Christopher Shays

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. I think that more and more people began to understand what was happening, but it required a lot of work to make sure people did understand. One last point we should make on the Medicare plan that I thought was really ingenious and I thought would save a lot of money. We were providing in our legislation language that allowed a senior if they found a mistake in their bill to get a percent of what they found. For instance, I have had some seniors who have talked about bills that they saw. First off the bills sometimes are not sent to the senior. Under our legislation we would have required the seniors to have a copy of their bill. We would have required the bills to be put in simple language that an individual could understand. If you had a chest x-ray, you say that. If you had a visit from the doctor, you make clear the visit from the doctor and how long it was and what it was for. Then a senior could say, ``I never had that visit with the doctor, and the $300 charge is not a valid one.'' We would have given a senior, we had not written the regulation, that would have been up to the administration, but they could have determined that, say, 10 or 20 percent of the savings would have gone to the senior. Some seniors would have found that they would have made money. But in the process, they would have saved us literally hundreds of millions of dollars.

Mr. SHAYS. That is why when the gentleman says, the traditional view is that we are playing with dynamite, I was proud to go to my constituents and tell them. This is a plan I had worked on with the gentleman and others for literally years. We now in the majority had a chance to finally begin to implement it.

Mr. SHAYS. And it was tax-free.

Mr. SHAYS. Right. They were not required to take this. The only way they would have gotten into it, it is not like some of the telephone plans where you all of a sudden found yourself under a new long distance carrier. You stayed under the plan you were. But what would have happened in my judgment is some of their neighbors would have gotten into the managed care plan, they would have pointed out how they were getting eye care, dental care, prescription drug assistance that they were not getting under the traditional Medicare plan and people would have said, well, I want that too, and they would have joined. The reason why the managed care plans could save money is there is so much waste and fraud and abuse in government oversight of health care that the managed care plans could oversee it better and they would still have made money, they would have saved money, through all the waste that exists. Yet they would have been able to give more than the senior would have now. We also allowed for medical savings accounts. We did not require people to participate. But if someone wanted to put money, the government would have actually given a senior a certain payment, $2,000 or $3,000 a year, we would have given the senior that money, they could have put it in the account. If they spent less than $3,000, they would have actually saved money. If they spent more, they would have had to pay for it on their own. The only requirement is that they would have had to get a $10,000 catastrophic plan, so that if they really had serious health problems, there would be an insurance program for them.

Mr. SHAYS. It is really incredible to think that right now the trust fund has in the balance $112 billion. That will go down in 1998, the next year, to $92 billion. When you figure that loss on a daily basis, each day that passes the trust fund is losing $35 million. That is in the year we are in now. Next year it is going to lose $55 million each day. And the next year after that, in 1999, it is going to lose $78 million each and every day. This is according to the President's trustees of this fund, the people who have the fiduciary responsibility to protect it as we do. They have shared this information with us. They have told us the problem. It is up to us to come up with a solution. Then they have said in the year 2000, it will lose about $103 million a day, and it will be bankrupt in 2001, because it will be losing $134 million each and every day. We came up with a plan 2 years ago that we will continue to advocate and promote that did not increase the copayments for seniors, did not increase the deductible for seniors, it did not increase the premium for seniors. What it did do was allow seniors for the first time to choose to have a private medical plan. In having the private medical plan, they could get into this plan and the only way they would be interested in doing it is if they got more than they get under the traditional Medicare fee-for-service plan that we have now. By getting into a managed care plan, the managed care plans would have had to offer them more than they get now, because what they get now is pretty nice. But they still have to pay the MediGap under existing, they still have a premium to pay. But some of the managed care programs were going to give eye care, dental care, a rebate on the copayment of the deductible, and in some cases pay the premium and the MediGap. If a senior did not like the managed care plan, we allowed them under the bill that the President vetoed to get out of the plan each and every month for the next 24 months. In other words, if they were in it for 3 months and did not like it, they could leave. If they were in it for a month and did not like it, they could leave.

