Jim McDermott

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, this bill is like a bad April Fool's Day joke. You know there is a purse that is laying out on the street with a string on it. And the person comes along and pulls the string and the people keep reaching for it and they cannot quite get it. The Republican bill has no guaranteed premium in it. It has no guaranteed costs reduction in it. I do not care what figures they throw around out here, 25 percent to 39 percent reduction, it is not in the bill. There is no assurance of two choices. One Republican Member let the cat out of the bag, it may be enough just to introduce a bill, but if we don't even have a bill, we are open to charges that we didn't do anything. That tells us where they really are, and it also tells us what their consultant told them. He said, it is more important to communicate that you have a plan as it is to communicate what is in the plan. The reason this was done at night, the reason they will not allow us to make an alternative, the reason they do not want any open debate is because they do not want to communicate to anybody until they put out those commercials in the election. They will say we passed a bipartisan bill for seniors with a couple of Democrats and a joke in terms of how it works. In this bill, we ask ourselves, where are they going to get the two plans that they talk about? The bill says on one page, we will subsidize up to 35 percent. What if nobody will take it at 35 percent, they hold out. The bill later says they can add incentives and the chairman of the subcommittee said in the committee room that you could subsidize up to 99 percent. If there is an insurance company out there that can get 99 percent subsidy on the plan maybe they will offer it, but I am telling my colleagues it is going to cost the American people. It is a bad bill.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I think this is kind of a fitting ending to this day. My colleague, the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner), says he cannot understand what this is. Well, let me give my colleagues my interpretation. This is press release time. The Washington Post called this the Pretend Congress, and this is a piece of activity we are going to go through here that pretends to do something. Now, there was a cartoonist by the name of Walt Kelly who created Pogo. And one of his most famous cartoons is one in which they are searching for who is doing some bad deed, and finally Pogo gets up and says, ``We have found the enemy, and they is us.'' Well, the fact is that it is the Congress that created the problems. We should not be blaming bureaucrats. The balanced budget amendments of 1997 were designed by the Republicans, passed by the Republicans, to do one thing, let Medicare wither on the vine, as we know it, and create Medicare+Choice. Now, a few of us voted no because we knew enough about the situation to know what they were doing. This is not mystery. This is no bureaucratically created problem. It was created by the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee on Ways and Means, and they did it without talking to us. They did not want to have any input. They said, we know what we are doing; we are going to get rid of that old Medicare that does not work, and we are going to have all these HMOs out everywhere. We have had HMOs out all over everywhere, and they have been pulling out. A million people have lost their health coverage in this country in the last couple of years because of the system that my colleagues tried to push onto people. My colleagues wanted to push them all into the arms of the Medicare HMOs, and today it is boggling that having had that experience with HMOs and insurance companies not working, that we would go through and set up exactly the same process for delivering prescription medications to seniors in this country. My Republican colleagues are telling 90-year-old women like my mother to go out and find themselves an insurance company and ask them if they will sell them a policy that they can afford. And if they cannot afford it, well then they can go on down to the welfare office and can ask them for money, and they will cover what cannot be covered because they are poor. That is what we set up today. And the fact is, if I had done that, I would want to come out here and put something in that looked like I was really in favor of really fixing Medicare. But as the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) has said, we have had opportunity after opportunity. That bill that went through today was done without Democratic input. Not one single amendment was accepted in the committee. Our Republican colleagues did not allow an amendment out here. And when it fails, and my colleagues are looking around for who did this, who put this plan out here, they will have to take a good look in the mirror, because they did it to themselves; and now they are trying to fix it. I will bet when this is all done that all the money that we saved in 1997 we will have put back into the budget piece by piece by piece, always blaming somebody else; well, they looked at the rules too carefully, or they were too tight-fisted or something. But it was us who made those cuts. And we offered them right here $21 billion to fix Medicare, and we were ruled out of order. Everybody said, no, we cannot do that. But less than an hour later, we are seriously out here looking as though there is money right around the corner. We know that money is there. They know that money is there. But they did not want to do it tonight. They want to do it tomorrow. Vote yes. It will not hurt anything.