Jim Moran

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to salute a group of people that have done so much for the people of the Washington Metropolitan area. Food & Friends, an organization dedicated to feeding nutritious meals to homebound people with AIDS, is preparing to celebrate Thanks A Million Day. One week from today, Food & Friends will deliver its one millionth meal. The number of HIV positive and AIDS cases in the Washington area has increased exponentially in just a few years, ranking Washington fifth for the highest number of AIDS cases in the Nation. Fortunately, also on the exponential rise is the determination and capability of the people at Food & Friends. When the group was founded in 1988 it served 30 clients per day. Today 450 area homebound people with AIDS receive 1,350 nutritious meals every day at no cost to Food & Friends clients. Providing physical sustenance is vital to HIV positive people, and people with AIDS. Volunteer visits for their spiritual sustenance are equally important. Food & Friends works alongside other AIDS service programs, including those which offer support groups and legal advice. In addition they provide nutrition, education and counseling services to the HIV community by a trained and licensed dietitian. Food & Friends provides companionship and life sustaining nutrition enhancing their clients quality of life. Mr. Speaker, I am proud to see my constituents, along with the constituents of my metropolitan area colleagues, working side by side to serve this group of people so in need. Whether by volunteering to deliver meals, dedicating professional services, or contributing to the United Way Combined Federal Campaign, our friends have helped to make the lives of Food & Friends clients a little easier. I applaud their work to help the people in their own community, and as I join my metropolitan area colleagues at Thanks A Million Day, I urge you to join us in thanking this wonderful organization for the invaluable service it provides; in essence, food and friends.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to recognize the passing of a constituent of mine, Mr. Frank Acosta. Frank dedicated his life to serving his country and his community. His lifetime of service to the United States, the city of Falls Church and to the greater community of which we are a part demonstrates the tremendous importance of every person who seeks to improve our community. Frank served as a marine in World War II and later as a reporter, Federal employee, member of the school board, citizens' employee review board, and senior citizens' commission; but Frank will be remembered most for his long-term service on the Falls Church Electoral Board. Frank always looked for a way to give something back to his community, and he certainly succeeded. It would be impossible to count the number of lives Frank touched with his tireless dedication to his community. If we could each share just a fraction of the vision that Frank dreamed for his community, the world would be a far better place. I ask my colleagues to take a moment to remember Frank Acosta, and all of the other public servants like Frank who work every day to improve their communities. An article about Frank Acosta follows: [From Falls Church News-Press, Feb. 29, 1996] Falls Church Pillar, Frank Acosta Dies (By Margaret Jones) Frank Acosta's death at age 77 marked the end of a long, distinguished career as journalist and public servant. Native of New York City and graduate of the College of William and Mary, he moved to this area in 1938 and started his journalistic career here as a reporter for the Washington Daily News. A former neighbor recalls that, while working for the Washington Star in 1948, Frank was sent to Donora, PA to cover the first air inversion disaster. For four days, a toxic fog settled over the town, resulting in 20 deaths and the hospitalization of thousands. His coordination of press relations and reportage of this early serious pollution event attracted the notice of the Department of Agriculture which hired him to work on communications in that Department. While engaged in that capacity, Frank became interested in the deterioration of the Potomac River and was instrumental in the filming of a six-part documentary titled ``Our Beautiful Potomac''. This series, according to the same source, did not emphasize gloom and doom but rather put forward ideas on how restoration of the waters might be brought about. Sparked by Frank's vision, this documentatory was shown not only on WRC but also aired nationally. During his long employment with the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in communications and public affairs, he worked to develop a public health system for American Indians and on legislation which resulted in the Emergency Medical Technicians Act of 1975. At the core of Frank Acosta's persona was his thoughtfulness, consideration of others and feeling of responsibility to his fellow man. This started within his immediate and large family and found a natural extension in the community in which he lived. Appointed in December 1995 to the Senior Citizens Commission, he had previously served as a member of the School Board and is perhaps best remembered for his long-time service on the Electoral Board. In that capacity, he served four 3-year terms from 1982 until 1994 and was a member when Debbie Taylor was hired as City Registrar in 1985. From 1987 until 1990 he served as secretary of the Falls Church Citizens Employee Review Board. His wife Elizabeth pre-deceased him in 1994. Because of her literary interests, a memorial fund in her name was established at the Mary Riley Styles Library. The family suggests that, in lieu of flowers, memorial remembrances to Frank