John Olver

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs], an amendment which would lift the cap on family planning services requiring that no more than 65 percent of fiscal 1996 funding should be available in fiscal 1997. Mr. Chairman, I wish to associate myself at this point, without the whole repetition, with the reasons which have been enumerated by the gentleman from Colorado, the gentlewoman from New York, and the gentlewoman from Kansas in her comments just completed. Mr. Chairman, I want to extend a little here and say that I commend this bill's commitment to the Middle East peace process, the whole of the legislation; but its approach to the rest of the world is, it seems to me, simply bad policy. The legislation provides strong support for Israel and the peace partners in the process of Arab-Israeli reconciliation as it moves forward, and I support the financing levels for Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and Egypt, and the President supports those amounts as well. Mr. Chairman, after nearly 2 decades of progress, where American leadership has been so critical following the Camp David Accords, we must continue our commitment as Israel faces a period of transition under new leadership. But while our commitment to the Middle East must endure, so should our leadership and support in other regions of the world. This legislation cuts aid to the new democracies in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in an area where we were willing to spend $40 billion per year to conduct the Cold War, but we are now cutting deeply into the only $600 million or so that helps those new nations build their economies and democracies. Six hundred million is only a little bit more than 1 percent of what we were willing to spend year in and year out, 1 percent year in and year out, of the $40 billion that we were spending to keep the conduct of the Cold War going. The bill, in its total, slashes support for global environmental maintenance, weakening the fight against degradation of our common oceans and our common atmosphere. This bill totally eliminates financing for the African Development Bank, and it severely cuts financing for international family planning, cutting 35 percent from last year's level, which is, of course, the subject of the amendment that we are considering at the moment; and among which provisions, in constraining international family planning, among those provisions are those which, in the words of the gentlewoman from Kansas who just completed speaking, are completely outrageous. This is shortsighted and I think flat out wrong. We really cannot afford to turn a blind eye on global problems of population growth and poverty and environmental degradation. Mr. Chairman, I very much support and hope that we will support the amendment offered by the gentleman from Colorado [Mr. Skaggs].

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I am rising today in support of the amendment which the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Lofgren] has offered on this underlying bill which allows the EPA to continue their work on the climate change action plan. But I would like to just comment for a moment on the comments by the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker], who is arguing here in his previous set of comments that all they are really doing is eliminating the consideration of the global climate change action plan from any involvement in EPA, that there are at least 11 other places in the budget where global climate change is covered in some way by research. But it seems to me that the one perhaps most significant and most coherent locus of that research is right here under the EPA, which has a responsibility given to it by the Congress to deal with global climate change in the climate change action plan. So for that reason at least, if we were going to be doing anything, we ought to be concentrating in this area where the Environmental Protection Agency has the responsibility given to it by Congress to deal with the climate change action plan. Now, the amendment of the gentlewoman from California corrects what I think is a serious wrong-headedness of the Republican budget ax. Her amendment allows the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, to meet the responsibilities which have been rightfully assigned to it by the Congress. Climate research has far-reaching implications for environmental protection, and this Congress has a responsibility to recognize the need for such research into our local as well as our global environment. But once again the majority has demonstrated their carelessness and insensitivity where broad issues of environmental protection are concerned. Mr. Chairman, in the wake of what has been a record-breaking winter and then the current crowd that, if sustained, could create a sand dune desert the size of the great State of Texas covering much of the southern high plains of this country, it seems to me it is preposterous for this Congress to turn its back on understanding climate change. During the 104th Congress I have heard much about cost-benefit analysis. Apparently, some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a problem with the analysis part of that cost-benefit analysis. But you do have to have data in order to do analysis. Whether you agree or disagree with the concept of global warming, let us at least be willing to gather the data so that our debate in this body grows from knowledge rather than from ignorance. Sound policy requires us to incorporate sound scientific research and reasoning in order to have any kind of semblance of sound policy. It seems to me the truth is out there and we should not be running from it, we should be, if anything, concentrating our global climate change action in the EPA, which is charged with environmental protection, because it is a matter of greatest possible significance to us in climate change for what our environment is going to be in the future. So I would hope that we would adopt the amendment by the gentlewoman from California and strike that little clause in paragraph 2, the words climate change action plan.