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Bateman), I dislike the process by which we got here. We voted this bill down twice on this floor, and now suddenly we went to committee, and we passed a bill out of that committee, which is not the bill which we are voting on here on the floor. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Houghton), my good friend, has worked hard to work this problem; but it is pretty clear that this is being put out at 20 minutes to 12:00 so that disclosure is done in the middle of the night. It is kind of an irony, if one has that kind of mind, to look at the fact that we are bringing out a bill that nobody in a committee has actually looked at the words. We passed another bill out of our committee, and obviously, we could not get the votes on the floor for that, so suddenly, miraculously, we have a bill at 12 minutes to 12:00. I understand all the rules and the way things work, but this process is not a good one. I think the importance of campaign finance reform is very clear. It is not a Democrat issue, it is not a Republican issue, it is an issue about whether people are willing to participate in the elections. It is expected that this election will be the least participation since 1924 because people are turned off, and they are turned off by all the money in the election. It is our job to clean that up and get the American people back involved. This is a very small step forward. Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the following statement: [From the Office of Congressman Tom DeLay, June 27, 2000] DeLay To Oppose McCain Bill an attack on our first amendment rights Washington, DC: Tom Delay (R-TX), the House Majority Whip, issued the following statement tonight on the vote in the House on the campaign finance reform. Majority Whip Tom DeLay stated: ``I am first and foremost a constitutionalist, and this bill is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Again and again, the courts have upheld the right of groups to participate in the political process while retaining privacy for their members. I am therefore confident that the courts will quickly and decisively strike down this legislation. How will the Democrats explain to their constituents that any American who supports these issue advocacy groups could find his or her names on a government list? This lack of privacy and free speech is chilling. ``This so-called `reform' bill is in reality nothing more than a last ditch effort by the Democrats to protect their vulnerable incumbent Members from valid attacks on their positions and beliefs. The Left is trying to stamp out our right to free speech for their own political purposes while protecting their big labor friends and political contributors. The Democrats are the ultimate hypocrites and they must explain their double standard to the American people.''

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the majority leader said it on Wednesday, we will embark upon a very important bill, that is, giving prescription medications for seniors in this country. There is an enormous difference between the Republican and the Democratic plan, and I would like to lay out the differences. The Democratic prescription medication plan is part of Medicare. It is a core benefit. The Republican plan is not a part of Medicare; it is simply a chance to buy a private insurance policy or join an HMO. The Democratic plan is secure. Seniors can count on it, just like they count on Medicare. Under the Republican plan, your insurance company or your HMO could leave your area, disrupt your life, as they are doing today with regular benefits, while you look for another company. This is just one more example of the HMO in pharmaceuticals. Now, the Democratic prescription plan is simple and easy. It is a part of Medicare. Under the Democratic prescription medicine plan, you will not have to change anything that you now do to get your prescriptions. You can continue to get your prescriptions from your local pharmacist, just as you do now. On the other hand, the Republican plan is complex and difficult. The Republican plan would require you to find an insurance company or an HMO and sign up. Then you would get your prescriptions by mail order. The chairman of the committee came before the Committee on Ways and Means and held up a letter from a mail order house in Florida. All your drugs would come from Florida, and you would have to wait 8 to 10 days. Under the Democratic plan, you would pay $25. The one that will be brought to the floor has a guarantee of a $25 premium. Under the Republican plan, your premium would be set by the insurance company, which would have to be high enough to cover the marketing costs and profits. There is no guaranteed premium in the Republican plan. Seniors have already been through this with HMOs. They joined an HMO, they were going to get all these benefits. Then they took away the benefits. Then they said we have taken away the benefits, but we are going to charge you a policy premium. That is what will happen under the pharmaceutical plan of the Republicans. The Republicans say we are going to give you choice. They really take away choice. The only choice that a senior will have