Jim McCrery

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Jones] for yielding me this time. I do not intend to use all of it. Mr. Jones eloquently stated the reasons for introduction of the bill and reasons for Members to vote for it today. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank Chairman Saxton and the ranking member, Mr. Studds, from the Subcommittee on Fisheries, Wildlife and Oceans for their willingness to support this bill and for their work in bringing it to the floor today. The Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge is a case study in responsible environmental policy. Created in 1980, the refuge now includes some 64,000 acres in Madison and Tensas parishes in northeastern Louisiana and represents a commitment to preserving the largest single tract of bottomland hardwoods remaining in the Mississippi River Delta. Widely supported in the community, the refuge has been constituted entirely from land acquired through donations or by purchases from willing sellers. The bottomland forests in the refuge provide habitat for a diverse array of greenery. In addition, over 400 animal species make their home in the Tensas Refuge. Among endangered species, the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon make occasional appearances. Of particular note, the Tensas Refuge is the home of the largest remaining population of the Louisiana Black Bear. H.R. 2660 would increase the authorization for the Tensas Refuge from $10 million to $20 million. These additional funds are needed to purchase inholdings and corridor easements. Again, all this will be accomplished with the full cooperation and support of the surrounding community. My constituents who live and work near the refuge fully understand the need to maintain this haven of natural beauty. Completion of land purchase for the Tensas River National Wildlife Refuge will preserve a unique slice of southern habitat for enjoyment by countless future generations. Once again, I thank the members of the Resources Committee for their swift action in bringing this bill before the full House and strongly urge all Members to support its passage.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, no single component of our national economy is more important than energy. Yet, today we find ourselves more dependent on foreign sources of petroleum than at any time since 1977. Right now, imported oil accounts for over 50 percent of domestic consumption. By the year 2015, the Department of Energy forecasts that America will only supply one-third of its domestic needs. That means our Nation will rely heavily on other countries to fuel our cars, heat our homes, and drive our economy. I am concerned that we are not being sufficiently aggressive in our efforts to reverse this trend. In the United States, we have vast proven reserves in existing fields that can be accessed, but only with advanced oil recovery technologies. Since 1990, we have recognized that to reduce our dependence on foreign energy sources, certain new recovery technologies should be encouraged through the enhanced oil recovery credit. Unfortunately, the eligible technologies identified do not reflect the latest developments in this field. To take full advantage of our domestic oil reserves, I urge the Treasury Department to use the specific authority Congress provided, to update the regulations to include new recovery technologies. Doing so will reopen access to much needed domestic oil and provide new skilled job opportunities in the domestic economy.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the gentlewoman from New Jersey, the gentleman from Michigan, the gentleman from South Carolina, the gentleman from Texas, for I think putting forth a well-intentioned effort to improve the lot of people in this country vis-a-vis the health insurance system. It is a good effort. However, in the face of what we should be doing in health care reform in this country, it is weak. It is watered down. It is half-hearted. Mr. Speaker, we should not be so timid in this House to bend to the threats of the President of the United States, who is up for reelection this year. We should do what we think is right for the American people in our health care system. If you go to a town meeting and listen to the people, what do they talk about? They talk about portability. That is a problem. We solved that in our bill. But what is the main thing they talk about? Cost. ``Mr. Congressman, do something about the escalating cost in our health care system.'' The substitute, regrettably, does nothing for cost containment. Our bill, on the other hand, has medical malpractice reform, which goes to the heart of the escalation of costs in the health care system. We attack fraud and abuse, waste in the system, which goes to the heart of cost escalation. We introduce a new concept, make it tax-advantaged, medical savings accounts, which will allow a lot of little people in this country to get health care coverage for the first time. These are all things that we should be doing if we were not so timid. We need to vote against the substitute and vote for the underlying bill.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, medical savings accounts will provide hardworking Americans the freedom to personally manage and even save a portion of their health care dollars. By granting consumers complete control, MSA's allow working men and women and their families to tailor health care spending to their individual needs. This element of personal responsibility will lead to more cost-conscious and cost- efficient spending choices. MSA's are easily portable from one job to another and provide total freedom when choosing a family's health care provider. In the case of a serious illness or injury, MSA beneficiaries will continue to have comprehensive medical coverage through a high-deductible health plan which meets those costs. Furthermore, this bill helps individuals plan for their future long-term care needs by allowing MSA funds to be used to purchase long-term care insurance or services. In short, Mr. Speaker, MSA's provide hard-working American families the ultimate in health insurance: choice, flexibility, and portability.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, it is hard to negotiate when one of the parties will not put on the table an opening offer. Therefore, this House tonight will pass a resolution which will implicitly ask the question that the press and the media in this country should have been asking for the last several weeks: Mr. President, where is your balanced budget? Mr. President, where is your balanced budget? Mr. President, where is your balanced budget? Mr. President, where is your balanced budget? Mr. President, where is your balanced budget?