Mr. OLVER. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, as a matter of fact, it is not that we are specifically putting money back into the program, but merely removing the language that requires that no money be authorized for the Global Climate Change Action Plan. I would hope that the amendment by the gentlewoman from California would be adopted.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, the cold war is over, a fact which has changed our economy, so that civilian research is key to meeting our challenges under the new economy. We should be working to develop new technologies that will provide new opportunities to high-tech workers in civilian industries. And though the cold war may be over, the technological war has just begun. America should be on the verge of a new technological frontier and making certain that we maintain our preeminence in both science and technology in this world. Yes, we have a budget deficit. Yes, we should eliminate waste. Yes, we should be extremely careful in how we expend every dollar that is spent, but the Brown substitute is in line with a balanced budget without retreating from scientific and technological excellence in this country. The underlying bill, I believe, is irresponsible as a scientist, and America deserves better. Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support the substitute from the gentleman from California.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the substitute which has been offered by the gentleman from California. Mr. Chairman, the underlying bill, which has been offered by the Committee on Science, the so-called Walker bill, I believe is a direct attack on America's investment in the future. The business, academic, and scientific communities all ought to be outraged by the legislation in the form that it has been offered. It does not take much of a look at this bill, Mr. Chairman, to see that it is the Brown substitute that is in the best interest of continued economic growth. We hear so much talk on the other side of the aisle how cutting taxes for the wealthy will lead to job growth, meanwhile this bill pulls the rug out from under the efforts to create whole new industries. One minute our Republican colleagues insist that we do away with regulations that supposedly stand in the way of job growth and the next minute they are cutting opportunities for new high paying jobs. Civilian R&D, in my view, has been over the years, and will continue to be, about a lot more than just jobs, just the jobs that are involved in the research itself. The new technologies that offer potential from that R&D include: More effective law enforcement; the reduction of environmental pollution; efficient environmental cleanups; increased national security; and more disposable income that we, as Americans, need from the savings that can be made through energy conservation. That is naming a very few of those available. Civilian R&D is probably the best way of ensuring that America remains competitive in the global economy, yet the underlying bill here, the Walker bill, reduces our chance to remain preeminent in science and technology, a preeminence which testifier after testifier said we were in danger of losing if we did not keep up our input and our commitment to our research base. What we will end up with here is the need to import those new technologies from elsewhere if we lose the preeminence that we have had over a long period of time and our trade imbalance will now become a trade imbalance on the very thing that we have been the leaders on over decades, ever since the Second World War, really, in those areas of the development of new technologies and the wonderful research and development programs that we have maintained in this country over a period of at least 50 years. Mr. Chairman, I think it is irresponsible and shortsighted for the Congress to cut funding for energy conservation and to cut funding for renewable energy research. It is a wipeout of the funding for energy conservation research and a wipeout of the research into renewable energy sources. This bill erases any semblance of a national energy policy. Gone. Simply gone. Nonexistent with this legislation. Mr. Chairman, I do not think that is the way we should be preparing for the 21st century, as critical as the use of energy is in this whole society of ours. Now, we are hearing a lot of rhetoric on the other side about defending basic research. In the underlying bill the Republican proposals are seriously less supportive of basic research than the substitute from the gentleman, the ranking member, the gentleman from California. The Republican explanations, which claim a more generous level for basic research funding, are based on an arbitrary classification of basic versus applied definitions, which we can all argue about, but it is an arbitrary definition which is not the definition of the standard classification as has been used by the OMB and which is also the classification used in all of the historical data for baseline comparisons on Federal investments in research. For the NSF, which has been our premier basic research agency, support agency for everything but the biomedical sciences, the substitute bill by the gentleman from California provides growth of at least $70 million more than the underlying bill. For research project support, the difference in growth is $82 million greater on the part of the Brown substitute than from the underlying bill. Mr. Chairman, these differences stand out in light of the many times we have heard Republican claims about the high priority that they place on basic research in the Federal R&D budget.