Acosta also be sent to the Library to establish a fund in his name. Surviving members of this large and tightly knit family include five children and their families: JoMarie Acosta; Francis T. (Happy) Acosta; Andrew Acosta and Ann Crane and their children Ariel, Marie and David; Elizabeth (Ibby) and Patrick McCauley and their children Hannah Marie Burke and Emily Mitchell; Philip and Jody Acosta and their children Caitlin, Claire and Jake. Also surviving are five sisters; Julie Wiatt, Helen Townsend, Celeste Cooper, Angie McCleskey and Anita Dolan. At Monday's Falls Church City Council meeting, a number of statements in honor of Frank Acosta's memory were made. Ruth Chekov, chair of the Senior Citizens' Commission, said his death ``is like the passing of an era.'' Acosta had served on the Senior Commission last year. Long-time friend Lou Olom said, ``Frank was a stalwart in devotion to the city.'' He was, Olom said, ``as energetic and productive a citizen as this city has had. . . . This city did not just happen, but came about because of the activity of so many citizens like Frank.'' Council member Jane Scully said, ``Frank was an enormously special person,'' and cited his role in the passage of the George Mason school bond referendum. City Manager David Lasso cited Acosta's ``sense of humor, balance and perspective,'' and expressed gratitude for his words of assurance last fall. State Delegate Bob Hull reported that the State Legislature was adjourned in the memory of Frank Acosta on Tuesday.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, the local newspaper of any town is a very important link in the community, from praising the town athlete to reporting the events of the big city, it allows the neighborhood to keep an open communication. It is that communication that maintains the character of the community and loyalty of the residents. Today I rise to applaud one such paper that provides the communication lines of a city in my district, the Falls Church News- Press. The News-Press is celebrating 5 years of service as a definitive link in the community. This paper's commitment to the city of Falls Church is underscored by its many awards and accomplishments. In 1991, it was honored by the Falls Church City Council and named recipient of the Council's Business of the Year. The News-Press helped initiate, and testified on behalf of, legislation passed in the Virginia General Assembly in 1992 that set out criteria for nonpaid distribution newspapers to carry official legal notices. Subsequently, the News-Press became the first newspaper in the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia to receive court authorization to publish official legal notices as a nonpaid distribution newspaper. As a result, the News-Press was the first nonpaid distribution newspaper in the history of the Commonwealth to be accepted as a full, voting member of the Virginia Press Association. The News-Press' owner/editor-in-chief, Nicholas Benton, served 2 years as president of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce and was the recipient of the Chamber's Pillar of the Community Award in 1992. Please join me in wishing the Falls Church News-Press best wishes on their future endeavors.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding this time to me. I thank him for his consistent leadership in opposition to this bill. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, we are at a crossroads in world history, really, and we find ourselves with tremendous responsibility on our shoulders. The whole rest of the world looks to us as the single superpower to lead them to a safer, to a fairer, a more prosperous world, and a world that reflects our principles of democracy, of freedom of expression, of freedom of religion, of respect for human rights, and three principal instruments that we have available to use to achieve these objectives are the Agency for International Development, U.S. Information Agency, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The Agency for International Development has, in fact, developed quite a pool of unspent money, as was cited earlier, but they have done that because they also want to use that agency for leverage, to get recipients to respect human rights, to respect the democratic process, to develop economically without exploiting the people. They Agency for International Development, in fact, generates far more profit revenue for American firms than we would ever invest in AID. What they are doing is developing the purchasing capability, particularly in Third World countries, that present market opportunities for American firms. They are streamlined, they are focused, they are a good agency. The U.S. Information Agency represents the opportunity to spread truth, which oftentimes is that it makes the difference between genocide and peaceful resolution of problems. We need more truth, unbiased truth. If we had more of it in Bosnia or in Rwanda, we might well not have had the genocide that happened. We need to be putting more investment in the U.S. Information Agency because it deserves credibility, and at a time when we see the proliferation of nuclear weapons and chemicals, biological weapons of mass destruction, why would we ever think of cutting back on the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency? So if we want a safer, a more productive, a fairer world that reflects our principles of democracy and freedom of expression, then we want to vote against this bill, and, if anything, we want to strengthen these three agencies. This is not a good bill; this is an isolationist bill. We ought to be moving forward and accepting the mantle of leadership that is thrust upon us now. It is a great opportunity. Let us not miss it.

