts, I would like a little bit about the trustees' report on Medicare. This is one that Mr. Hoke has used. This time, it is not time to hide our heads in the sand on Medicare. The trustees clearly said, the Clinton-appointed trustees of the Medicare plan, said that Medicare is going broke by the year 2001. This is the plan, there is a report on it, we can get members of the public a report on the trustees' plan. The trustees were appointed by President Clinton. Here is a Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin, Secretary of Labor, Robert Reich, Secretary of Human Services, Donna Shalala. They have said that Medicare is going broke. President Clinton said in his June 11 appearance in New Hampshire that it is going broke. Newt Gingrich has said it on the same platform. So it is appropriate that we, on a bipartisan basis, deal with the reality, that it is going broke.

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, thank you for that. Here is the actual dollar figures. But just the bottom line, more will be going out than is coming in. On an NBC Nightline report the numbers were that the average couple's contribution to Medicare, $69,000. The average amount going out per couple is $186,000. So you do not have to be a mathematician to know that we have a problem. It is going broke. Let use accept that. Now, let us in a bipartisan fashion fix it. Let us fix it in a fair way. Let us do it so that it is not just on the backs of the senior citizens, and let us do not do it on the backs on the future generations. Let us do it across the board. We need to simplify it. We need to save it, we need to strengthen it. There are a lot of options that are out there for us. Mr. Speaker, just a couple of the things that we can do. No. 1, offer a choice, the same choice that you and I as Members of Congress have, the same choice that our friends have.

Mr. KINGSTON. And the President's appointees.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is the April 3, 1995 report.

Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, this is the first I have heard of it. President Clinton has come forward an said that this is going broke. It is not a Democrat-Republican thing. Now, it may be in the Congress that certain Members of Congress prefer the old tactic. You know, when in doubt, run to the sand.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me just conclude with what some of the options are that we are looking at, because I think it is important that our seniors know that we want to have reform plans that will simplify and strengthen Medicare, and yet give them all of the choices that they deserve, and one of them would be to keep the current Medicare plan that they are under. The other one is a coordinated benefit plan. Mr. Speaker, another possible option is an employer association Medicare plan, because currently if someone is 65, they are forced off the private sector insurance, but they may want to keep it, and they may want to stay on their employer's plan. We want to give seniors that option. Then there is the medical savings account, which would give seniors the right to save money and pocket the difference at the end of the year on what they save on their own health care costs. We, under these plans, are projecting a spending increase of about $1,900 per person, going roughly from $4,816 per person to $6,734 over this time period to the year 2002, a 7-year time period. Mr. Speaker, this is not a Medicare cut. We keep hearing from the hide-their-head-in-the-sand Members of Congress that we are trying to cut Medicare. This is not a cut. Now I know Washington DC math does funny tricks, but this is not a cut. So to conclude, we want to simplify Medicare, we want to say that we want to strengthen it. I am confident that we can do it, and I am glad to say that it will be on a bipartisan basis, because there are a lot of Members of both parties who are stepping forward to make the tough decisions and do what is right for our American citizens.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I can answer it in 30 seconds if the gentleman will let me. Please, the lady is right, medical inflation on Medicare is going up 10.15 percent a year, but regular insurance inflation is at about 4 percent, and in the private sector, some corporations are actually having a 1-percent decrease. So what we are going to do, trying to do through all of these options, is slow down the rate of that increase so we can get----

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank my friend.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it has been almost 4 months now that the trustees of the Medicare plan, the Clinton trustees, have come out with a report saying that Medicare is going broke in the year 2002. About 2 months ago President Clinton said: We cannot leave the system the way it is . . . when you think about what the baby boomers require . . . that's going to require significant long-term structural adjustment. We'll have to look at what we can do there. But the main thing we can't do--we can't have this thing go broke in the meanwhile. I think, certainly, this is a very significant thing for all of us to realize, that Congress must, No. 1, fix Medicare. No. 2, we have got to do it in a fair way. It cannot be done on the back of one group over another one. No. 3, we have to save the system by strengthening it and preserving it. The proposal that we have in our budget is to increase spending per recipient from $4,800 today to $6,700 in the year 2002. We are also probably going to have options on Medisave accounts, a choice of doctor, managed care plans, and so forth. I think the most important thing for right now is for us to acknowledge that Medicare is going broke. It is a bipartisan problem. We welcome the ideas of all the Democrats, Republicans, and senior citizens throughout our great country.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment. The able and brilliant author of this amendment has called it imperfect. I agree with him. It is imperfect. It has got two problems. One is substantive. First, if you outlaw the brands because of certain corporate receipts levels, then what they are going to do is set up another entity that has lower receipts to channel the funds through there. Also this, as the previous speaker said, should probably be handled by the World Trade Organization, the GATT language or whatever else. This is not the proper place to do it. The second problem with this amendment, though, is an inherent problem, and that is that the big dog does have the tendency to eat first and, yet, in that process the little bitty puppies also get some of the bone. How can you promote American hamburgers without McDonald's getting their share of the market? How can you promote American wine products without Gallo being a recipient of it? I think we have got these two problems in this amendment, Mr. Chairman. There is no need to rush it. This amendment does kill the MPP. Vote ``no''.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment and I do so because there are really two issues here. One is economic and one is philosophical. Economically the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is telling us that this is going to save $23 million, then $10.6 million, when, in fact, the USDA estimates that this will cost $5.4 million. Let us not fool ourselves. This is not saving money. It is not directed to save money. What it really is is philosophical. And philosophically, the gentleman from Illinois feels passionately against tobacco and I understand that, but I would say to him that this is authorizing; it is not appropriating. I do not understand why we do not have legislation introduced. We are seven months into Congress. I do not think any of the three authors of this amendment have authored legislation so that we could have the great tobacco debate in the committees of Congress, and I think that is what we need to do. Mr. Chairman, we should get this thing over with. There are vehicles to get probably where we want to go, but as it is, when Members take noble aim at the tobacco industry, they only hit the tobacco farmer.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I have a lot of good friends on this side of the aisle, but yet I am in opposition to my friends today. I think as we step back and look, as the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] said, this is an ax. We need a scalpel. I think this is a shotgun. I think this is messy. I get mad at the USDA frequently, but does that mean that I think that the local ASCS officers should be penalized for those decisions? I get mad at the Post Office a lot. Should my personal mail carrier have his pay frozen because of what goes on in Washington? I get mad at the mayor. Do I want to penalize the clerk at city hall? That is what we are doing. We are talking about freezing the salary of secretaries, mechanics, janitorial personnel, for things that they have absolutely no control of. I have got problems with BATF. I have concerns about this air force; I think we should look into the 22 airplanes. I think an amendment to reduce their funding may be a good idea. Investigating the ``Good Ole Boys'' networks, that would be something good. Investigating Waco, that would be good. Investigating the Randy Weaver involvement, that is good. But what we are talking about doing is because of managerial decisions, we are going to penalize secretaries and mechanic's pay raises for the next year.