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the amendment. Mr. Speaker, Americans have spoken loud and clear: 80 percent of them say raise the minimum wage. Raise it now. And make it a clean, uncomplicated vote. But, the Republican leadership finally found a way to frustrate the wishes of 80 percent of the people. This amendment is a laundry list designed to exclude millions of Americans from receiving a deserved wage increase. It won't apply to restaurant employees. It won't apply to anyone under age 20 during the first 90 days of a new job. It won't apply to employees of small businesses that do interstate business. And it won't apply to many high-technology employees eligible for overtime pay. A raise in the minimum wage is supposed to benefit all workers. It is supposed to help low-income employees provide for themselves and their families. It is not supposed to exclude millions from the increase they desperately need. Under this Republican amendment, special interests are the sole beneficiaries. And it is the worker and her family that are being hurt again.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, the President's budget is not perfect, but the President's budget does prove that we can balance the budget in 6 years without extreme cuts in health care and education and housing and law enforcement and environmental protection. But while those extreme proposals get most of the attention, I would like to point out to other areas of the extremist Republican budget that have at least as many bad implications for our future, and those areas are scientific research and development and our public transportation. The Committee on the Budget plan cuts civilian science by $l5 billion over 6 years. It phases research and solar and renewable energy way down and wipes out energy conservation and research in fossil energy efficiencies. It eliminates technology partnerships with businesses, including advanced technology development and manufacturing extension. Now, these are the very investments that create high-paying jobs to grow our economy while protecting our environment and quality of life. Now, public transportation gets people to jobs and to their medical appointments while conserving energy and protecting the environment. Completely missing the interconnection between public transportation and our energy and environmental security needs, the Republican budget slashes support for transportation systems that are used in every urban community, large and small, all over America. What kind of future will those policies leave us? Well, a bleak future at best. So we should reject the Committee on the Budget's renewal of extremist proposals and adopt instead the President's budget as a far better investment in our future, and I urge all my colleagues to support the President's sensible priorities.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, the Republicans have insisted once again on enormous unrequested increases in defense spending in their budget. To do it, they are taking billions of dollars from discretionary accounts, thereby killing investments that are critical in a whole series of areas. Let me mention just three of those countless areas. First, the Republican budget wipes out energy conservation and efficiency research, and stops the further development of solar and renewable energy sources, all of which are going to be necessary if this country is going to achieve energy independence from foreign sources, and all of which would be part of creating new jobs for American workers trying to compete in an international market. Second, this budget phases out our commitment to public transportation, which is critical to take people to their jobs, to their doctors, to recreation, all of which are investments in the construction, in the operation, of the buses that move people in urban areas, large and small, large communities and small communities, all over this country. No. 3, it turns its back on young people and the investment in those young people seeking an education by eliminating direct student loans and national service scholarships. Such extremism, Mr. Chairman, is not necessary to balance the budget. We can do a better job, and we should go back to the drawing board and get it right.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding me time. Mr. Chairman, the debate today truly is about the future of all of our children. This budget resolution is a repeat of many of the extreme proposals from last year. Just look at the 1980's and the deficits that gave us our current $5 trillion debt. Fiscal year 1982 was the pivotal year; a huge tax cut, assurances of future spending cuts, and our Nation's very first more than $100 billion deficit. From there the deficit exploded. It was exceeding $200 billion 3 of the next 4 years. When you begin a budget balancing plan with a big tax cut, you invite failure. They deliberately created the illusion of the necessity of extreme cuts from health care, from education, from job training, from environmental protection, from transportation, extreme cuts that Americans have said very clearly that they do not want. Or they have to do things like raising $20 billion in taxes from low- wage working Americans whose only sin is to earn less than $25,000 a year. Their tax cut has nothing to do with balancing the budget. What it does do is leave us in the year 2002 with close to $6 trillion of debt that we have no revenue to begin to pay back, and $240 billion a year in interest on that debt that is going to have to be paid year after year after year, without end, into the future of all of our children. I urge my colleagues to reject this budget, the committee's product. It makes too many of the mistakes of a year ago.