Mr. MORAN

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

Mr. MORAN. I thank the gentleman very much. It is a gateway to the city. I appreciate the clarification. I thank the chairman.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman very much. I'm going to try to make this as quick as possible because it is a distraction from the major issues we have been discussing. But back in 1988, in the Interior Appropriations Committee report, we required that an environmental impact statement be done of an interchange just on the George Washington Memorial Parkway just south of National Airport. This EIS was done, and the report also said it would be shielded from subsequent judicial review. The fact is they did not build the interchange. Now they want to do a small thing, a right in, right out access to the land undeveloped by the parkway. The only question we want to clarify, Mr. Chairman, is: Is it your understanding that the language that was in the original 1988 Interior Appropriations Committee would likewise protect any subsequent judicial review if they do a supplemental EIS, or an environmental assessment?

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Rangel]. (Mr. RANGEL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, from a political standpoint, this makes compelling sense, but from a substantive foreign policy standpoint, it is nonsense. Mr. Speaker, this is not the way we won the cold war. This is not the way we tore down the Iron Curtain. We are going to be punishing the Cuban people, when what we really want to do is punish an antiquated despot. But there are worse things about this that need to be brought to light. In the Baltimore Sun last May, it was reported that this bill was largely written by Nick Gutierrez, who represents the sugar mill owners and the tobacco industry, and Mr. Ignacio Sanchez, who represents the Barcardi Rum Co. Their competitors operate in Cuba, specifically the British American Tobacco Co. [BAT] and Perrot Ricard rum distillery. What is going to happen here is we are not going to shut down these industries. What is going to happen is these Cuban-American lawyers are going to make settlements out of court so they can get equity participation in these competitor firms. Now, in the first place, the bill limits legal recourse in American courts to people who had property in Cuba during the Batista dictatorship that was valued over $50,000 in 1960. There were not many Cubans who had property worth more than $50,000 back in 1960 before the revolution. You had to be a member of the Batista regime and in good standing to do so. But what this does is to enable people who owned large property to be able to settle out of court to get a large share, or at least a significant share, of the profits of these rum companies and tobacco firms currently operating in Cuba. They know they are not going to shut down these plants. They don't necessarily want to shut them down. They want to own them. They know it is cheaper for these Cuban operations to make an out-of-court settlement to comply with this new bill. In fact this bill specifically states that ``a lawsuit may be brought and settled without the necessity of obtaining any license or permission from any agency of the United States.'' That is what this is all about. What we are going to be doing is propping up many of the people who created the environment which caused Castro to be able to bring forth the revolution and has enabled him to sustain that revolution. That is not what we want. We want to enact legislation that will help the real people of Cuba, the butchers and the bakers and the candlestick makers and all the laborers and farmers. The people who were brutally exploited by the Batista regime. Those are the people we ought to help, and those people are excluded from this legislation. This legislation prevents the United States President from effectively helping in a transition to democracy and shuts out America's values and its people from exposure to the Cuban people and their thirst for the same principles and values. This is not good foreign policy. It ought to be defeated on its merits.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Serrano]. (Mr. SERRANO asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, today, I am introducing legislation that indexes Federal annuities for inflation at the time the employees separates. Currently, if an employee leaves the Federal service before retirement he has the option of taking his pension contributions back in a lump sum or keeping them in the retirement trust fund. If he leaves the contributions in, he will receive an annuity when he turns 62. If he takes them out, he can reinvest them in an IRA. It would be more beneficial for the employee and the Government if the employee left his contributions in the retirement system and earned an annuity at 62. The current system, however, does not encourage the employee to leave the contributions in since the annuity is not indexed for inflation. Thus if an employee with 20 years of service leaves the Government to take another job at age 45, he has the option of taking his money out of the trust fund, the 7 percent of his salary that he contributed over the past 20 years, or leaving the money in the trust fund and receiving his earned annuity when he turns 62, 36 percent of the average of highest 3 years of salary. Since the annuity is not indexed, there is no reason to leave the money in. If the high three averages $50,000, in the above case, the annuity would be $17,000 at separation. But after 17 years of average inflation, this $17,000 would have the spending power of only about $9,000. Under the legislation I am introducing today, an annuity of $17,000 would maintain the spending power of $17,000. The proposal would break the ``golden handcuffs'' that keep older Federal employees in the civil service. Since the old Civil Service Retirement pension is not transferable, older employees with significant years of service cannot afford to leave the civil service. If they did, they would have to enter a