Jim Turner

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. 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. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, the House is being asked today to do something that no family or no business in this country would do, and that is embark on major financial decisions without first having a budget. The Congressional Budget Act was passed for the purpose of requiring this Congress to act on a budget first. Irrespective of the technicalities, clearly the spirit of the Budget Act is being violated here today. The 33 members of the Blue Dog Democrat Coalition are working hard today to send the message to all of our friends in this House that it is important to have a budget first. Democrats want the largest tax cut we can afford, but how in the world do you know how large a tax cut you can afford until you first go through a budget process? It matters not what budget I am for. It matters not what budget the President is for. It matters not what budget you are for. The process is that we all work together. We debate it out, and we vote and we have a budget. And when you do, you then know how big a tax cut you can afford.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, the President's recently submitted general budget outline leaves a lot of questions remaining about his tax cut plan. Frankly, it appears that trying to fit his tax cut into a realistic budget is like trying to fit a size 11 foot into a size 6 shoe. The American people understand there is no surplus today and that forecasting the surplus for the next 10 years is a lot like making a 10-year weather forecast. We do not want oversized tax cuts to take us back to the choice of deficit spending or higher taxes for our children. Now the leadership in the House wants us to take a vote on a major tax cut before the House has even adopted, or even debated, a budget. Tax cuts are an important priority, but equally important is paying down our $5.6 trillion national debt, saving Social Security and Medicare for the future baby boomer retirement, and strengthening education and national defense. Blue Dog Democrats have come to the floor this morning to say we are for the largest tax cut we can afford, and to know what we can afford we need a budget first.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Ganske). I want to commend the gentleman, first of all, on his leadership on this issue. The gentleman has truly been a courageous Member of this Congress to try to lead this House to adopting the Patients' Bill of Rights that all of us here have supported. It really represents, I think, the best opportunity for our new President to try to change the tone in Washington and to be able to move the Patients' Bill of Rights forward as the first piece of truly bipartisan effort. Mr. Speaker, I think it certainly is within our grasp, and I think that the efforts that the gentleman has made have blazed that trail. And as the gentleman mentioned, I was fortunate to be able to carry one of the first Patients' Bill of Rights in the country in Texas in 1996. And, of course, it was not until court rulings determined that our State protections really did not apply to all patients enrolled in managed care, that we had to deal with that here in Washington. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his leadership on that issue.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm) for yielding to me. It is a pleasure to join all of our Blue Dog Democrats on the floor here tonight to talk about what we think is the critical issue of the moment here in the House of Representatives, and that is the fact that we are faced tomorrow with a vote on a major tax cut when this House has yet to follow established procedure under the Budget Act, and try to come to grips with a budget prior to acting on tax cuts. Frankly, no American household and no business in this country would dare suggest that that is the right way to proceed, because at your house and mine and in your business and mine, the first thing we always know we are supposed to do is to establish a budget first. And until you have established a budget, you do not know how much you can spend on that remodeling of that new sun porch on the back of your house. You do not how much you can spend on that summer vacation. You do not how much you need to set aside for your children's education. That is what a budget is all about. This House of Representatives, contrary to the spirit of the Budget Act, which requires this Congress to pass a concurrent budget resolution with the Senate before we act on tax cuts is going to bring a major tax cut to this floor tomorrow, apparently, solely to generate momentum for the President's $1.6 trillion tax cut. Why are they doing it? I am not sure. The truth of the matter is, the Senate has already let it be known, as the Majority Leader of the Senate, that the Senate will adopt a budget prior to acting on tax cuts. So frankly, we believe as Blue Dog Democrats committed to fiscally responsible policies that this House, too, should have a budget prior to a tax cut. The Blue Dog Democrats as a group, the 33 members, voted unanimously to call for this House to act on a budget first prior to taking votes on any tax cut. We have advocated from the beginning that we can afford a tax cut and we want the biggest tax cut possible, but we do not know how big it should be until we first have the debate and have the votes on a budget. Now we all know that the President says that his tax cut will fit within his budget. He says we are going to cut spending so that it grows no more than 4 percent a year. Senator Domenici said the other day that he thought that was a little bit tight, he would suggest perhaps 6 percent irrespective of what the President said is his goal. We all know that at the end of the day, it is what the Congress votes collectively to support and the President signs that becomes the fiscal policy and the budget of this country. So we believe that the right thing to do is to have that debate, talk about the competing priorities and then make a decision on a tax cut that fits within that budget that the Congress has agreed upon. Frankly, right now the President's tax cut seems a whole lot like trying to fit a size 11 foot into a size 6 shoe because there are a lot of competing interests that this Congress from various quarters will have an interest in. For example, this Congress has unanimously agreed that we should no longer spend the Social Security and Medicare surpluses for anything other than Social Security and Medicare. That takes some of this estimated future surplus off the table. Mr. Speaker, most of the Members of Congress believe that we need to strengthen national