Christopher Shays

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I believe with all my heart and soul, if you tell the American people the truth, they will have you do the right thing. If you tell your colleagues the truth, they will have you do the right thing, too. It is truthful, it is very truthful, as the opponents of this bill point out, there have been cuts in defense. In 1990, we appropriated $286 billion. In 1991, $268 billion. In 1992, $269 billion. In 1993, $253 billion. In 1994, we spent, appropriated $240 billion. Since that time, 1995, $243 billion, 1996, the budget we are in now, $243 billion. This amendment is saying that we should not cut from defense anymore. We should not add to defense anymore. We should spend $243 billion. It is in truth a freeze. Now, it is important to point out that, when we took over, I speak primarily to my Republican colleagues and to those who might be watching on TV, especially to the staff, when we took over, we had a rescissions bill that cut $20 billion.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] in support of the amendment to freeze defense.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds. Mr. Chairman, I would emphasize again that this is a freeze amendment. We are not advocating that the Department of Defense spend less than we spend this year next year. We are advocating that they have a freeze. I am a member of the Budget Committee. On the Budget Committee we are allowing entitlements to grow. We are allowing the growth of entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid. We advocate freezing defense spending--at least I do--and we are cutting discretionary domestic spending. We are having real and absolute cuts in discretionary spending. Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Klug] for our freeze amendment to defense.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. That is the safety net. When the Government buys it and has to sell it if it does not get $610.

Mr. SHAYS. It is the price at which a farmer can sell to the Government.

Mr. SHAYS. I yield to the gentlewoman from North Carolina.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. First off I would like to apologize to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle who feel very strongly about this issue because I know they are speaking from their heart. I would never want to give the impression that I doubt their sincerity. I guess we have a sincere disagreement about what different words mean. But I also apologize, I guess, to my own Republicans because I thought Republicans believed in the concept of supply and demand. I thought that was one of the things that my party believed in, and I thought my party believed in competition, and so that is why I get so exercised, because I really believe in some of these things that we have said we want and why we got elected. I also believe that when we went after social welfare that we were also going to go after corporate welfare and after agricultural welfare. I define welfare as a very simple thing, when you start doing things and giving to people that basically become handouts and protections that just promulgate an inefficient system. I see it in this agricultural program. The program to me, as I see it, is quite simple. We say only some Americans in this country have the right to farm peanuts. I view that as un-American, to say that only some can farm peanuts. I think it is immoral to say that only some in this country. If we have someone who wants to farm peanuts and sell it at the U.S. price of $678 or $610 or whatever, they cannot do that, because they do not have a quota. In this country, unbelievable to me, you need a quota to farm peanuts and sell at that inflated price. We lost that debate--and I did not introduce this amendment--we lost it by a few votes. We wanted to get rid of the program. But we at least thought that $610 number was a real number in which a farmer, it would go from $678 to $610. We thought that was a real number that meant something and that if a farmer sold at the $610 price to the Government and the Government bought it at $610 but could not sell it at $610, we were told that the farmers would make up the difference in the next year. But what we learned is we are now going to limit supply to 935,000 tons. My basic Republican tenet told me that when you limit supply, and you have a certain amount of demand, the price starts to go up. And so what you have done effectively or what the Commissioner has done, what the Secretary has effectively done, we went from $678 with a support price to $610, and you say it is a 10-percent reduction, but it is never going to be at that $610 price because we have limited production. So it may be even more than $678. What the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Kolbe] wanted to do was at least say it would be at $640 and not higher. That is price-fixing. It is price-fixing in a system that is fraught with fixing. It is a system where only some Americans in this country can farm. I have gone after social welfare in my urban areas, I want to go after corporate welfare and I want to go after agricultural welfare. That is what this program is. We need to get people out of it gradually, I agree. That $640 price is a fair price. They are going to go from $678 to $640. That is fair. We did not eliminate the program. We are just asking for some protection because we did not think the Secretary would manipulate price by limiting supply of the product so much.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Chairman, I do not know how any opponent of this amendment can say with a straight face ``un-American'' or use the word ``world market'' and talk about ``consumer-oriented'' and talk about the free market. Give me a break. Un-American? Yes, it is un-American not to let Americans grow peanuts, but you can go to jail if you grow peanuts and sell in the market. You can certainly get arrested and you can be fined. The point is, you cannot grow peanuts and sell at the $6 price. Mr. Chairman, I just would say, the bottom line is I would be embarrassed to be opponents of this amendment and talk about un- American, consumer-oriented program, world market, free market. The bottom line is the world market cannot compete. They are not allowed to sell peanuts unless they come and they crush them and they do not get the price. There is no free market, because people from outside this country cannot sell and people in this country, Americans, cannot sell peanuts unless it is to be crushed. Talking about consumer-oriented, what is consumer-oriented about fixing supply? They fix supply. They are told it is going to be about 900-and-some tons, 1,000 tons. That is fixing the price. What is American about that? What is free market about that? The problem is we only allow a few people to farm peanuts, only a few. We fix the price by limiting the supply. We attempted to reform that system and we failed. We then said the price should not be $610, not lower than that, the Government will buy it. What has happened by what the Department of Agriculture has done, they have fixed supplies so the price will be well above the $610 price. We may end up having to be more than $678. I think this is an outrage that you can say with a straight face that it is un-American, that it is against the consumer, that it is the free market. How can Members do it? How can they in a straight face use those words?