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is simply wrong. In fact, the CBO, I have the statement right here in front of me that the Deal bill that was voted for cuts from the roles the same number of children.

Mr. McCRERY. First of all, Mr. Speaker, let me point out that this conference report represents a compromise on the issue of SSI for children. Those of us who wanted to replace cash benefits with services to disabled children agreed to continue cash. Although I think that decision is a mistake, I believe this bill makes other badly needed changes to a badly flawed program, so I support the compromise. But some defenders of the status quo, having lost the issue of cash to cry about, now complain that fewer children will qualify for SSI as a result of this bill. That is true. Here's why. As recently as 1989, the number of children on SSI was 300,000; today, that number is 900,000. Clearly, something is wrong with a program that triples in 6 years. Under this bill, caseloads would decline because, after months of hearings and expert testimony, Republicans and some Democrats are acting to bring some common sense back to this program. Our bill ends the IFA and maladaptive behavior standards that allow parents to receive more than $5,000 per child in annual benefits--sometime called crazy checks--because their children exhibited age-inappropriate behavior. My Democrat colleagues should be familiar with this policy, because they all supported it as part of the House Democratic welfare substitute just last spring. Every Democrat voted for a bill that would cut the same number of children from the SSI rolls as this conference report. According to CBO, the Democrat bill would ``trim approximately 20 to 25 percent of children from the SSI rolls.'' Yes, just a few months ago, every Democrat in this House voted, rightly, to restrict eligibility for a welfare program gone wild. Yet today, in an effort to make cheap political points, some of them conveniently change their minds. Well, it won't work--what was sound policy then is sound policy now. The SSI provisions of this bill should be a good reason to vote for the conference report.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, what we are debating here today is the latest offering of the President in the budget negotiations, and that latest offering has been scored by Congressional Budget Office, and that latest offering has been found by Congressional Budget Office not to balance the budget in the year 2002. So for those of my colleagues who are saying that we are fiddling here today, that we are doing nothing, I want to point out that it is the President who is fiddling. The President has yet to put on the table a budget that will be in balance in the year 2002, and what we are doing here today, very frankly, is underscoring one more time that the legislative branch of this Government wants to produce, with the President's help and signature, a balanced budget in 7 years using Congressional Budget Office figures. If my colleagues vote for this budget today, they are saying they do not want a balanced budget in the year 2002. But I suspect they do, and I suspect they will vote against it.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, let us talk about fraud and abuse in the Medicare Program. This bill takes a four-pronged approach to reducing fraud and abuse. First, it greatly increases beneficiary and provider participation in identifying problems. Second, through computerization and other preventive measures, it greatly increases Medicare's ability to prevent payments for fraudulent, abusive, or erroneous claims and to identify billing schemes early in order to avoid large losses. Third, it greatly increases enforcement efforts by establishing mandatory funding for coordinated efforts of the Office of Inspector General, state fraud control units, and the FBI. Finally, it increases deterrence by strengthening civil and criminal penalties for defrauding Federal health care programs. This bill, Mr. Speaker, makes Medicare fraud less of a possibility in the future. Everybody knows that there is massive fraud in the Medicare Program. This bill gives us the tools to get rid of it, saving billions of taxpayer dollars.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker. reclaiming my time, the gentleman knows that the President has already vetoed one of the appropriations bills that we sent to him, and has threatened to veto other appropriations bills. But we will get that work done. We have done our work in this House. We are waiting on the other body to complete its work. We will get the work done.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, just in response to my good friend from Texas, who has been a valiant warrior for a balanced budget for this country, and I commend him on his efforts, I think the gentleman has failed to properly characterize the work ethic of this Congress. With all due respect to the gentleman's comments, this Congress, certainly this House of Representatives, has passed more legislation than any in my memory, and probably than any Congress since the first term of FDR. So to say that we have failed to do our work I do not think appropriately characterizes this House's work. The gentleman is correct that we have failed to timely pass all of our appropriations bills; that is to say, we have failed to pass all 13 appropriations bills before the October 1 beginning of the fiscal new year. And that is regrettable. However, the gentleman knows full well that for the first time in 40 years, this Congress enjoys a new majority, a new leadership, and we hoped a new direction for the country. And in an effort to change the direction of this country, we had to necessarily take up a good part of the first part of this year in passing legislation that we thought and we hoped would start the country in a new, better direction. Consequently, we were put behind somewhat on the appropriations process. But the gentleman knows well that that can be remedied very easily by adopting a continuing resolution, which is what we did. The President has now vetoed that for his own reasons, and we must now try to pass another continuing resolution eventually, so that this Government can continue to operate. I just wanted to take issue with the gentleman's comments about the work ethic of this House.

