Christopher Shays

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. It would be just a moment. I found myself walking through this Chamber and being captivated by your discussion of an extraordinarily great woman. I have found the most patriotic people in our black churches, and it always amazed me how the African-American community could be so patriotic, given the heritage that brought them to this magnificent country. And Barbara Jordan gave me more pride in our country than I think almost anyone else. You talk about what an extraordinary leader. I consider her an extraordinary teacher. I remember her in my early days, watching her as a new Member, and I was astounded by this woman. Now, I know the gentlewoman from Texas is from Texas, but people from Texas are different than anywhere else. Finding this black Texan talking, I was not first sure if she was a Texan first, or someone speaking for the black community first, or just someone speaking as a true American. I resolved my question mark. She was just a true American patriot who wanted to teach this American community a lot, and in the process she taught herself a lot. We learned so much from seeing her life. Her death is a tremendous loss. I just would conclude by saying to you, sometimes people say who would you have most liked to meet? Who would you most like to sit down with and just have a wonderful conversation? They are not actors, and I thought they are really not politicians. I remember a few people I would have liked to have had a discussion with. And when I learned that Barbara Jordan had passed away, I thought that was the woman, that was the person, I should have answered, because, boy, I would have loved to have sat down with her, like many of you have for many discussions, and just had that precious opportunity to talk with a great, great, great American. I thank you for letting me participate in this. I have been listening, and I have been captivated by what you all have been saying. Charlie, you always get me. So thank you for letting me participate and express my tremendous admiration for this great American.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, we have three primary objectives. One is to get our financial house in order and balance our Federal budget; the second is to save our trust funds from insolvency, and ultimate bankruptcy, particularly Medicare; and our third objective is to transform our caretaking social and corporate welfare state into what I would call a caring opportunity society. Our country has grown into debt from $430 billion since the Vietnam War to $4,900 billion. That has got to end. Adults, Members of Congress, are elected by adults to represent the children, and that is what we are about to do.

Mr. SHAYS

Mr. SHAYS. It is astounding when we find out what some of the fraud is. Some of it is perceived to be in a mistake where they were sent a $16 bill, it turned out to be $160 or $16,000, or a man being charged for giving birth to a child, just things that were so preposterous, but not, frankly, all that uncommon.

Mr. SHAYS. My colleague has pointed out a number of myths. We have presented our program. We are proud of our program. We are looking to the President to be an author and not just a critic. We stand ready to work with the President and with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to have a true balanced budget. With that, Mr. Speaker, I would be more than happy to yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. SHAYS. Another myth?

Mr. SHAYS. I wonder if the gentleman could give me those numbers again? This is on welfare?

Mr. SHAYS. And the total increase, if I might add, of 50 percent during that time. From $24 billion to $36 billion. Only in this city would someone call that a cut.

Mr. SHAYS. Sounds like a significant increase.

Mr. SHAYS. Not.

Mr. SHAYS. I understand. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield back to my colleague.

Mr. SHAYS. The commitment that the gentleman has made is one that I share. The President submits the balanced budget, scored by the Congressional Budget Office, using real numbers, not necessarily our numbers, his numbers, his priorities, and then we know that we can go to our conference in good conscience and say that we need a temporary continuing resolution. I want to inquire of the Chair. I know we were given 55 minutes. We are prepared to speak a little longer or we are prepared to end our discussion.

Mr. SHAYS. And so would I.

Mr. SHAYS. Whether it is a farmer that has to invest in new facilities or new equipment for their farming or a businessman in some of the urban areas, or businesswoman in urban areas I represent, they look at the cost of money, and then they say ``If I build this new plant and equipment and hire these workers, will I get a return?'' The higher the interest rates, the less building of new plant and equipment you have and the purchase of new plant and equipment. I know we have about 4 minutes left before we conclude. I would just like to reiterate the fact that we are looking to balance our Federal budget and get our financial house in order. We are looking to save our trust funds, particularly Medicare, from insolvency and ultimate bankruptcy. And the third thing we are looking to do is to transform our care-taking social and corporate welfare state into a caring opportunity society. This is our objective. We are asking the President and hoping that he keeps his word to ultimately come in with a balanced budget, scored by the Congressional Budget Office, using real numbers. We are not saying he has to agree to our tax cuts. We are not saying he has to agree to our Medicare Program, our Medicaid Program, or what we have done in discretionary spending or with food stamps or whatever else that we have set our priorities. We are saying to the President to set his priorities. Where we agree, then we can simply say there we agree; where we disagree, then we work out our differences. I believe if the president were to submit a balanced budget, in a very short period of time we would come to an agreement. I know Mr. Ganske, and I certainly know it for myself, we will not be happy with every part of that agreement, but we cannot be happy with every part of an agreement where we are compromising. I think we need to ultimately find common ground. I know the gentleman has worked with other people, people on the other side of the aisle to find areas where we can agree. We are reaching out to our Democratic colleagues, because, clearly, we are Members of Congress. We are not Republicans first or Democrats first. We are Americans first, looking to get our financial house in order not in the short run but in the long run for the good of our children.