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor one of western Massachusetts most dedicated public servants, Connie Clancy, who is retiring after 35 years of service to the South Hadley Public Library. Connie Clancy's dedication and commitment to her community should serve as an inspirational example to us all. Connie started with the South Hadley Public Library in 1961 and worked her way up to director of the entire library system by 1969. In addition to her job, Connie was an active advocate for libraries and education. She started the Literacy Volunteers of America affiliate in South Hadley, is a past president of the Massachusetts Library Association, and served as a delegate to the 1991 White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services. While an accomplished professional, Connie has also been extremely active in community organizations, serving, at various times, as a president of A Better Chance for Education, chair of Saint Patrick's Parish Council, and president of the South Hadley Women's Club. In recognition of her service she has been awarded the Jaycees Distinguished Service Award, the Lions Club Citizen of the Year Award, and the Joseph W. Long Citizenship Award. And these are just a few highlights of the recognition of Connie's distinguished service to the Pioneer Valley. Mr. Speaker, I hope you will join me in wishing Connie Clancy well as she reflects on and celebrates 35 years with the South Hadley Public Library, as well as wishing her continued success and happiness in the years to come.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, last week 20 House Republicans introduced a bill to raise the minimum wage by $1.50 each over the next 2 years. They broke from their leadership and agreed with what we Democrats have been saying all along. People working 40 hours a week ought to earn a livable wage. Now Speaker Gingrich and Senator Dole are joining the game, but it is certainly not a done deal. The Republican leadership still plans to weigh any bill down with union-bashing provisions and maybe different minimum wages for different people. They wanted to slow the bill down. Senate Republicans have been blocking a minimum wage vote for months now, and opposition to the minimum wage from Majority Leader Armey is well documented. So the future of this minimum wage movement remains to be seen. But the movement must succeed. We must fight to bring the minimum wage back in line with what working people in America need to get by. These are the facts: 10 million American workers earn only the minimum wage. The minimum wage has not been raised in 6 years, but the buying power of $4.25 an hour is 50 cents less than it was in 1991. Two-thirds of minimum wage earners are adults, 40 percent of these adults are sole breadwinners; almost 60 percent of minimum wage workers are women. Here are some more points to consider: 75 percent of Americans favor increasing the minimum wage. A reasonable minimum wage combined with the earned income tax credit rewards work and is the best way to keep families off welfare. But right now the minimum wage is so low that the earned income tax credit cannot fill the gap, just the 90-cent increase in the minimum wage combined with food stamps and the earned income tax credit would put a family of four that relies on a minimum wage earner back up to the poverty line. The ripple effect of raising the minimum wage also helps another 2 million workers who now earn between $4.25 and $5.25 an hour. Yesterday's Washington Post stated what is clear to everyone except the Republican leadership: ``There ought to be a clean vote in Congress on raising the minimum wage.'' Speaker Gingrich and Senator Dole should stop fishing around for provisions they can add to the bill hoping to kill it. They should listen to the moderate wing of their own party. Raising the minimum wage lifts all boats. Keeping the minimum at the 1991 level keeps everyone's boat tied to the dock.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker, among the many provisions, hundreds of pages of provisions which the insurance industry added to the Kennedy-Kassebaum bill that passed the Senate with, God forbid, bipartisan support, the most insidious of those provisions are those that provide for the medical savings accounts because they would set off a chain reaction. First, they encourage the healthy and particularly the wealthy who can afford the high deductibles of MSA's to opt out of their current insurance pool. That shrinks the insurance pool needed to keep premiums more affordable for everybody. Next, that is injury to hard-working middle-income people left behind in the pool because they are going to see their premiums go up, they are going to have to make up the loss of the healthiest and wealthiest. And, finally to add insult to injury, the same middle-income workers paying higher premiums will also be paying taxes to replace the tax breaks handed to those who can afford these accounts. Mr. Speaker, that is wrong, and I urge my colleagues to support the substitute which is a clean Kennedy-Kassebaum-Roukema bill. It is real reform with several clean good steps toward real health insurance reform. It eliminates the denials for preexisting conditions when someone changes jobs, it eliminates some of the job lock which keeps people from changing jobs due to fear of losing their insurance, and it reduces the burden on the self-employed by raising their health insurance deduction to 50 percent.