is which plan do they go into, which insurance company do they sign up with. The HMO, or the private insurance company, will limit the choice of what pharmaceuticals they receive. Now, when I am a physician and I write a prescription and I hand it to a patient and they go to the pharmacy, I know what the patient got. But when it goes through this HMO, they could say, well, that is not on our formula. We will give you something that is close, or we will give you something that we think is just as good, and that choice of the physician and the patient will be interrupted. We will have to put an amendment on the Patient's Bill of Rights on this issue. The other thing they take away is your choice of pharmacy. If they are a mail order house in Florida, they do not care about your local pharmacy. Your local pharmacist is out of business as far as your being able to do down there and get your medicine with the discount. You will have to pay the old high prices. In my view, the Republican plan really guarantees a benefit to insurance companies or HMOs, not to seniors. There is no guarantee that the insurance companies will offer an affordable, and I emphasize, affordable prescription drug plan to seniors. Now, you ask me, why is that? Well, let me tell you the specifics of the bill. Ordinarily a lot of people do not read the bill, but I do. The Republican plan guarantees profits to insurance companies and HMOs by letting them hold the Government hostage. Page 56 of the Republican plan says that the Government will pay private plans not more than 35 percent of the cost of those medicines. So you have paid your premium through Social Security, and the 35 percent for the Government that has to cover it. But the Congressional Budget Office and the insurance companies say the plan will not work; we will not offer a plan if the Government pays only 35 percent. So the Republicans answer that. They go around on page 40 and they say the Government may provide financial incentives, including partial underwriting of the risk to get the insurance companies to sell policies to seniors. During the markup in the committee, the chairman of the health subcommittee said that they could cover up to 99 percent. Now, if you are an insurance company out there and they offer you 35 percent, you say, I do not want that. I am going to wait until they offer me 100 percent. It is a bad bill, and we have to pass the Democratic alternative.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, Groucho Marx said that the main requirement to be a good politician is to appear to be serious. The Washington Post recently commented on the performance of the majority in this Congress by calling this ``the pretend Congress.'' This is one of the new acts. This debt reduction bill here pretends to do something. We are all called here together, we are going to be serious, we are going to give pompous speeches about how we are going to reduce the debt, and we are saving America, and all those Girl Scout cookies and all that stuff will just be fixed by this bill. Now, the chairman at least was honest, and I really acknowledge the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Archer) honesty. This bill is effective from now until September 30, 2000. It does not quite make it all the way through the election. So it is not really a very good pretend item. It would be better if it went at least until November 8. But this is a bill for 4 months. Now, you ask yourself, why would anybody be doing such a thing? Well, if you come up to a new reestimate of the revenue estimates here very shortly, the CBO and the OMB are going to come out with a whole bunch more money. Clearly the majority is afraid that they are going to spend it. They cannot save themselves. They have all the votes. This is your problem. We have the votes, as the majority over there, and they are going to put more money on the table and if you do not pass this bill, you will not be able to stop yourself from spending it. That is what this is about, I guess. Or maybe it is not about that. The fact is that we have a situation where the Treasury does not need this bill to pay off more debt. If we get to the end of the fiscal year and there is some money there, they reduce the debt. They do not have to borrow. It is real simple. They do not need us to pass H.R. 4601 to tell them what they have been doing for 200 years. If they have a surplus, they buy down some of the debt. But this is a symbolic act, as my colleague from California says. I thought this would be on Friday, because this is usually the news cycle on Friday, they want to have something that says the Republicans today have passed a bill to encourage reduction of the debt. Now, if you think about it, if you want to reduce the debt, you do not give big tax breaks, because taxes bring in money. And if you cut the taxes, there will not be any money to pay off the debt. So when you come out here and vote for tax cut after tax cut after tax cut and then say, And we want to reduce the debt, you simply are not making any sense. There are only two ways to have the money to pay off the debt, either take the taxes and pay it off or reduce the spending and pay it off, one or the other. I do not see any evidence so far in this appropriations process that we are actually reducing spending. In fact, we are going up a little bit, and probably we are going to need some of this money along about September the 15 to solve the problem to buy off this program or that program so we can get out of here. All we have to do under this bill, we do not have to repeal the act, we do not have to do anything, just pass the supplemental appropriation. This can be violated by the most simplistic legislative act of all, just bring out another bill, spend some more money, in spite of the fact that we have passed H.R. 4601, the debt reduction bill. This bill will die in the Senate from laughter. There will not be anybody over there that takes this seriously.