new pension service and begin saving for retirement anew. They would not have the years of investment in Social Security or a 401(k) to rely on. So they stay in the civil service. FERS was created specifically to address this portability problem but it is not enough. Currently, approximately 50 percent of the Federal work force is in FERS. Those who are not are the older employees we want to leave. Under this legislation, older CSRS employees can leave the Federal Government and take a job elsewhere because they will not lose their pension. While they will not continue to accrue CSRS benefits, they will have earned a decent retirement income on which they could rely. The proposal will help Federal downsizing and reorganization efforts by allowing older employees to leave. The proposal would also save money for the Federal Government. If the employee leaves his annuity in the trust fund, there is no outlay from the Federal Government when the employee separates. The immediate savings are significant. The CBO estimates that this proposal would save more than $3 billion over 7 years. This is the only provision that will effectively reduce the Federal work force without RIF's. Buyouts are only an option if the employee is close to retirement or already retirement eligible. They do not pare the work force as much as push out those who can already leave. For those Federal employees 40 and over, they are not an option. These employees, however, can find good opportunities outside the Federal work force because they are the most hirable. They do not leave, however, because they will lose the 15 or more years they have invested in the Civil Service Retirement System.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my gratitude for the noteworthy accomplishments achieved by Secretary Jesse Brown on behalf of the veterans of this great Nation. Since his selection as the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, the women and men who served our country have had a knowledgeable and responsive supporter in that post. Among some of Secretary Brown's greatest accomplishments are: The creation of new clinics allowing veterans more access to VA health care. Assistance to one and a half million veterans with employment services in a joint venture with the Department of Labor to increase the number of veterans hired in the Federal Government. The expansion of programs for homeless veterans by doubling the resources dedicated to these initiatives, and the institution of a grant program to assist public and non-profit organizations in assisting homeless veterans. A more complete accounting on the register of Vietnam veterans' diseases for which services-connected compensation is awarded based on exposure to herbicide agents. The expansion and great improvement in health care services for those combat veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The increased attention given to the needs of women veterans including mammography quality control and counseling, and medical programs for women veterans who suffer the after-effects of service- related sexual trauma. The establishment of a home refinancing program that enables veterans to obtain lower home loan rates, thus saving an average of $1,500 a year. There are about 70,000 veterans in the Eighth Congressional District of Virginia, so I am very concerned about the service these individuals receive. Even with such a large number of veterans' needs to be processed from just northern Virginia, the VA procedures are exceptional. The VA under Secretary Brown has worked so well, in fact, that my need for inquiries has declined from several cases a month to several cases a year. Secretary Brown's initiative to improve services to veterans also saved money through streamlining, privatizing or consolidating activities. I could not ask for better support for those who served this country. While Secretary Brown's promotion of a decent budget to support these benefits has frequently been rebuffed, the services his Department provides shows his steadfast commitment to our Nation's veterans and their families. We should not forget the responsibility this Nation has to our service members and their survivors. Budgets and associated dollars cannot replace the sacrifices these veterans have made. As a combat veteran himself, Secretary Brown has walked the walk. He has ensured that VA benefits and the health care system are efficient and support our veterans. He is a true American, a friend, and a great man.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday about two dozen Republican Members of the House Government Operations Committee told the former members of the travel office how mortified they were, how terrible they felt that they had lost their jobs. Of course, all of them but Mr. Dale have gotten other jobs. Mr. Dale has some serious management problems and some indictable offenses that he is dealing with. But none of these Members raised a pique when 11 people who worked for the Clerk's office were fired before Christmas. One guy had four little children. They do not care what happened to him. Mr. Speaker, they were given no justification; just fired so that the House management would not have to pay for the comp time those people had earned by working late hours. That is why. Because we voted to apply private sector laws to the Congress. Because we did, they did not want it to apply to them and so they fired them before Christmas. But, Mr. Speaker, not one peep in their defense. Not one peep. What hypocrisy.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much. In fact, President Reagan, rightfully so, said that any President who cannot submit a balanced budget ought to be impeached, and he never submitted a balanced budget. The problem with this plan that we have before us is that it increases the deficit in the first year. In the first 3 years there is virtually no reduction in the deficit. The last 3 years, we reduce it every year. So we cannot support one that is fiscally responsible, but we ought to have a balanced budget that is fiscally responsible.