Mr. SHAYS. If the gentleman will continue to yield, Mr. Chairman, the bottom line is the price is double in this country what the world market price is.

Mr. SHAYS. No, I think the gentlewoman is talking for the farmer, because the consumer is getting screwed in this system. The consumer is getting screwed.

Mr. SHAYS. No, no. We want to put a ceiling on that price, because by limiting supply, the supply may even go over $678. That is the irony. We talk about the manufacturer and we talk about the farmer. Who is talking for the consumer?

Mr. SHAYS. It is the floor.

Mr. SHAYS. If they were paying the market price, it would be $350.

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

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, one of the options will be that we will allow private care plans to offer to seniors a whole host of different services. They may offer eye care or dental care, they may give a rebate on the copayment or the deductible, they may give a rebate on the premium. They may even pay, because in some areas the cost of health care is so much less than we actually pay in Medicare, they may actually be able to pay almost all of the Medigap, pay all or part of the Medigap, which a lot of seniors pay today, and they will still make money off the plan. They will be able to give them annual checkups, which some seniors do not get now. Now, if a senior does not like it, they get into the private care and they do not like it, they have 24 months, each and every month, 2 years in each and every month, to get back to their fee- for-service plan. So we do not increase copayments, we do not increase the deductible, we do not increase the premium, we give seniors choice.