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, it is always fun to come out here on press release day and to see what the majority has got in mind for press releases for the weekend. As I look at this, this is a bill that reminds me of an automobile. I remember there was an automobile called the Pinto, and it was out there and it kept exploding and burning and people got in a terrible mess, so they had a recall. Now, this is a recalled bill, because the gentleman from California (Mr. Herger) passed the bill last year to protect social security. By George, we passed it 414 or whatever it was out of here. Now here we are back fixing it. What was the matter with the one we did last year? Was it the fact that they left out Medicare, and the Vice President said that we ought to take Medicare off-budget, too, like the President said in his State of the Union message? Was it those issues that finally lead to, well, as soon as the Vice President said it, the next thing we know we have this bill here? It is the history of this bill. I think, Mr. Speaker, and I am really serious about this, the reason this is a pretend Congress is because nobody on the gentleman's side takes this Congress seriously and its procedures when we have a bill introduced and it never has a hearing, never has a hearing, no testimony whatsoever, and then suddenly the Committee on Rules meets all by itself and they pop a bill out that is not even the one that was introduced into the Congress, so it has had no hearings in the Committee on the Budget, who is going to have to work with us in the future. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) and I have sat there and watched this process, and this is going to make it even worse because we are having bills introduced affecting that committee by members of the Committee on Rules who apparently, I do not know, they must have had some revelation come down from heaven in the dark of the night that this was the bill. The Congressional Budget Act prohibits that, specifically prohibits bills being considered on the floor of the House that have not been considered in the committee that handles them, the Committee on the Budget. So they broke the rules of their own Congress. It is like, well, those are just rules, who cares, right? In doing so, they do things that make no sense at all, because they have section 3(b) that says we have to show the social security surplus, and we have section 5 that says we cannot show it. Now, we cannot have it both ways. We cannot show it and not show it. So they did not even take the time last night to even proofread the bill. This is a travesty and a joke. The other body will consider it the same.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I was absent and unable to vote the afternoon of June 15, 2000. I would have voted in favor of the Sanders of Vermont amendment (rollcall No. 286). I would have voted in favor of the motion to recommit (rollcall No. 287). I would have voted against the Nethercutt amendment (rollcall No. 288). I would have voted against the Weldon amendment (rollcall No. 289). I would have voted in favor of the motion to recommit (rollcall No. 290). I would have voted against final passage (rollcall No. 291).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I was absent and unable to vote today because I was in Seattle attending my daughter's graduation. I would have voted in favor of the Rangel substitute amendment (rollcall No. 252). I would have voted in favor of the Doggett motion to recommit (rollcall No. 253). I would have voted against H.R. 8, the Estate Tax Elimination Act (rollcall No. 254).

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, by bringing their estate tax elimination proposal to the floor, the Republicans are clearly pandering to the richest Americans. Most Americans are not affected by the estate tax. 98 percent of all estates are exempt from the tax. Of the two percent that are liable, only 3 percent of those are small businesses and farms. The estate tax repeal will not become law; this vote is purely political. If the Republicans genuinely wanted to help the 6 in 10,000 American small businesses and farms subject to the estate tax, they would have worked with Democrats to craft a bipartisan compromise. Over the past two decades, income and wealth disparities have increased. The Republican proposal will exaggerate this by making the rich richer and the poor poorer. Repeal of the estate tax for the Forbes 400 richest Americans would amount to $200-300 billion. Enough to pay for a Medicare prescription drug benefit for 10 years! The rhetoric the Republicans have invoked during the estate tax debate is misleading. Calling the estate tax the ``death tax'' infers that all Americans will lose half of their estate and needlessly scares people.