Mr. SHAYS. I have had Mr. Greenspan come before my Committee on the Budget, and Mr. Greenspan was asked one time, do you think Congress will cut too much? And his answer was this: ``Mr. Congressman, I don't go to sleep at night fearful that when I wake up the next morning Congress will have cut too much.'' Given the battle that we have had with some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, I understand his lack of concern on that issue. But we know right now that interest rates have come down in the expectation that we will win this battle to balance our Federal budget and get our financial house in order. If we fail, there is no doubt in anyone's mind what the bond market will do, what the stock market will do, and ultimately what will happen to our economy.

Mr. SHAYS. And some people are not listening.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I know that you are a newer Member of Congress, and I know that you decided to run because you looked at how you saw Congress operate and said how can grown men and women fail to get our financial house in order? And that is what we are about. I have had constituents who said to me, how could you shut down the government? Well, part of the government is shut down, and the reason it is shut down is that the President has vetoed some budgets that we have given him, that he has not given us a balanced budget, and we are determined basically for the long haul to seek a balanced budget. We are not going to miss this opportunity. We are going to pursue it. I had some Members say to me, well, the polls say the President is taking the right position and Congress is taking the wrong position. It is interesting when we get in the polls. I will make two points. One is that the Time Magazine, when they did a poll, said that just recently in the last edition, 47 percent feel we are ``cutting too much''; 46 percent said we were cutting just right on or not enough. When they learned in fact Medicare was going to grow per beneficiary 45 percent, that Medicaid was going to grow significantly, that when they learned that the Earned Income Tax Credit goes from $19 to $25 billion, the school lunch from $5 to $6.8 billion, student loan from $24 to $36 billion, a 60 percent increase, Medicare from $178 to $289 billion, when they learned that; in other words, when the pollsters go back, they realize that there is a shift. And then two to one they say we are cutting just about right or not enough, when they realize in fact we are not doing the kind of cutting that they think we are doing. I will just make this last point, if I could. I have been asked about the polls. I have answered it this way. If Abraham Lincoln during the height of our crisis in the battle between the North and the South on whether we would be one nation, under God, indivisible, if he had taken a poll and he has responded the way the press has asked us, how can you continue when the polls say this, when Abraham Lincoln was President, it was clear that most Americans did not support the war during the first few years. They wanted the way to end, and they wanted him to settle. But he did not listen to the poll, thank God, because if he had, we would be not one Nation under God, indivisible; we would be two nations, and we would be very much divided. So for me the polls ultimately will happen this November, and I can say, I am very willing to sink or swim on this issue, to live or die, to be reelected or not. I am willing to face what my constituents say. If they do not feel we need to balance this Federal budget and get our financial house in order and they disapprove of the way we are proceeding, then I am out of sync with the constituents I represent. Then I do not deserve to be reelected. But for me, this is something that comes from my heart and my mind. I believe in it with all my heart and soul, and I am very willing to live with the consequences, whatever the consequences may be.