Mr. SHAYS. The board of trustees of the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, they are the group that oversees the Medicare Trust Fund. People in this country pay Medicare in two ways, health care for the elderly. One is they put money aside in the trust fund. That is the trust fund I allude to. If they are hired by an employer, they pay 1.45 percent of their income into this trust fund. If they are self-employed, they pay double, 2.9 percent. This money goes in the trust fund to be there when they are older and it pays all Medicare Part A, which is the hospital costs of a senior. Then you have Medicare Part B, which is paid in part by the individual in a premium, but most of it is paid for by the government in direct taxes coming out of the tax income each year. But the trust fund, we were told, was going bankrupt, and not by an organization separate from the administration; the administration was telling us. President Clinton's appointees, 5 of the 7 people who sit on this board were his appointees, they said it was going to go bankrupt by the year 2002. They said that 2 years ago. Last year they said it would go bankrupt by the year 2001. After he vetoed the bill they pointed that out. So it was now going to go bankrupt a year earlier. And last week they just reaffirmed that the trust fund will run out of money by the year 2001. So you could say, well, we are playing with dynamite. I do not consider it a game, and the gentleman does not either. What we were doing is to make sure we step up to the plate and save this program.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman mentioned the children of the world, and I would love the indulgence of my colleagues just to thank the participants of the summit that was in Philadelphia. I had the opportunity to go to the summit, and I have to tell my colleagues that it was very moving to see Mrs. Reagan there on behalf of her husband, President Reagan, to see Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter and George Bush and our President, Bill Clinton, all focused in a common effort to direct the public's attention on the need to really respond to our children. I know that there is some controversy in terms of say AmeriCorps, which some on my side of the aisle might disagree with. I certainly am a strong supporter; others raise questions. But as a former Peace Corps volunteer, I just found it extraordinary that we had Republican and Democrat Presidents all saying that this matters so much to them that they were willing to devote a sizable amount of their time. More importantly, to have Colin Powell basically take this on as really a lifetime effort. This is in my judgment, I would want to say on the floor of the House for the record, I am absolutely convinced that people will look back and say that something very wonderful happened in this country about drawing the public's attention to our kids. Mr. Speaker, we have been told by some who say that politicians are elected by adults to represent the kids, and I really believe that. Here we had four Presidents and a First Lady; we had Colin Powell, a distinguished citizen, who basically said that he is going to devote his life to making sure that Americans realize the need of helping our kids. He is doing it by example, our Presidents are doing it by example, and this is something that he is asking all Americans to focus on and think about. In my city of Bridgeport that I represent, I would contrast it to the city say right next door, the community of Fairfield. I was in a parade, in a Fourth of July parade, and near the beginning of the parade in Fairfield and you march along and there are just literally tens of thousands of people along the march, and you get to the reviewing stand. And an hour and 20 minutes later I said, ``When is this going to end?'' And he looked at me and said, ``It is going to go on for a while.'' And what was it? This was a wonderful parade of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and Indian Guides and Indian Princes and soccer teams and volleyball teams and bands. I thought, the challenge for some children in our country is deciding what they do not do, they have so many options. Then I thought, right next door in the city of Bridgeport I know the children do not have that same option. After school there is really nothing for them to do. We are really asking in this summit for Americans to adopt a child, to be a mentor, and to help them. Not Government. I will just say one thing. One of the absurdities that took place in the summit was a group that marched in opposition to the summit because they said it was wrong for us to think that volunteers should be doing these things, that it was government's responsibility. I wanted them to think of what was the very basis of our strength as a country, the active participation of citizens. President Clinton I think pointed out something that I found was very stirring. We were at the site of the founding of our country, and I remember as he gave his speech as the other Presidents had given theirs, he said that when Jefferson left after the conclusion of the Constitution, a woman asked Jefferson whether this was going to be a monarchy or a republic. And Mr. Jefferson said to her, ``It is a republic if you can keep it.'' Then the President talked about a more perfect union. He said even in that Constitution we had slaves. In that Constitution, the gentlewoman from Connecticut [Mrs. Johnson] could not vote. I would just point out that we are making this a more perfect Union. I think the task for us now is to really alert the American public for the need to not depend on government. The era of big government is over, but the era of big problems still remains. I was stirred by this, and I hope other Americans were, that this is going to be a citizen Government helping our kids, giving them activity, giving them a framework, giving them discipline, helping them see mentors that are somebody other than someone selling drugs and leading a bleak future. So I appreciate the indulgence of my colleagues, but it was stirring, and I really believe that if we can use that summit and the bipartisanship that existed there and throw these politics out the window a bit, we will be a more perfect Union.

Mr. SHAYS. We wanted very candidly to preserve the program and to save it from bankruptcy.