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to spend the last 5 minutes and just summarize what we are trying to do. We are trying to do what Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin said. We are elected by adults to represent the children, and we are trying to get our financial house in order and balance the Federal budget. We are trying to save our trust funds from bankruptcy, particularly Medicare. And we are trying to transform our caretaking, social, corporate and farming welfare state into an opportunity society. We do that by allowing our spending to grow. We allow it to grow 20 percent more each year, 20 percent or more in the next 6 years as opposed to the last 6 years, 20 percent more, from 8.7 billion to 10.4 billion. We do it by allowing the student loan program not to cut but to grow from 26 billion to 37 billion, a 42- percent increase. We take the earned income tax credit, which is an expenditure made by taxpayers to the working poor where they actually receive money rather than pay taxes, and that program over the last 6 years we spent 109 billion. We are going to spend 155 billion under our 6-year plan. Under welfare spending over the last 6 years we have spent 441 billion. In the next 6 years we will spend 30 percent more; we will spend 575 billion. In Medicaid we will grow from 463 billion over the last 6 years to 731 billion. We are going to spend 58 percent more in the next 6 years under Medicaid, which is health care for the poor and nursing care for the elderly. Then we are going to deal with Medicaid, Medicaid spending, which grows from 463 to 731, just to point out that our numbers are not that different than what the President's numbers are, except we want to allow for more flexibility on the State and local level under this plan and not have a one-size-fits-all Medicaid plan done by the Federal Government. Medicare is going bankrupt. It is going to be highlighted tomorrow when the trustees report that Medicare part B, the money we pay in our payroll tax, we will run out of money potentially by the year 2000, rather than what we originally thought, the year 2002. We had a plan to save Medicare until the year 2010 and the President vetoed it last year. Our new plan will not stretch it out entirely to the year 2010 but close to it. We spent in the last 6 years 920 billion; in the next 6 years we are going to spend 1.4 trillion, a 61-percent additional expenditure in dollars. In Medicare premiums we are going to grow from 5200 this year to 7000. Last year they were 4800. So we are allowing this plan to grow per beneficiary and we do it without increasing the copayment, without increasing the deductible, without increasing the premium. We give seniors choice. We do ask the seniors who are the wealthiest, making over 100,000 plus, to pay more of their Medicare part B premium. But for all other seniors the program remains the same, no increase in copayment, deduction or premium, and we give them extensive choice. With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that I am absolutely convinced that this Congress is on the right track, trying to get our financial house in order, trying to balance the Federal budget, trying to save our trust funds and trying to transform this social and corporate welfare state into a truly caring opportunity society.

Mr. SHAYS. And encourage people to pay their taxes. It is estimated we could lose almost $100 billion in revenue, one, because it is not simple enough and, second, that people simply have found a whole host of ways to avoid paying taxes in the course of trying to do what they think are legitimate or maybe not legitimate writeoffs.

Mr. SHAYS. So we have to get our financial house in order and balance that budget as the foundation. Not as the solution, but as the foundation for then saving our trust funds, which are obviously related to the first issue, but then, ultimately, transforming this caretaking, social, and corporate welfare state into a caring, into a very caring opportunity society. Instead of taking this pie and deciding how we divide up limited resources, what can we do to grow this economy. And that clearly is a very important element to the last part of our plan, and that is beside just getting our financial house in order to have certain tax incentives to encourage growth in this economy.

Mr. SHAYS. I do not know how we do that, though, unless we get our financial base on a firm foundation.

Mr. SHAYS. One comma, one little bracket, taking out a word, adding or not can make a difference. This Congress is looking to get after all three types of welfare, the social, the corporate, and where it was in the farming. There are a few programs still remaining that did not get out, but a gigantic leap forward, phased out over 7 years. I would say to the gentleman that I had to ask myself where have I been a constructive force. And I have been able to go back over my time in the State house and in Congress and say, well, I voted for this program, and I have been able to feel good. But when I analyze some, not all, but some of those votes, I have had to say I have made people more dependent rather than less. I have made a practice in the last 4 years of asking people who have had to pull themselves up by the boot straps and have succeeded, why. And in almost every instance, it was a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a schoolteacher, but somebody pushing them, someone recognizing that and making sure that individual knew that nobody was going to do it for them. I was thinking, and, to me, one of the most memorable was when I had a young woman come in, 35 years old, a doctor, an M.D., and she said she was 12 years old when her father passed away. She had six younger brothers and sisters. She became almost the second mother in the family, raising, as a 12 year old, her younger brothers and sisters. But her mother had one dream, that they would all get degrees; not just college degrees but advanced degrees. There were two doctors in that group, there was a psychiatrist, there was, fortunately, only one lawyer, there was a schoolteacher, and she was just there to tell me that I had a dream, we moved forward, and no one gave me. We worked for it. Her mother was a schoolteacher, with not a lot of income, and obviously she turned to a lot of different sources for help. But she made sure that each of her children knew they had to do it on their own. Which gets me to a kind of wonderful quote that Ann Landers said, and it was in my calendar. You have seen these calendars that have the quote of the day. My dad, when he used to work in New York, would come home, when I was a young kid, and give me different quotes from the newspaper, and sometimes Ann Landers would show up. And she said, ``In the final analysis, it is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves that will make them successful human beings.'' I see this and I think about that, and I think about the march on Washington. One, we cannot burden our children with tremendous debt; but, second, we have to have those kind of government programs that teach them what to do for themselves. Government does have an active role. I would like to think more State and local government and less Federal Government, with a one-size-fits- all mentality. The government does have a role, but it has to be a role, not to give a hand-out, but to really teach people. I think, as my colleague wants to, if we want to have English be a primary language in this country, we have to, as colleagues, recognize and make sure that there is no American who is missing the opportunity, and no alien who is a resident here who is missing the opportunity to learn how to speak English. We may have our feelings about bilingual programs, but there has to be that alternative, I would just say to my colleague, and I am happy to yield.