Mr. SHAYS. My colleague, what we have been talking about is one of the many plans that are part of our Balanced Budget Act which the President vetoed. We have some major differences with the President on Medicaid and on Medicare. He has some differences on whether or not to have tax cuts and where. We do not yet see his plan, and we are waiting for his plan. But we have been very strongly criticized by some on the other side of the aisle that talk about a ``cut'' to Medicare. What we have talked about is the fact Medicare is going up from $4,800 per beneficiary to $7,200. We have talked about the fact there are no copayments, no deductions, the premium stays the same. We are going to have a higher premium for the wealthier. The most affluent will pay more on Medicare Part B, something the colleagues on the other side of the aisle advocated, but now criticize. We are slowing the growth to a significant increase of 7.2 percent. Only when you spend 7.2 percent more each year do some, and only in this city, do they call it a cut. Now we have talked about now a plan that has choice, yet you do not have to choose if you do not want. You can stay where you are. We have talked about the fact you have been trying for a number of years and have been critical, first when you were not part of Congress, to get us to address the fact that some counties do not get the kind of payment allotted for Medicare that they deserve to, and there is this extraordinary disparity, and the only way choice is ultimately going to work is increase what we do in rural areas. We dealt with that. We have made significant changes to get at fraud, waste and abuse, and that we are allowing this choice for all our seniors. So I am very proud of this program. I hope we do not change it much from what we have proposed. I believe we need to spend more on Medicaid than we have appropriated, but I think our Medicare numbers are pretty good. I hope when the President finally does his job and comes in with a budget, he recognizes that we have $12 trillion to spend in our overall budget in the next seven years. And it is an issue of how he wants to spend $12 trillion and how we want to spend it. If we do nothing, we will spend $13.3 trillion and continue to have deficits ad infinitum.

Mr. SHAYS. If my colleague would yield, I have a number of constituents who manage their own care and manage their own health. They do not smoke, they may not drink, they try to lead healthy lives. They are a tremendous savings to our country because they are in fact healthier people.

Mr. SHAYS. I would just make a point that in representing an urban area, it was hard for me to comprehend at first that there would be such a low reimbursement to rural areas, and as this gentleman and some of your colleagues from rural areas pointed out to those of us from urban areas, that we had to deal with this issue. I think we have made a very good-faith effort to try to deal with this inequity. That is one area that we looked at. Another area I would love to focus in on before our time runs out is that health care fraud, which is pretty rampant, has been a State-by- State process. In our legislation, for the first time we make it a Federal offense to defraud both Medicare and Medicaid and CHAMPUS. CHAMPUS is the Federal program for our military and some other Federal employees. And for the first time we are making a concerted effort to deal with the State-by-State fraud and have a more greater team effort to go after this fraud. I do not know if my colleague would like to speak to this issue as well.

Mr. SHAYS. If the gentleman, before leaving that, just put that chart that he just took off, my understanding is the average starts somewhere between $4,000 and $5,000 on an annual basis, and the bottom 50 percent are actually below $4,000, yet just the top 10 percent are $6,000 and climbing.

Mr. SHAYS. So what did we do about it?

Mr. SHAYS. Just to clarify, that is because that beneficiary basically has $600 that they bring to a plan on a monthly basis, whereas in a county like your own, a rural county or counties like your own, it may only be $200 or $300?

Mr. SHAYS. Particularly in urban areas?

Mr. SHAYS. Are you saying this is based on determining health care costs county by county by county?

Mr. SHAYS. I would make this point, it is not like the telephone company where you found you were with AT&T, the next moment you found yourself part of MCI or another telephone service. You will stay in Medicare, the traditional fee-for-service, the Blue Cross/Blue Shield model, the 1960's version that exists today; you will stay in that program unless you proactively decide to become part of another program. And I make this point, that you, as a Member of Congress and I as a Member of Congress, who are Federal employees and get Federal health care, we get choice, and we are saying to beneficiaries that they for the first time will have choice. They will stay in the present system unless they get a getter choice, and the better choice is they may get eyeglass care, they may get dental care, they may have a health care plan that says their beneficiary cost will not be as high or that they will pay no copayment, they may get a rebate in the amount that they pay, and they will decide. Now, let us just say they make a choice, and they did not like the service. We are allowing them for the next 24 months to go right back into that fee-for-service. So they sign up, they do not like it, they are not locked in for a year or 2 or 3. Now, after 24 months, when they make a choice, it will be on an annual basis as it is for me. As a Federal employee, once I choose a health care plan, of which I pay 28 percent, I am locked in for a year. Every year I can decide to get out at a certain point. So we are offering choice, something that I know my constituents have asked for for a long time, but we are allowing them to stay. I know my colleague has some more to add on this issue.