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, American families are losing their health insurance every day because of corporate downsizing. The original Kennedy-Kassebaum health insurance bill was bipartisan common-sense reform that gave families a few simple protections. It cut down on denials due to preexisting conditions, it helped people get individual coverage when they lost group or COBRA coverage, it began chipping away at job lock, where fear of losing health insurance keeps people from changing jobs. But the House Republican leadership is turning straightforward reform into a goodie bag for a privileged few. Medical savings accounts, a payoff to a fat cat contributor to the majority. Limits on malpractice awards to people whose lives and dreams have been ruined. The Republican leadership has demonstrated once again they just do not care about average working people. We should pass the Kennedy- Kassebaum-Roukema bill and not a special interest spinoff. It is the very least we can do.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the de la Garza amendment. It is really, in this bill, our first chance to include rural economic and community development in this farm bill. The things which are public safety facilities, that provide grants and loans for public safety facilities, that provide grants and loans for safe drinking water and wastewater disposal, and grants and loans for small business development, all of those programs are in the thousands of rural communities with under 10,000 people that exist in so many of our congressional districts, and in Massachusetts particularly, in my congressional district; all of it money that is critical to low-income rural areas which have sagging infrastructure and little capital for new business. Mr. Chairman, this amendment is also one of the last opportunities that we have to address the desperate need for housing in rural areas. Last year low-interest loans through the self-help housing program allowed 89 families in my district in rural Massachusetts, who otherwise could not have afforded it, to buy or build their own home. These families earn an average of about $22,000 a year. That is only half of the average family income in Massachusetts, where the property values are very high and owning your own home is very difficult because of those high property values. Infrastructure and housing are critical investments in the future of rural America, and should not be ignored in this farm bill. I urge my colleagues to support the de la Garza amendment.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, as American workers and families struggle for economic security, the 104th Congress has an obligation to help. First, this Congress must protect the credit and good name of our Nation. Congress should pass clean legislation to avoid default on our debt now, this week. Next, we should raise the national minimum wage so working families can survive without Government assistance. Then we should provide workers with portable health insurance and guarantee that no one can be denied health coverage due to a preexisting condition. We should balance this budget, but only in a way that protects our parents' pensions, provides education and job training, keeps our streets and schools safe, and protects our environment. Mr. Speaker, Americans are skeptical that their Government can do anything to make their futures brighter. We should prove them wrong.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, enough is enough. The extremists among the House Republicans are finally realizing the public's opposition to their hostage-taking tactics. So why are they still playing games? Mr. Speaker, the other body, the Senate, has already passed a clean continuing resolution, and there are moderate Republican House Members who agree with letting the entire Government operate this month while negotiations continue. The House Republican leaders should get the message and stop wasting taxpayer dollars. I am adding my name to the clean CR introduced by the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee] which allows all Federal employees to do their jobs while they get paid. Every Member of this House should support a full restoration of Government services and end this pointless gridlock.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, welfare reform is supposed to move people off welfare and reward work, but this bill does neither. It not only shreds the safety net for the truly poor but it hurts working families as well. This bill slashes child care, nutrition, and food stamps for working families. It slashes support for disabled children. It slashes child abuse protections, the very support that keeps working families whole and off of welfare. Add to this the Gingrich earned income tax credit cuts, and you truly close the door of opportunity for poor working families and their children. That is not reform, Mr. Speaker, it is cruelty. Mr. Speaker, welfare reform, real welfare reform, is supposed to move people off welfare and reward them for their working. Last spring, I and every other House Democrats voted for a welfare reform bill which would have done just that. It included tougher work requirements than the Republican plan and State flexibility in improvising welfare policies, while at the same time preserving the safety net for this Nation's poor. It also provided adequate funding for the tools needed to successfully move people to work: education, training, and child care. The extremist bill we vote on today, H.R. 4, does neither of these things. It shreds the safety net for the truly poor in this country, ending the 60-year commitment Government has made to the less fortunate. It ends the guarantee of financial assistance, health care, and child care for poor children. It provides no additional funds for education, literacy, and job training to move and keep people off welfare. Furthermore, this bill also directly harms the economic well-being of working families. This bill cuts funding for child nutrition, such as WIC, which provides vital prenatal nutrition for women, and food at day care centers for low-income families. It cuts both child care and food stamps, both of which are essential to struggling, working families. This legislation also slashes at nonwelfare programs like financial assistance for disabled children and protection for neglected and abused children. These are the very supports that keep working families whole and off of welfare. Add to these measures the proposed $30 billion in cuts to the earned income tax credit, which benefits 12 million families with incomes below $30,000, and you truly close the door on opportunity for the working poor. That's not reform, that's cruelty.