Mr. SHAYS. We have a certain part we call the direct student loan, which is in essence run by the government. The government was saying that this program was cheaper than to have the banks do it. But what they forgot to do was to compute in the cost of the government administering the program. So it did look cheaper until the GAO and the Inspector General said, wait a second, you better take a look at this, because this program is going to cost you more. Also I need to say that when you had the institutions deciding who would get the loans, particularly with the proprietary schools, they were giving out loans under the direct student loan, actually giving out the government loans to students who would participate but some of them not pay it back because frankly in some of the proprietary school programs they were in, they were not going to have employment when they were done. This is just to establish the fact that under the student loan program, which some of my constituents thought was being cut, it went from $24 billion to $36 billion and we saved the taxpayers $4 billion, and the banks would have had to pay more. It is funny that sometimes the Republicans are associated with wanting to protect the industry, the banks, and the banks were the ones that were going to have to step up to the plate and make up that difference. I think I was most outraged when I first heard it of the school lunch program, because the thought that we would, we Republicans, would cut the school lunch program, I thought was probably one of the dumbest things I could imagine. When I heard, saw the President come before the students and have them be set up as the prop for the national media and they seemed quite concerned, probably mostly because there was so much attention and here was the President of the United States, it is a pretty big deal, but to think he would have used the students as a prop to tell people something that frankly was not accurate. What was not accurate is we were not cutting the student lunch program, we were not destroying it as he described, we were not eliminating the program. We were saying instead of it growing 5.2 percent more a year, it would grow at 4.5 percent a year, that we would grow in spending from $5.1 billion in the seventh year to $6.9 billion in the seventh year. Only in Washington again when you go from $5.1 billion to $6.9 billion would people call it a cut. But they did. But what we did do, which was very important, is, I do not know if everyone in the country knows, I did not know as a Member of Congress, I had been here 8 years at the time, that every student in the country, rich or poor, is subsidized 30 cents. My daughter is subsidized 30 cents. I make a decent income, a very good income as a Member of Congress. My wife is a teacher. Yet my daughter was subsidized 30 cents in a suburban school that is quite wealthy. What we were saying under our plan, we were allowing local governments and State governments to design the plan better so that they could reallocate the money from the wealthy kids in the wealthy communities and spend more in the urban areas. So when the President suggested that maybe my students in Bridgeport or Norwalk or Stamford might have less, they actually in my judgment would have had a lot more, the kids that needed it. The gentleman gave the numbers on Medicaid, health care for the poor. But the one that clearly I felt most enthusiastic about was our plan on Medicare, health care for the elderly.

Mr. SHAYS. Medicaid. That is correct. And we did not cut the School Lunch Program, we slowed its growth slightly, but allowed for more discretion in how it is spent. And I want to get back to each of those. We did not cut the Student Loan Program. It went up quite significantly. I would just go backward from the issues I mentioned. The Student Loan Program, when we passed our plan and sent it, the President was spending $24 billion. And in the 7th year of the plan, under our plan, it would have spent $36 billion. Only in Washington when we spend 50 percent more do people call it a cut, but it was called a cut. Now, it is true that it would have gone to $40 billion in terms of tax money. There was $4 billion that we did not spend. But the $4 billion we did not spend was actually money that we said that the banks would pay instead of the taxpayers. The banks would cover more of the bad debt and the banks would cover more of the administrative costs. So the irony is when our plan was defeated, the taxpayers now have to pay $4 billion more and we saved the banks, who would still have made a good income from participating in the Student Loan Program. That was one example, going from $24 billion to $36 billion.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. It is amazing to be here in May and to think that we may be close to an agreement with the White House on a 5-year effort to get our financial house in order and balance the Federal budget. But it is very distressing when we still hear the rhetoric that when spending goes up we are still having a cut. I just think something I would like at least to do would be to revisit what did not happen last year, because I do not want people to think it is going to happen this year. What did not happen last year is we did not cut Medicare, we slowed its growth. We did not cut Medicaid, which is health care for the poor and nursing care for the elderly poor.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, the gentlewoman might want to explain Christmas in April. People of all walks of life, some brought their children, and we painted and repaired inside and out.

Mr. SHAYS. And I think we will.