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, the Kendall School which is the predecessor of Gallaudet University for the Deaf, has been fully funded by the Federal Government since 1858. But because we did not do our job today, it will close down, and those deaf children in kindergarten through elementary school and high school will have to be sent home because we did not do our job. The East Coast Migrant Head Start Program just called the office. Those children who are infants and small children, who have to be in school because both of their parents are working out in the fields, that program will be closed down because it is fully funded by the Federal Government. What are those children going to do? What are their parents going to do who have to be working in the fields? We have not done our job, so we have to have a continuing resolution, a full continuing resolution. Obviously, it should not be tied to a 7-year balanced budget plan. The majority leader of the Senate, Senator Dole understood that. All we had to do was take his bill and everything would be all set now; we would have done our job. But because we have extremists who say our way or no way, we have not done our jobs. We have no business recessing until we do it. Now, I am going to vote for this resolution, and the reason is that I do not think it is such a problem to have a 7-year balanced budget, even using CBO numbers, because that is not the problem. I think the President is going to submit a balanced 7-year plan with CBO numbers. But it is not going to be one that the Republican side will accept, because it will not gut the Medicare Program, it will not dismantle the Medicaid Program. It will not cut student loans.

Mr. MORAN. If you will give me an extra 30 seconds to make my point, I would be happy to. I will continue, because there may be other points that the gentleman may wish to respond to. I understand what the gentleman is going to say, that you do not have to accept it, and that is why I am going to vote for the resolution, because that is not the problem. When the President submits it, he is not going to sacrifice Medicare and Medicaid and student loans and environmental regulation, because you do not have to; because you do not have to cut taxes by $245 billion or $200 billion or even $100 billion, and we should not. Businesses do not pay out dividends when they are operating at a loss, and we should not cut taxes when we are operating at a deficit. If we are at a surplus and we can afford to, we can go ahead and do it. We cannot now. That is why we are in the situation we are in now. It was President Reagan's tax cut in 1981 that created the debt that we are burdened with. That is why we are here, we are stuck, why the Government is shut down. If it was not for the interest on the debt that was accumulated by the 1981 tax cut, we would be in a surplus today.