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. Mr. Speaker, here we are debating another smoke screen to keep the American people from knowing exactly what is in the Republican budget, what that budget really does. Exactly 1 month ago today, the President and the Congress adopted by resolution a continuing resolution that said quite clearly that we were going to have a balanced budget by the year 2002, and that that balanced budget must, and I quote, ``provide adequate funding for Medicaid, education, agriculture, national defense, veterans, and the environment,'' and further, quote, ``will adopt tax policies to help working families.'' Now, what does the budget do? Does it provide adequate funding for Medicaid? Absolutely not. It cuts Medicaid by $133 billion, by the most recently revised figures. That takes money from long-term care, which is what provides for elders in nursing homes, people who have used all of the resources that they have available, and takes away their capacity.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, exactly 1 month ago today we adopted a continuing resolution which was a commitment on the part of the President and the Members of Congress by a vast majority in both parties to achieving a balanced budget by the year 2002. That was 1 month ago today. In the intervening 1 month, we have seen not a single one of the budget bills which is necessary to run the government for fiscal year 1996, not a single one of those bills has been signed into law. Indeed, three of them have actually reached the President's desk and he has vetoed them, including the Commerce-State-Justice bill, for which you just heard the veto message read. That veto message gives very profound and good reasons for why it was vetoed; and the other two, similarly. However, the other three budget bills, including the major legislation for the Labor, Health and Human Service Departments and Education Department, all of those have never even been taken up by the Senate; they are not even close to being passed. Mr. Speaker, the continuing resolution that was adopted 1 month ago said that the President and the Congress shall agree, and agree to working toward a balanced budget that must, ``provide adequate funding for Medicaid and education and agriculture and national defense and veterans and the environment,'' and continuing the quote, ``Further, the balanced budget will adopt tax policies to help working families.'' That is a section of the quote from that continuing resolution. Here we are 1 month later and what has been the progress on providing adequate funding? Let me take just a couple of these areas that have been so specifically spoken of in the continuing resolution that Members of both parties and the President agreed would guide how we would go about creating that balanced budget for the year 2002. What about adequate funding for Medicaid? Well, what we know, Mr. Speaker, is that the Medicaid budget, as passed by the Congress and sent to the President, has $133 billion worth of cuts in Medicaid. That is revised by the latest CBO numbers. Now, is that adequate funding for Medicaid? Well, let us examine what it is that Medicaid provides for. It provides long-term care, Mr. Speaker, Long-term care is mostly for elders, for senior citizens in this country who have used every bit of their resources and are now destitute and need to be in nursing homes, need long-term care. So that $133 billion cut comes out of long-term care for destitute elderly people in this country. Number 2, it covers the safety net for poor families and where there may be no sympathy for poor people on the Republican side here, the legislation does provide health care, Medicaid does provide health care for children, for little children, little children who happen to be growing up in low-income statuses and surely deserve to have health care, as good a health care as my child, as good a health care as any child of any Member in this Congress has. But that, with the $133 billion of cuts in Medicaid, is jeopardized. Then the other major thing is disabled Americans, the most tragic cases of people that we have to deal with as members of Congress and among our constituents, people, mostly younger people, who have crippling birth defects or have debilitating or progressive diseases and need again the assistance from Medicaid that is provided to people who are disabled; and again, that $133 billion of cuts in Medicaid taken from them. What about the question of adequate funding for education? Well, the budget that the Republicans keep pushing as the correct budget is one that continues to take money from financial aid for college students, $5 billion over 7 years from financial aid for college students, including the elimination of the direct lending program. The Speaker is telling me that my time is up, so I can assure my colleagues that the list goes on here, but we need to follow the continuing resolution and provide for adequate funding for Medicaid and education and the environment and make certain that that balanced budget will indeed adopt tax policies to help working families.

