Martin Sabo

Mr. SABO

Mr. SABO. I would just simply say to the gentleman, Mr. Chairman, I am amazed to hear how simple and easy it is going to be to modify the Medicare Program. I am just curious, what is the number for Minnesota?

Mr. SABO. I fully understand what the gentleman is saying.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Olver], a member of the committee. (Mr. OLVER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez]. (Mr. MENENDEZ asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas [Ms. Jackson-Lee].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama [Mr. Bevill]. (Mr. BEVILL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Meek], a member of the Committee on the Budget. (Mrs. MEEK of Florida asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Traficant]. (Mr. TRAFICANT asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Waters].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 20 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes and 30 seconds to the distinguished gentlewoman from New York [Mrs. Lowey]. (Mrs. LOWEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Stark], and I ask unanimous consent that he be allowed to control that time.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Olver].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the gentlewoman from New York [Ms. Slaughter].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, let me simply observe the explosion of the Federal deficit occurred when we passed the Republican program in 1981. I hear this discussion of special interests. Let me remind this body that we have before us a tax proposal that would repeal the alternative minimum tax for the largest corporations in this country. To pay for that, we would repeal and make more difficult the getting of student loans by thousands and millions of students in this country. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Woolsey]. (Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, first let me congratulate, as I did in committee, my colleague from Ohio. We are both participants and observers of this process. I congratulate him for getting the Republicans on the Committee on the Budget together. I assume when the 2 days of debate are over, he will have the votes and he will pass his resolution, which has required an exceptional amount or work by himself and the other majority members of the committee. I have very fundamental disagreements with that resolution, but I watch your discipline and your hard work with admiration. So I congratulate you for putting a product together that is before this House today and really presents the opportunity for some very fundamental debate. However, let me make one observation as an observer before I say some words as a critic. The question is whether your plan will achieve its stated goal. Let me simply say that we are not quarreling over a few numbers here and there, and we might find some that we might dispute. But I, frankly, think for you to succeed requires a significant amount of luck. I think if this were a unicameral body of the Congress and this were the final product, it simply would not succeed. There are some things you have put into place and have put into law already. Your beginning assumption has been a big tax cut, which adds roughly $90 billion to the deficit in the year 2002. You assume as a separate vote that you are going to make huge cuts in Medicare in a separate vote removed from the balance of the budget to come in September. My friends, if that bill were before this House with those kinds of cuts in Medicare, with the numbers in your resolution, I would predict that such a bill would not pass this House. The numbers are sort of interesting. The tax cut is $90 billion in the year 2002. The projected Medicare cuts are $86 billion. If that did not succeed, a whole series of other numbers that you use would come unraveled. Mr. Chairman, that is merely an observation about the plan that is before us today. It would require significant luck to succeed. But that is not my fundamental objection. Mr. Chairman, we have had two very fundamental things occur over the last 15-20 years in this country. For the last 20 years, we have had a revolution where income flows in this country. The very rich have gotten much richer, and the rest of the American public, who work hard, working families are struggling to get ahead, many with declining income. We have also had, since 1981, an escalating Federal deficit. Two years ago we passed the President's program to make a significant dent in that deficit. Part of that program was asking the most affluent to pay a little more, and our Republican friends all said no. They all said if we passed that program, we would throw the country into a recession. The opposite happened. We have had unprecedented growth over the last 2 years. Unemployment is down. The economy is growing. The deficit went down. But more is left to do, and we come to that now in this year 1995. Again, we have to reduce that deficit, but we face, again, a country where income continues to flow in increasing amounts to a very few and the bulk of the American people are left struggling. We now have the Republican proposal on how to deal with the deficit. Who is asked to sacrifice? It is clear that people who depend on Medicare and Medicaid will be asked to sacrifice. And then in a series of incredible, numerous decisions, struggling Americans, who are working hard, working Americans, find their chances to move ahead, they will [[Page H5120]] find those doors sometimes slammed shut; other cases, sort of gradually closed in a series of cut, after cut, after cut, whether it is students trying to go on to college, people seeking to get new training for jobs and retraining, whether it is a parent trying to put their child in a Head Start Program, cuts on them frozen. The TRIO Program for kids, to get them to go through high school and into college, abolished. Low income seniors who have problems with fuel bills in cold parts of this country, program abolished. Child care reduced. Just one series, mass transit operating assistance reduced, a little tougher to get to the job, a little harder to get the training, a little harder to get to college, all cumulative on person after person. Cuts that are unrealistic in Medicare and Medicaid. Why? To pass a tax cut to benefit primarily those who have also been rewarded most by our economy in the last 20 years. So struggling American working families, hoping for the kids to go to college, needing retraining, maybe needing some assistance with day dare so they can work, worried about how they get to the job, maybe in rural U.S.A., maybe in urban areas, rural communities trying to develop economically, all seeing doors shut so we can pass a tax cut to benefit the most affluent in this country. Mr. Chairman, it is the wrong priorities. We are told at times by people that we are talking about renewing American civilization. Mr. Chairman and Members, this plan does not represent the best of American values. It represents, in my judgment, some of the worst of American values. We can do better. Mr. Chairman, to the majority I simply would say there are many months ahead. At some point, sometime before the year is over, you will be called on to move away from ideology, to practical reform that reduces our deficit in a fair and equitable manner. When you are ready to move away from ideology, we stand willing to help because the challenge is big. So today, to the Members, I simply urge you to vote no when we come to final passage tomorrow. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Clay].

Mr. SABO. Let me thank the Chair for his excellent job in presiding today. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Pelosi].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\3/4\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from California [Mr. Tucker].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my friend, the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Payne].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia [Ms. Norton].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Engel].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Ward]. (Mr. WARD asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fattah].

Mr. SABO. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. I would only suggest to my friend, the gentleman from Arizona, that when that person graduates from college and begins a teaching job, the salary is not very high, or if they are a social worker or if they are a preacher going to a rural community in this country, endless college graduates, they do not have that big chart of yours when they finish college. Eventually, we may deal with that income differential through progressive income tax, but when they leave college, that person is not having that. Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Evans].