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor my friend, Jack Edward Tanner, for his outstanding career as a federal judge and his unwavering commitment to ensuring that all Americans are treated fairly in our judicial system. Judge Tanner has set a standard of excellence that we all should aspire too. On May 17, 1978, the Senate of the United States did unanimously consent to the nomination of Jack Edward Tanner to serve as United States District Judge for the Eastern and Western Districts of Washington. On June 2, 1978, Jack E. Tanner took the oath of office administered by Marshall A. Neil, Chief Judge Eastern District of Washington, in Tacoma, Washington. On this date, Judge Tanner has completed 22 years on the federal judiciary. We salute him as one of this nation's ``Great Native Sons.'' The path to the United States District Court was paved with distinguished achievements. As the son of Trixie and Ernie Tanner, Jack and his two siblings, Erna and Bob, were shielded from poverty, but not injustice. As pioneers in the Northwest, the Tanner family was often singled out and later called upon for leadership. Like his father, young Jack excelled in sports in grade school, junior high, and at Stadium High School. For a sports career, however, young Jack was born too soon, in the mid-thirties the Major Leagues, for which he was ably qualified, was not yet integrated by Blacks. After serving in the United States military in one of its segregated, ``Jim Crow'' units, Jack returned to the waterfront as a longshoreman, while attending college at the University of Puget Sound. Working on the docks in Commencement Bay as a longshoreman provided the foundation for Jack's dedication to the needs and concerns of blue-collar workers and others. This perspective has never left him and it is reflected in many of his federal decisions. The headlines of the Tacoma News Tribune for Sunday, December 29, 1963 feature Tacoma's Top Ten Stories and Personalities. It is no wonder that a photo of Jack Tanner and the controversial ``Open Housing Referendum No. 4'' are prominent. Arguing for fair housing in 1963 brought to Tacoma, and to Washington State, the nation's struggle for equal rights for all. Jack challenged Washington State to address de-facto segregation in schools and housing. As local NAACP President and national NAACP board member, lawyer Tanner believed that the direct action taken by the student demonstrators in the South also would be effective in the Northwest. With others, he led a march against discriminatory housing in the Tri-cities. This was done despite the wishes of some Blacks, who believed they would be burdened rather than benefited. As a result of Tanner's urging, efforts undertaken in Seattle to de-segregate the public schools resulted in the First non-court ordered desegregation plan in the United States. Jack's effective approach blended the best of the strategies used by the NAACP and the student non-violent protests. John F. Kennedy, the President of the United States, invited Jack to attend the White House on two different occasions. In June, 1963, just after the assassination of Medgar Evers, the nation was in crisis. Tanner as a leader in the Northwest, worked closely with his friend Senator Warren Magnuson, the Chair of Senate Commerce Committee, to help Kennedy's famous 1964 Civil Rights Bill get introduced. Equality in public accommodations, the core of the bill, opened the way for later legislation on voting rights, fair housing and employment. Clarence Mitchell, Director of the Washington Bureau for the NAACP said it best, ``It is a fact that the passage of the Civil Rights bill has come about because of the tremendous and consistent work that you and others have done to make it possible. It is true that there have been some magnificent contributions by Senate leaders in this fight, but it was also you and the people that you represented who used your resources to make it possible for us to get a successful vote. Therefore, I wish to thank you and to let you know that this is your time of triumph.'' As Washington's First African-American member of the federal judiciary, controversy did not elude Judge Tanner. Among the first cases he decided, he drew sharp criticism: by finding conditions at Walla Walla State Penitentiary, as cruel and unusual punishment (Hoptowit case); the unconstitutionality of the 1982 anti-busing initiative; and unequal pay for women by the State of Washington, known nationally as the Comparable Worth case. In this landmark decision, Judge Tanner decided that the state's policy of paying lower salaries in 14,000 jobs, held predominately by women, than those paid in comparable jobs held by men, ``overwhelmingly constituted direct, overt, and institutionalized discrimination.'' In the midst of criticism, Judge Tanner continued to rule on cases, by doing what he believes is right, and not for personal gain or popularity. But Father, he rules from the heart and the law to improve the lives of others, especially those who have been historically disenfranchised. We Thank you Judge Tanner for Being our Shining Judicial Light. On this day, June 6, 2000 and in celebration of 22 years on the federal judiciary and for his life-time achievements, I, Jim McDermott, as United States Congressman from the Seventh Congressional District, along with the entire Washington delegation, ask that the Congressional Record reflect, the ``Triumph of this Native Son, the Honorable Jack E. Tanner, a Tacoman, a Washingtonian and a True American.''