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

Mr. MORAN. I understand that, I say to the gentleman that I do not think that is the problem. That is why I am going to vote for this resolution, because the issue is not a 7-year balanced budget; the issue is how you get there, whether you cut taxes when you cannot afford to, and what we do to people dependent upon Medicare and Medicaid and student loans. That is the issue. We ought to clarify the issue. I think that issue ought to be a national referendum. But in terms of submitting the budget, I think that will be done, I think it should be done, and I think that the Democrats will support that.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I can understand why all the Members of this body would like to go on recess. It has been along, frustrating year. Virtually nothing has been accomplished, with all the rhetoric and all, lots of attention. But we ought not go home until we do our job. The fact is that while Federal employees are no longer held hostage, they are still going to be held under house arrest. They will be paid, they will have their own personal needs taken care of, but they are locked in their offices. They cannot perform their work, because the money necessary to perform the work of the Federal Government is not provided for in this legislation. So we have not done our job. That was our job, to provide the money, in addition to authorizing the programs, and we have not done our job. Until we do, we have no business going home. The last time that the Republican majority overrode the will of the Democratic minority and vetoed to go home for the holidays, we created a situation where we will now, as a result of the last bill that was just passed, pay $1.75 billion to Federal employees for not performing any work. They did not want that. They wanted to be doing their job. But $1.75 billion will be paid out to civil servants who are miserable, who are frustrated, who want to serve the public, who chose a career in civil service, and now we think we can buy them off, essentially bribe them apparently to keep quiet. We will give you pay, but just go sit in your office. We do not want you performing your job. We ought not do that. We have no business going home until we have done our job. Vote against the resolution.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for yielding to me, but more importantly for her continuing commitment to educate not just her constituents but this great Nation on what issues are at stake here, why we have come to this crisis. It is a contrived crisis in terms of the Government shutdown. But the American people need to understand why the President cannot in good conscience accept the Republican 7-year plan, as the gentlewoman from Connecticut and the gentleman from New Jersey have continually emphasized he cannot. I do not think any President could in good conscience, knowing that it only takes $90 billion to make the Medicare Program solvent, cut the Medicare Program by $270 billion so that you can take $180 billion and pay it out in tax cut for the most affluent Americans. In my State of Virginia, only 3.7 percent of the entire population of the State of Virginia would get the majority of those tax breaks. Now, they may all live in my district, but the point is, even so, it is wrong, and we do not want him to accept such a substantial cut in a high-priority national program in order to make the kinds of tax cuts that put us in this situation in the first place. If it were not for those tax cuts in 1981, we would be in a surplus today, and, in fact, we probably would not even have a Federal debt. It is the interest we are paying on the debt incurred during the Reagan administration alone, just that debt, the interest on that debt is greater than the deficit today, which means if it were not for the debt incurred primarily because of those 1981 tax cuts, we would have a surplus budget today. So let us understand where this problem originated, and here we are, deja vu. We are going to do the same thing all over again. We are going to start out with tax cuts that are politically popular, and then, now, the Republicans are promising, ``Well, we are not going to do that, just tax cuts. We are going to cut your programs.'' Wait and see. The President cannot in good conscience accept such a dramatic cut in a program like Medicare when two-thirds of the cut goes into tax cuts. But it is not just dollars and cents, as the gentlewoman and gentleman have been emphasizing night after night. We know that about 60 percent of the Medicare population only cost the system about $500 a year. Ninety percent of Medicare beneficiaries cost the Medicare Program less than $1,300 a year. The Republican plan, and they are absolutely right, it does increase each year, it starts by giving vouchers of about $4,800 a year and goes up to about $6,800. But think of this: If 90 percent of your population is only going to cost about $1,300 and you are getting a voucher of $4,800, there is a tremendous profit to be made. How? By avoiding the 10 percent who cost the system $29,000 a year. And the reason the President cannot accept this Medicare plan is not just the cuts that go into tax breaks but it restructures the program. It tears down a fundamental concept, what we think is an American principle. It is called community rating. That is the technical term. But what it says is we are all in