Mr. SHAYS. And important, for a variety of reasons. First off, we need to recognize that when you increase some taxes you actually get less revenue because in a dynamic model people respond. They say taxes are higher and they find ways to avoid paying them by doing other things. If you have a luxury tax on boats, they simply decide not to buy boats, as we found in our 1990 budget agreement when we increased the tax on boats and people stopped buying them. So you have a dynamic model. Sometimes with lower taxes you get more revenue. We would find that to be true specifically with the capital gains exemption. Imagine a farmer out West whose neighbor wants to sell land and they want to buy the land, but the neighbor does not sell, and why does the neighbor not sell? Because they would realize such a large capital gain, they do not want to pay 28 percent of that gain to the Government. It might be what is their retirement, it might be what pays for their child's college tuition, and so they simply do not sell. What you have is, you do not have a transaction taking place, whereas if we lowered the capital gains you would find, in fact, that there would be greater transactions and more revenue. So one of the things that we hope happens is that there is, in fact, a capital gains exemption. We also hope that there would be a reduction in the tax that people pay on inheritance so that they do not have to sell the farm or sell the business. So we believe that it is consistent, and I would also say to the gentleman that we would pay for our tax cuts. So if you want a smaller Government, as I do and as the gentleman does, you make the Government smaller and you return the money back to the people to spend as they want and create economic activity which also brings in more revenue.

Mr. SHAYS. Oh, it is definitely consistent.

Mr. SHAYS. I would love that.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I mean this graciously, but if the gentleman would yield time instead of just speaking without yielding himself time, I think it would be fair for both sides.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, I have been listening to this debate from the beginning. One of the things I am very impressed with is the demeanor on both sides of the aisle. I am particularly impressed with the contributions of the freshmen Members from both sides of the aisle, and my colleague who introduced this resolution, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Sununu]. We are talking about ideas, we are talking about policies, and we are talking about the direction this country should head. This congressional majority has three major objectives. We want to balance the Federal budget and get our financial house in order; we want to save our trust funds for not only future generations but for present generations, because Medicare in particular is running out of money; and third, we want to transform this caretaking society into a caring society. We want to transform this caretaking social and corporate and agricultural welfare state into a caring opportunity society. In the process of doing all three of those things, we want to move the power and the money and the influence back home and away from Washington. That is our objective. That is what we will seek to do. That is what we will do with our budget when we present our budget, which we will do, and which we are required to do. The President deserves a tremendous amount of credit for deficit reduction since he has been present. The first 2 years he achieved deficit reduction with a Democrat majority by tax increases. The last 2 years of his 4 years as President he reduced the deficit, with the help of this new Republican majority, by spending cuts. It is clear that we are going to continue to go on a downward path by spending reductions, not tax increases. What is alarming, however, is the President still insists on not using the same budget numbers that we are required to use, the Congressional Budget Office. This resolution soundly requires that we use the same set of numbers so we do not have a Government shutdown. It argues that we not have automatic spending cuts so we do not have a Government shutdown. It argues as well that major savings take place in the first 3 years, not the fourth and fifth year, so we do not have a Government shutdown. Why is it important? Because we are in Congress for the next 2 years. And why is that significant? Under the President's budget, scored by CBO, they say the deficit goes up $24 billion. This year it would go up an additional $1 billion from his plan, and next year it would go up an additional $24 billion, to a $145 billion deficit. For 4 years the President and Congress have succeeded in going down, and under his plan it is now going up. It goes up the next year and the year after that, and only slightly goes down the third year, and then the fourth and fifth year, when we are not in Congress, when he in fact is not President, in the fifth year we do most of the deficit reduction. Mr. Speaker, I have a big problem with the argument on the other side that it is balanced in the fifth year. It is balanced in the fifth year. It is like the person who says I am going to lose 50 pounds in the next 5 years, and seeks to gain pounds in the first 2 years, and then in the fifth year basically says, I am going to lose 49 pounds out of my 50. Technically, it is balanced, but it is just a fraud. We know the next White House cannot do that, and we know that the Congress, from the next one and the one beyond, will not do that. We have got to make constructive reductions each and every year. This resolution requires that we work together in both the White House and Congress and in using the same budget numbers so we can compare apples to apples, so we do not have automatic spending cuts. It requires Congress to do that as well and that we make substantive savings in the first 3 years of the 5-year plan, not in the fifth year. So for that, Mr. Speaker, I am very proud to be associated with this effort.