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Yes, I yield to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, this is sort of an interesting bill because it is kind of inside baseball. Nobody outside this building or outside this Hill really cares about it. But, therefore, it ought to be possible to have an honest discussion about what this is really all about. This, in my view, is a repeal of the Committee on the Budget. It really is saying we are done with it, but we are not going to do it directly because we do it by three mechanisms. One is, we say that the budget document has to be signed by the President. Now, let us just suppose, in the worst case, we have George Bush as President and a Democratic House of Representatives and a Republican Senate, and they fight, and they fight, and they fight, and we never get a budget resolution done? Now, what happens? Is the government paralyzed? Do we close down? No, we just go on, and they make it easier by repealing the May 15 deadline. The Committee on Appropriations just goes about their business as though there was no budget resolution. We do not need a budget resolution essentially is what this says. Because if it gets snarled up in a fight between the White House and the Houses here, we will just go right ahead. But the real hooker, the real fast ball in under one's fingers in this bill is the automatic CR. This establishes an automatic CR that goes in perpetuity at the year 2000 levels. If nothing else happens, that is what we have got. Now, God bless the Committee on Appropriations. Their problem is going to have to be to reduce the funding in some things before they vote for things that increase the funding in other things.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Chairman, I want to make the Members aware of that issue because I know it is coming. Everybody who fears that the shutdown of 1995 is going to say we have to put that in there. So those three elements will kill the Committee on Budget.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt), the ranking member, a distinguished and thoughtful man, said earlier today that we are preparing to get the train wreck on schedule. That is what we have in front of us here is the schedule, where it is going to stop on the highway. The reason I say that is that it is just like the one we did last year and the year before. It has built into it $100 billion worth of cuts in nondefense spending. Most people say, what does that mean, nondefense spending? Well, I mean FBI agents, they want to cut some of those, or drug enforcement agents, they want to cut them, or maybe it is Pell grants they want to cut, or the National Institutes of Health. That is a nondefense area. There are $100 billion in cuts. If Members think the level out there right now is too high, we have too many FBI agents, too much at the National Institutes of Health, then Members will think this is a real nice budget. The only way they are going to get around that is that they are going to have to go over and get that social security money that is sitting there. They say, we have covered it, it is all protected, we have it in a lockbox. But all we have to do is come out here and pass a resolution on the floor and it is gone. It is a lockbox with a hole in the bottom. So we are looking at a budget that has built into it all the seeds of not passing the appropriations acts, and winding up being back here in September, 2 months before the election. Mr. Speaker, somebody is going to get up here, and I have listened to the debate so far and I have never heard this phrase yet, because it is the favorite Republican phrase, where are we going to find that $100 billion? Fraud, waste, and abuse. That is the one, we get out here and beat our breast, waste, fraud and abuse. When we start looking at what that really means, it is the Department of Social Health Services. The Department of Human Services goes out to hospitals in our districts and starts going through the records of the doctors and the hospitals, and the place is flooded with Members back here saying we have to give them back that money. So when one thinks they are going to find $100 billion in fraud, waste and abuse, they ought to think very carefully about that. What is going to happen is in September the election will be upon us, the Republicans will cave to the President of the United States, and we will get a decent budget.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, this budget resolution sort of reminds me of one of those good news-bad news jokes. The good news is that this law says that we should pass a budget resolution by April 15. We are going to do that. That is the good news. The bad news is that it is a joke. If we look at this and listen to what the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) said, the gentleman is one of the most thoughtful, one of the most intelligent people. He actually was a banker once. He knows about money. He gave a very erudite explanation of this budget. If we listen to the gentleman, the most important thing he said was that this resolution puts us on record for the train wreck in September. We are right on track. We are going to do it all over again this year what we