this together. Those 10 percent of the people that cost the system $29,000 in a year, they could be any of our parents or grandparents. We do not know who it is going to be. But if somebody has to have that help to stay alive, has to have that expensive treatment, the American people feel that it is the right thing to meet that need. That is community rating, and if somebody needs it, then the money will be there. That is what insurance is supposed to be all about. But when you turn it over, when you privatize it, when you turn it over to managed care, what it will do is to set all of these various insurance companies who have as their motive profit, the Medicare program costs about 1.2 percent in administrative costs, and managed care companies, and many of them are wonderful, but their average profit was about 20 percent last year. Twenty percent of the premium goes into profit. They are going to go out, their bottom line being profit, and they are going to target this 90 percent of the Medicare program that will not cost them much to provide care for, and they are going to make a tremendous profit. In fact, in the 15 States where we did test cases, very interesting, it cost the Medicare program more money because by managed care companies going in, targeting this population, making it very difficult for anybody that is really sick or infirm to go in to many of the managed care plans, they stay in fee-for-service. And they wind up segmenting the population, and that 10 percent winds up being really dependent upon public hospitals at a much greater expense. That is what is going to happen under this program. That 10 percent is not going to get the care they need. In fact, they are going to pay astronomical costs eventually in out-of-pocket expenses for care that they desperately need. That is what it is all about. The medical savings accounts that we hear so much about, it is touted so much, and, of course, just follow the money trail. We know why it got into the bill in the first place: because of all the substantial donations to GOPAC and so on. But the point is that last year the principal insurance company that offers medical savings accounts, of the insurance premiums that they received, 40 percent went for profit. Only 60 percent of the premiums they received went for medical care. So now we want to turn this over to a national program where 40 percent of the premiums the American people pay are going to go into corporate profit instead of medical care? No. We cannot allow it to be done. And that is what is happening. That is why the President cannot accept it. Just quickly on Medicaid, that may be a worse situation. In Medicaid, the Governor of Virginia was one of the Governors, Republican Governors, who wrote a letter asking that onerous provisions be removed from the Medicaid program. What were the onerous provisions? Spousal impoverishment protection and the regulations that were passed during the Reagan administration. The spousal impoverishment provision, which says that if your spouse is in a nursing home, then the State cannot go and seize your home and your automobile and all of your assets, that has been weakened by this bill. So, now, every spouse that has a spouse in a nursing home is threatened with not being able to hold on to their home and their assets. What President Reagan did was to protect them up to at least $14,000 of assets. Gone. And the other thing that the Republican Governors are so insistent about they do not want the regulations that were put in in 1987 in the light of unbelievable abuses in nursing homes where people were living in squalor, where they were strapped down, where they were drugged so they could not even talk, so that you would not have to provide for them, because when you do provide for them, when you do not drug them, when you do not strap them down in bed, then it requires a lot more personnel. Personnel are expensive. If the States are on their own, they are going to be able to fire these personnel and go back to the old days of treating people without dignity, without respect, in inhumane ways. That is what we are afraid of. That is why we do not want the President to accept what we call structural changes. They are profound changes. They are threats to the entire concept, all the values that we have established throughout our generation, for the last 50 years, based upon the principle that everyone deserves respect, dignity, everybody has an opportunity to live out their lives with some concern, some care, and their family, even if they cannot afford it, to be able to be sure that their loved one is not going to be abused. That is what we are talking about: abused, exploited, and treated without human dignity. We cannot allow this country to go back to the inhumane conditions that gave rise to these protections. That would be eviscerated in this bill. It is wrong. The President cannot in good conscience accept it. Those are some of the reasons why we are in the situation we are in, and they are reasons why the President cannot yield. What we have to do is go back to the way we have always done things in the past, get a continuing resolution, an interim spending bill, let the Government function, try to work things out. Then, if it comes to it, let next November be a national referendum on such profound issues. I thank the gentlewoman from Connecticut for giving me the opportunity to spend some time with you.