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

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to point out that with respect to the question of the Medicare premiums that have been talked about a lot here on this floor today, my friend from California, Mr. Thomas, made a remark that gained some attention. While we may not all characterize either the President's actions or the Democratic minority's actions the way the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas] did, I think it is worth pointing out that Robert Reischauer, the Director of the Congressional Budget Office, when the Democrats were in the majority, is quoted in today's Wall Street Journal as saying, ``I think, in a sense, the President is defending the low ground on this question of the Medicare premium.'' Certainly I would agree with Mr. Reischauer, or Dr. Reischauer, that the President is defending the low ground on the question of the Medicare premiums. No one in his right mind would conclude that with escalating health care costs we should reduce the premium that seniors pay for that program. I just wanted to point that out, and I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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

Mr. McCRERY

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

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself my remaining time. Mr. Speaker, let me just clear up a couple of [[Page H 12238]] things that have been said by the last few speakers. My good friend from Massachusetts, Mr. Neal, said if this bill is passed, Social Security checks will not be able to be paid. Well, that is simply not the case, and if the gentleman would read the bill, which I have right here, he would see very clearly, on page 3 of the printed text of the bill, it is clear that payment of such benefits or administrative expenses may be, in fact, paid. So my good friend from Massachusetts is just incorrect in asserting that Social Security benefits would not be paid. Second, my friend, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], asked rhetorically I presume from his perspective who do we trust to protect Social Security, the President or Newt Gingrich? While that got a good laugh from his Democratic colleagues, the fact is what we are trying to do today is make it so that we do not have to trust anybody. It will be the law that the President, no matter who he is, cannot violate the Social Security trust fund.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Torkildsen].

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. I think the gentleman from Virginia has emphatically stated the gist of the situation. The fact is that without specific authority from the Congress to extend more debt, the President frankly will be between a rock and a hard place, and I think the gentleman is correct there, and that is part of what this debate is all about. Those of us on this side, frankly, want the President to have to choose between more and more debt on the backs of our children and grandchildren or finally facing up to the fact that we cannot afford any longer to spend more than we take in and finally get this Nation's fisc in order. So I think the gentleman from Virginia stated it very clearly and succinctly and emotionally and did a good job, and that is part of this debate. So, frankly, we are ready to put the President between that rock and a hard place so he will have to choose clearly for the American people to see. We hope that he choose on the side of fiscal responsibility. We hope he chooses on the side of preserving a future not only for today's seniors but for tomorrow's seniors and future generations of this country. I thank the gentleman from Virginia for making that clear. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston].

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Once again, the law has been misstated by the other side. We have clear testimony before the Committee on Ways and Means that, in fact, the administration has the ability under current law to utilize the trust funds in times of exigent circumstances, and, in fact, we have already seen examples of this this very week with the administration using other trust funds to get around the debt ceiling. So it is just not so that the administration does not have this power. They do, and that is what this bill would correct. It would protect the Social Security Trust Fund and other trust funds from being rate raided by the administration in order to circumvent the debt ceiling. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Sam Johnson.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the minority leader tried to couch this argument in terms of giving tax breaks for the rich and all the like. That is once again trying to obscure the issue. The issue is, do we want to protect the Social Security trust fund, the Medicare trust fund from being raided by the executive branch in order to circumvent the debt ceiling, which under the Constitution must be raised by the Congress, by the legislative branch? I urge all my colleagues to protect the Social Security trust fund and the Medicare trust fund and vote ``aye'' on this bill. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct.

Mr. McCRERY. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would submit to the gentleman that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds account for fully half of the total value of the Federal Government's trust funds. So it is very important that we recognize that these two trust funds will be critical in any exigent circumstance if the President wishes to get around the debt ceiling. So the fact that we have contained in this bill other trust funds should not obscure the fact that in order to protect all of them, including the Civil Service trust fund which the President intends to tap today and the Social Security trust fund, this bill must be passed. I would say to the gentleman that we do not need to trust the President or Newt Gingrich, we need to pass this bill in order to make it law that the President cannot tap the Social Security trust fund.

Mr. McCRERY

Mr. McCRERY. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.