did last year. We could talk about Medicare, Medicaid, and all those issues, social security and education, all the issues that are not dealt with here. But this budget resolution contains $100 billion more in cuts. We did not do that last year, we added, and we are heading right down the same track. I know people's eyes kind of glaze over when we talk about the budget resolution. What is this? This is an outline for what is going to happen in this country in this Congress. One of the issues on $1.9 trillion, that is a figure that is sort of out of the reach of most of us, but let us just take one issue. That is the issue of pharmaceutical prescription drugs; how people, how seniors are going to get that paid for. Everybody says it is a good idea. But when we look at this budget resolution, I have brought this chart here because it really points out what is all about this budget resolution. The Democratic proposal was for $40 billion locked in for the drug benefit. The Republican budget says, if the Committee on Ways and Means gets around to it, we could spend up to $40 billion. Which would we rather have, have it locked in, or if they happen to get around to it? Does it require action this year? The Democrats say yes. The Republicans say no. There is no requirement in this budget. The gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) talked about reconciliation and all those fancy words. What that means is that the Committee on Ways and Means must do something, and it is not in this bill. Who is covered? In the Democrats' proposal, every senior citizen is covered. In the Republicans' budget, they have to be poor. So we are going to turn this into a welfare program, it is not a Medicare program. Mr. Speaker, this turns this program, the Republicans', into a welfare program. Senior citizens are not entitled to it, they have to go down and prove at the welfare office that they are poor enough and ask for help, beg for help. What kind of a benefit is that for us to be giving to senior citizens? The Democratic proposal says all seniors are covered. As an American over 65, you are entitled. But the Republicans do not believe in that. The benefit? The Democrats define what people are going to get. What the Republicans say is, here is a little money. Why do you not go out and see if you can buy yourself an insurance policy? The HIAA, the health insurance industry, says that the private insurance market will not sell policies simply for drugs, for pharmaceuticals. They are not going to do it. It is too risky. So the Republicans are giving them the money and saying, okay, folks, go out and find it. But it is not there. They will never find it. This budget resolution is basically a PR document. Pass it on time, we want to get it done, we will all stand up here and say it is the first time in 29 years that we have had a budget resolution, and all the rest, but the fact is that it is a nonsense piece of paper. It is really sort of like Alice in the Looking Glass. The more we look at it, and the reason they ran it through at midnight last night, is because they did not want us to have any time to look at it, because it becomes curiouser and curiouser. I urge Members to vote against this budget resolution.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I urge everyone to vote for this motion to recommit, on the basis of a letter which we got from the Tax Executive Institute of the United States. It is all the corporate executives of the country who said these proposals reflect either a misapprehension of the importance of certainty and predictability to business enterprise and individuals or a disregard for the consequences of terminating the tax structure. They illustrate the folly of making tax policy by sound bite and should be rejected. Former directors of the Internal Revenue Service, both Republicans and Democrats, wrote that this approach does not meet the standards of reasoned and responsible legislation. Now, if it were for only one issue here, I would say that was why we should go back to the committee and add at least one protection for health care. Companies can deduct right now what they spend on health care for their employees. They would lose that here because that is part of the income Tax Code. So that means there would be no incentive for any major company in my district or anybody else's to provide health insurance. Also, individuals would lose the tax deductibility of what they purchased so they would not only lose it from their employer but they would lose it on an individual basis. Then when they went out and paid for it, they would have to pay a sales tax on not only the policy they bought but everything that they bought in the process of having their health care taken care of, including prescription drugs. Yesterday everybody was walking in here saying that the Republicans have come out with their principles about how to provide a prescription drug benefit for the senior citizens in this country who on average spend $2,500 out-of-pocket paying for pharmaceuticals. Now I guess it makes sense to the Republicans to come out here and propose that they are going to slap a $250 tax on every senior citizen when they buy their drugs. Vote for the motion.