Mr. MORAN. If the gentlewoman would yield for just a moment for a response, it is also true that there will no longer be any guarantee that everyone be treated at least equally within the State. The Governor can discriminate geographically, demographically, any way they want. It really does come down to the concept of community where we all care about our neighbors versus the concept of survival of the fittest. This debate is instructive, important, and we ought to have it. Some people would say ``Look, if I am young and healthy, I should not have to support old and sick people. That is not my responsibility. I am on my own.'' That is a fair, legitimate point of view. And people in this country ought to make that determination, what this country is all about. Others would say if we can afford to as a Government, then everyone has the right to live in some manner of dignity, with some basic minimal standards of respect and care, because we do not know when we are going to become impoverished, become sick, become dependent upon others. Now, the American people ought to make these kinds of choices between the concept of community and the concept of survival of the fittest. But it ought to be done in a knowledgeable way, it ought to be a national referendum. That election is 1994, where you had less than 40 percent of the people vote, certainly was not a mandate to eviscerate, to cast aside the concept of community that has guided this country and made it the greatest country in the world at the greatest time ever to live in the United States of America. There was no mandate given to do that. Now, if the American people want to give that kind of a mandate next November, they will have an opportunity to decide. But that is how this ought to be decided, as a national referendum, not by holding Federal employees hostage and by these kinds of tactics of terrorism that we are seeing played out on the floor of this House day after day.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we ended the first session of the Republican revolutionary Congress. We heard from a lot of folks that are typical of revolutionaries, full of self-righteous zeal, people who firmly believe that the end justifies the means, people who are almost wholly intolerant of other people's point of view. But let us look inside that first session of the last Congress to see what it actually accomplished. When we do, we have to come to the conclusion that yesterday marked the last day of the least productive, most destructive session of Congress in our Nation's history. Despite all of the promises, all of the rhetoric, we have virtually nothing to show for it. I will not go into all the quotes from the various commentators and news sources and experts from both Republican and conservative think tanks alike. They all concur. Loads of rhetoric, loads of promises, virtually no performance. I do not have a fancy chart. I have just a little Xerox copy that tracks the bills from previous sessions of Congress. It used to be that we enacted about 450 bills a year. The last time the Republicans controlled Congress, it dropped to 250 bills. Then it goes along until this last session of the Congress we ended yesterday, and it drops off the cliff. It looks like the 1929 stock market crash. There is only one bill really in that whole Contract With America that has actually been fully enacted called the Congressional Accountability Act. Do you know what? That bill was passed by the previous Democratic Congress. It was held up by the Republicans in the Senate. So we passed it again. This time it got through the Senate and signed by the President. There have been two other bills, the Unfunded Mandate Act and Paperwork Reduction, both of which the President wanted. So that is what we have to show for it. One of those promises that was made in the Contract With America, if the Republican leadership had kept it, we never would be in this position. It would not be the most destructive Congress in our Nation's history. If the Congress had made good on their promise in the Contract With America to pass a line-item veto, the President today would have been able to delete all those extraneous ideological, inappropriate, nongermane provisions in the appropriation bills that have been sent to him. He could clean up the mess, clean up those appropriation bills, enact them and we would be finished with this. Every one of them could have been enacted. Of course, they would not have been enacted in time. After 10 months of wrangling, almost exclusively between the Republicans in the Senate and the Republicans in the House, we were marginalized. They could not agree among themselves. By the end of the last fiscal year and the beginning of this fiscal year, when those appropriation bills had to be enacted, one had been sent to the President. Do you know which one it was? It was the legislative branch appropriations bill to fund the Congress itself. Thank God President Clinton vetoed it. Imagine if we were the only ones who were funded; none of the rest of the Government but we have taken care of ourselves. That line-item veto, which was promised in the context of so much rhetoric, is tied up in a conference between the Republicans in the Senate and the Republicans in the House. Let us move it out of conference. Send it to the President. The President could take it. Clean up the appropriation bills. We could open up the Government and get back down to the business of governing. That is what we ought to do. Instead, we are stuck with a new session of Congress that again will be the least productive, most destructive session of Congress in our Nation's history.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, the fact is that while Meals on Wheels are being delivered now, they will not if we do not pass the Dole continuing spending bill. Mr. Speaker, politics is the art of compromise. Politics should not be the tactics of terrorism. Terrorism is when you take innocent hostages, punish them to achieve an objective that you cannot otherwise achieve through legal and democratic processes. Federal employees, public civil servants, are being taken hostage, are being punished through no fault of their own, only because they choose to serve the American public and the American civil service. They are being punished, some having to work without pay, others being locked out of their jobs, being told it is illegal even to volunteer. Now, three-quarters of a million Federal employees will not be able to pay for their rent, will not be able to even provide food for their families. It is wrong. Shame on this body.

Mr. MORAN

Mr. MORAN. I do, Mr. Speaker, and I would like to address the issue of this motion relating to the integrity of this House. To do so, I would like to quote initially today's Congressional Record, specifically the majority leader of the Senate, Senator Dole. Senator Dole, I quote, says, Let me just say I read a wire story, there's a split between the House and the Senate on what ought to happen. I do not get that feeling at all in talking with the Speaker. In fact, we just had a 30-minute meeting.