Mr. SHAYS

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

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, as a member of the Committee on the Budget, I know we are trying to get our country's financial house in order and balance the country's budget. We are also trying to save our trust funds for future and present generations and we are looking to transform the social and corporate and agricultural welfare state into a truly caring opportunity society. I can get really immersed in those issues, but as big as those issues are, they pale in comparison to the fact that one mouth can eat, two mouths can share, four mouths will sometimes go hungry, and eight mouths starve. In the Book of Psalms, it said I had fainted unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. What kind of world are we seeing; what kind of world is truly living? We have too many people, too many children born into abject poverty, young children living on the streets begging, robbing, stealing, killing, being killed. Young girls and boys sold into sex slavery rings because their parents cannot keep them, they cannot care for them. The rich are getting richer and richer, and the poor are getting poorer and poorer and poorer and poorer and sicker and sicker. As a Peace Corps volunteer, I know that some countries have grown. Their economies grow but their population outstrips their economies and they are truly becoming poorer. Indigenous Indians in this country said when they looked at the beautiful lake, it was a smile of the Great Spirit. We are losing that smile. I hope and pray we wake up. Release family planning funds now. Allow kids to have a future.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, just to add my voice to this resolution, it is truly bipartisan, Mr. Dodd and Mr. D'Amato in the Senate and others, and just to say that this is an exciting opportunity for this country. Operation Sail expects the largest gathering of tall sailing ships ever to be assembled, and I thank my colleague from New York for helping to bring this out.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I have never been more proud to be part of an institution as this Congress and to have been part of this 104th Congress. To think of all that we did, the major reforms in the opening day, reducing the size of committees to reducing the number of staff, to eliminating those absurd proxy votings where a chairman would vote for their Members as if they did not have enough brains to vote for themselves. Then to pass the Congressional Accountability Act, a bill that Mr. Thomas championed to get Congress under all the laws as the rest of the country and to pass gift ban and lobby disclosure legislation, all in this 104th Congress. We had years and years and years, the lobby disclosure bill had not been amended since 1946. It happened under our watch. I think on a bipartisan basis, I think all sides can take joy and gratitude in this. This bill is a logical bill that should be adopted, but this has been a magnificent Congress in terms of reform. I count my blessings that we have all been able to share in it.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to submit to you an editorial from the New Canaan Advertiser regarding the United States' debt to the United Nations and one Connecticut community's attempt to repay it. International Welshers Detractors of the United Nations probably applaud the failure of the United States to get current on its dues for membership in that global association. But if isolationism and a disdain for foreign influences on our sovereignty are to be perceived as some sort of super- patriotism, then it would seem incumbent on American flag- wavers also to rid us of our unenviable reputation as international welshers. Like it or not, it is true the United States had agreed to a treaty that stipulated the level of dues we'd have to pay as a member of this ``family of nations.'' Alas, we are more than a billion dollars in arrears and Congress seems loathe to make up the shortfall. Of course, it is inherently true that despite the delinquency, the United States contributes more to support the UN than any other country in the world. That does not, however, alter the fact that we also owe more in unpaid dues than any other country. Americans, even those who don't subscribe to participation in the UN, ought to be embarrassed by the ``deadbeat'' status of their country. Unlikely as it may seem for a small Connecticut community to assume a role in an international drama, a group in New Canaan has undertaken a unique attempt to ease that national embarrassment. Taking its cue from John Whitehead, a former member of the Reagan cabinet, the citizen initiative here is expressing indignation over the fact that this nation is shirking an obligation that it knowingly incurred by treaty. That, not necessarily the worthiness of the United Nations, is the heart and soul of the symbolic protest here. Mr. Whitehead had calculated that if each American sent in a check for $4.40, the United States' debt to the UN would be paid off. So more than 220 people in New Canaan have done that and are urging others to join them. Of course, it won't really happen. Even in New Canaan, where the issue is viewed so passionately by so many, less than $1000 has been sent in. That's a far cry from a billion dollars, even if the effort is copied in other communities across the nation, but the message it sends is far more powerful than the cash value. It says pointedly that we are ashamed that our country has failed to meet responsibilities it agreed to assume. It emphasizes that we want to project a more positive international image and that our status as welshers impairs our standing among nations. It tells Congress that we ought to pay what we owe and then, if it's really all that painful and we don't want to get caught in that kind of bind again, maybe we ought to see about renegotiating that treaty. Citizens joining the symbolic protest here are sending their ``dues money'' to Pay Our UN Debt, P.O. Box 1002, New Canaan 86840. Each $4.40 check turns up the volume on that message. Maybe Congress will finally hear it.