Mr. McDERMOTT

Mr. McDERMOTT. We have got to take this seriously, do we not? These guys really worry about somehow the money getting away from us, that it is somehow flowing out. They have been in control for 5 years. When they came in, they passed a House rule that said that if you are going to do anything with taxes, it took a two-thirds vote, a three-fifths vote or whatever it was. It did not make any difference, because every time it came up, they waived the rule. They waived their own rule. They said it is going to take this much to pass any tax increase. But whenever they wanted to do it, they waived the rule and said we will do it with a majority. They did it so many times in the first session, the first 2 years they were in power, that the next time they came in, they said, well, let us revise the rule and make it really meaningless so that it only affects two or three little parts of the code. That way we can put any tax increase we want over here by a majority rule and in all the rest of the Tax Code. We protected these couple over here. They could not even comply with that in a bill that the President vetoed last year. This is not a serious event. As I said yesterday, what you really need to do is figure out looking at the calendar what holy day is it or what saint's day is it or what holiday is it or what important day is it for Americans and you will figure out what the Republicans are going to bring out on the floor. When it was St. Valentine's Day, we brought out the valentine for everybody, the marriage tax penalty bill passed here; and everybody got a valentine from the House of Representatives. It has not passed the Senate. It is probably going to pass maybe sometime in the future, but nothing has happened to it since. We have not heard a word about it. Now we are down to tax day. We get a rash of bills yesterday, the taxpayers' bill of rights, and now we have got this thing out here for a supermajority on raising taxes, because they know people are thinking about filling out their income tax, all of us are doing it; and they know that people are worried or think they are paying too much or whatever, so let us go out there with something that will stir the people up, and we will show them we really care about taxes. But when it gets dark around here and they have to do something, they immediately waive all the rules and slide through stuff all the time. Now, the thing that I keep wondering about, I was looking at my calendar last night trying to figure out what day are they going to bring the Patients' Bill of Rights out here. You have got all the people in this country, all the polls show they want something that passed the House, passed the Senate, been sitting in a conference committee, they want something that puts the control of their health care back in their doctors' and their own hands, not the insurance companies. Any poll you run out there will be 80 percent for doing something about the Patients' Bill of Rights bill. But I cannot figure out what day it is going to be. I thought maybe Fourth of July; that would be freedom from insurance companies. I do not know how they are going to construct this, but they will find a day that that fits. The next question I have is what day are they going to bring out the prescription drug bill for seniors? There must be some day. It would not be Labor Day, I guess. Memorial Day maybe. That is it, Memorial Day. They will come out with it because they will think people want to memorialize old people. I do not know how they are going to do it. If you would not waste so much time on this kind of nonsense and would come out here and deal with the issues that really affect American people, you would be able to get somewhere. But this kind of thing, we will take the vote. As I look around the floor, there are four of us on the floor right now, out of 435. It is a big issue, folks. You can tell how much people really care about this. One hundred of them sign it and they will not even come over and talk about it. I guess they are kind of ashamed of the foolishness of it.

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

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

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I listened to my good friend from Wisconsin, and he is wrong. They have not just done it in election years. They have brought this thing out here every year at this time. This is an annual event. It really is like the sparrows, or swallows. Is it swallows or sparrows?

Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, I have a question. I am on the Committee on Ways and Means with the gentleman, and I do not remember us ever having a hearing on this. I do not remember us ever having a hearing, have us ever come and testify about this. To the best of my knowledge, there has never been a hearing in the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. McDERMOTT. Yes, on this particular amendment.

Mr. McDERMOTT. So when they put the sham together, they do not even bother putting the dressing around it and having a hearing?

Mr. McDERMOTT. That is why we call it a retread. It has been through here, and they are trying to do it again. I think we will see it next year.

Mr. McDERMOTT. We would have to have a two-thirds vote in here to get anything done. We could not do it by the majority vote. A minority of people, 33 percent of the people in this House could stop that from happening. We could never correct that. The gentleman just points out one of a million problems with this. But it is obviously not a serious effort. It is going to go down here very shortly because most people realize that it is just for show. And when the day comes, I believe it will be about the 7th of November, you will wish you spent your time on the floor working on the Patients' Bill of Rights and prescription drugs and financing for schools and a whole raft of other real issues. This is not a real issue. If it were, you would not waive your own rule every time you bring an appropriations act out here. You have broken every single point of order on putting caps on expenditures. Every single one has waived the caps. The ability to constrain spending is in your own hearts; and now you want to come out here and say, well, this is what we do. The Bible says, by your deeds you shall know them. And, in fact, your deeds say this is nonsense. Everyone ought to vote against this.