Mr. OLVER

Mr. OLVER. And that--those 12 million families lose $30 billion total in loss of that credit that means increased taxes. Is it not ironic that in this process of giving tax reductions and selling the whole thing as if it is a great thing for middle-class Americans, that people who are of low income, but working, are going to actually see their taxes increased? There will be $30 billion of increase of taxes, and that 12 million American families is going to get translated into giving $125 billion of tax reduction to only about 2 million families who already start with more than $100,000 of income per year. Those families at the very upper end of the scale are going to get a huge amount of money from this process, but the $30 billion that is taken away from families who have less than $25,000 a year to live on, those are the people who are going to pay right through the nose for the process of giving the tax breaks to families who really do not need them, who are already doing pretty well, who have made their way very well with the American dream. There is nothing wrong with the American dream, that is a great idea. But they are not the ones who need it in these very tight times.

Mr. OLVER. Mr. Speaker, I do not want to let the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] get away, because she has raised so many provocative issues here that allow us to play off of those in some way. The gentlewoman mentioned the misunderstanding about what Medicaid covers here in Washington and around the country. Well, it is really quite deliberate. I am convinced that it is quite a deliberate effort to convince people that it is really those unworthy welfare cheats and only those illegal immigrants who are part of the Medicaid Program. Because if you can somehow demonize the process, it is derogatory; it is an abstraction and a derogatory extraction. It is even inflammatory. If you can do that, then it is all the more possible to make this very severe cut, the $163 billion in cuts, and eventually to dismantle the program, which is ultimately the purpose of this, this pillar which has provided wonderful health care for a group of people who otherwise could not afford it, and for older citizens who have used all of their resources. When we think about who actually is covered by it, they are our neighbors and our friends and our family members who are covered by Medicaid. It is the mothers and fathers in the nursing homes who have used all of their other resources somewhere along the way, and have only that to get their health care. It is the widows who have too little income to be able to even pay for their share of the Medicare that then gets picked up and paid for by Medicaid. It is the people who are disabled by birth defects or by crippling diseases that mean that they cannot be independent any longer. Yet somewhere along the way it is mothers of young children who are struggling and need that care, that health care for their kids, and it is for two-parent families. Mr. Speaker, one of the grand ironies that we were talking about just before the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Ms. DeLauro] came in was the business of taking $30 billion away from low-income families, people who are working, who have been paying in their withholding tax money out of their pocket; and if their income was under $25,000, they were working on the various sliding scales in that range, then they could get a tax credit. Well, in fact, the ones at the lower end of that scale are also people who, under these provisions, are in danger, in serious danger of losing their medical care as well. So when we are talking about trying to get people to work, we are taking the incentive to work, because if you work, you are going to lose your health care, or you are going to lose your earned income tax credit, which was the thing that may have helped you get off poverty. You are driven back toward poverty and your kids are going to maybe lose their health care in the process. Mr. Speaker, think of what this means in terms of family values. How can one talk about this being family values when so many of those 12 million families that will lose their earned income tax credit are families with kids and those kids then become more in danger of growing up in poverty? So what you say is a double whammy, and we could go on about other kinds of whammies that are built into this system, because you take away and take away and take away, and ultimately, it is all, all of those monies that come out of the Medicaid cuts for kids and all of those that come out of the ITC are less in total than just the amount of money that is given in tax breaks to the small couple of percent of families, those couple of million families at the very upper end of the scale who already have incomes among the top couple percent of American families. It is really ironic, and it is highly unfair.

Mr. OLVER. I thank the gentleman. The gentlewoman has given very dramatic data there as to what it is that happens in your home State. I would just like to connect it to what the gentleman from Hawaii had said. In your chart, the uninsured group gets increased, it gets increased by taking people who presently have insurance, the only kind of insurance they have, from the Medicaid Program, out your MediCal recipients, increases the uninsured, the people who are really destitute and do not have health insurance. The thing that is offered in return is the medical savings account which you have to already to able to have a large amount of income that you can risk in the process, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 that you can risk in the first place, which is only people who are very wealthy. So the medical savings account does not do anybody any good who is in the red category or that white category of uninsured. All we are doing is increasing the uninsured and making it harder for those who are modestly and marginally insured and trying to transfer it to people who already have a not in this society.