Mr. SHAYS. We are talking about writeoffs that businesses have been able to get over the last 40 years through, candidly, this former Congress. They have been able to get a significant writeoff, approved by, candidly, Republican presidents, so both hands have been involved, where they have gotten certain writeoffs that are unique to them in their business opportunity. They then become dependent on what are true writeoffs and, in my judgment, are nothing more than corporate welfare. So we are looking to have our Federal Government not have so many corporate writeoffs. And while I am probably on more sensitive ground, being that the gentleman comes from a farming area, I think you would acknowledge there are certain Federal programs that farmers have become so dependent on, it has changed their behavior. It is not like they do not work. They bust their guts. But they are working following a Federal program that sometimes has an incentive not to plant or to plant the wrong things that simply are costly.

Mr. SHAYS. And if my colleague would just yield, I would point out that we are also not just talking about social welfare, we are talking about corporate welfare.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, it is a speech, but it is a very accurate speech. We are saying that last year we spent $4,800 per senior. It will grow to 72 and now $7,000 in the 6th year from where we are today. That is a significant increase. And yet while seniors will still get that significant increase, we save, under our new plan, $158 billion. At one time it would have been over $200 billion, but the President vetoed that plan. We have a plan that will save $158 billion to the taxpayers. It still gives seniors more, and yet they will contribute to helping save this country candidly from financial ruin. We talk about getting our financial house in order and saving our trust fund. This fund is a little more nebulous, but it is something that is very near and dear to me because I believe that is where we probably have the biggest controversy and that is we are trying to transform other caretaking, social, corporate and farming welfare state into a caring opportunity society. We want people to be independent and not dependent on the Federal Government, and we want them to learn and to grow. We are not saying to someone in an urban area, your mother was on crack, you did not graduate from the 5th grade, I am sorry, you are on your own. No, we have to have a caring, aggressive plan to help individuals, but it cannot be the traditional handout. I say this as a moderate Republican, some might call a moderate Republican a liberal Republican, but I think I am pretty much down the center of the political spectrum. I look at a lot of what Government has done, and I think if we have an honest debate, we do see 12-year- olds having babies, we do see 14-year-olds selling drugs and 15-year- olds killing each other, we do see 18-year-olds who cannot read their diplomas, we see 24-year-olds who have never had a job, and frankly not because a job does not exist but because they have got in their own mindset that it is a so-called deadend job. We see 30-year-old grandparents. That, to me, is the legacy of the welfare state.

Mr. SHAYS. They can. And it is not like the telephone system, where if you were on AT&T and you automatically find you are with Sprint or MCI, no, you stay in the plan. You stay in the traditional fee-for- service. You have to ask to be out and then you can request immediately to be put back, and within a month you are back in the old plan. So it is hard for me to understand why the President vetoed. The reason he vetoed is he said we were cutting, even though the plan grew so much. It is true we were able to save. We were able to save the fund from bankruptcy. We had it remain solvent to the year 2010, and we were able to save the taxpayers over $200 billion. So it was just difficult for me to understand why the President would not have accepted that plan.