defense. There are some that support a national missile defense system. There are some in this House who share our views that education should be strengthened and to do that may require us to put some additional money into public education. There is a vast array of competing priorities. Most of us do not want to pass on the national debt that was accumulated over 30 years of deficit spending to our children so we would like to see the national debt paid down. All of these competing goals will be considered when this Congress gets down to debating and determining what the budget of this Congress will be. Then we will know how big a tax cut we can afford. So we are going to work very hard all day tomorrow to continue to send the message to this House that it is a budget first that we need to adopt, then let us vote on the biggest tax cut that that budget will allow. We also understand that it is very dangerous to be basing these big tax cuts on these 10-year projections of what the surplus may be. The President suggested in his State of the Union speech the other night that the American people have been overcharged and they are due a refund. Well, that sounds pretty good. The truth of the matter is none of us have been overcharged yet because the surplus we are talking about trying to give back to the American people has not arrived yet. It is projected to arrive under certain assumptions over the next 10 years. Those assumptions can be questioned. The economic projections may not turn out to be true. It presumes about a 3 percent annual growth rate in the gross domestic product. We heard Alan Greenspan the other day testify before Congress that at the present time the national growth rate is zero. I suppose if the national growth rate stays at zero for a few more months, the Congressional Budget Office will need to go back to the calculator and recalculate the estimated surplus because they based it on some assumptions that may not turn out to be true. The bottom line is this: We want a tax cut as big as we can afford, but we also want to save Social Security and Medicare for the retired baby boomers when we know significant strains will occur on both of those systems. We want to pay down the national debt rather than pass that debt on to our children. We want to be sure that we get the benefits of a lower national debt which will result in lower interest rates which in many ways is equally as good as a tax cut because it puts money in the back pockets of every American who is trying to get a home mortgage, trying to buy a car, trying to borrow money to send their kids to college, trying to borrow money to expand their business. Lower interest rates will come, according to all economists who have spoken on this issue, if we pay down the national debt. I would say to you if you owe $100,000 on your home mortgage, if we could reduce interest rates 2 percent which is what some economists estimate would happen if we paid down the national debt over the next 10 years, that would mean $2,000 in interest savings to you. That is a bigger tax break than any of these tax cuts which are being talked about would give an average American family. We have a lot to discuss and a lot of priorities to put on the table, and it is going to be the collective judgment of this Congress when they vote on a budget that determines the balancing of those priorities and until we have that budget, we really cannot say with any certainty how big a tax cut we can afford. That is our message and we believe the American people understand the importance of fiscal responsibility. They understand the importance of strengthening national defense, preserving Medicare and Social Security, being sure that we pay down the debt and do not pass it on to our children. We want to be sure if today we pass a tax cut, it does not mean that our children are going to end up paying for it tomorrow. That is fiscal responsibility, that is what the Blue Dog Democrats, the 33 members of our coalition have worked for since the inception of the Blue Dog coalition. I am proud to be here tonight with my colleagues who work for fiscal responsibility.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I want to say that the gentleman from Mississippi has made a very excellent presentation and probably revealed the best kept secret in Washington, and that is that there are no trust funds. Most folks think that in business, where if you have a pension fund, there is some money sitting over there earning some interest and invested in some good investments, earning interest and earnings for the folks that are going to be drawing on that pension fund someday. But in Washington there is no Social Security Trust Fund, there no government retirees' trust fund, there is no military retirees' trust fund, there is no Medicare Trust Fund. It is a pay-as- you-go system.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, it has been a pleasure to hear the gentleman from Colorado express his points of view, and I believe there are many areas where we find common ground, particularly in the commitment to try to hold down the level of government spending. I think we share a commitment to reducing the Federal debt, although I think the Blue Dogs have a more aggressive debt repayment schedule than does the President under his budget plan. I notice that the gentleman from Colorado started off his remarks tonight talking about fear, and I picked up, during the gentleman from Colorado's presentation, a little fear expressed on his part, one that I think is shared by many Members of Congress and perhaps drives some of the actions that we see taking place here; and that fear that was expressed by the gentleman was the fear that we might continue to have greater government spending and for that reason we need to pass a tax cut before a budget I believe I heard the gentleman say. I would simply suggest to the gentleman that under the budget act that this Congress is governed by, we have, by law, said that the process that we will follow is to pass a concurrent budget resolution before we consider taxes and spending programs. So even though it may be a fear that if we do not do the tax cut first we will have greater spending later, the current law says that we should do it just the opposite. Now, I also would add that I think it is important for us to understand that simply having the fear of greater spending if we do not have a tax cut really historically has not proven to be very successful. Because during the early 1980s, when the Reagan tax cuts went into place, we also found that the Congress and the President decided to increase spending, particularly on national defense. And the largest deficits occurred during those years when we were both cutting taxes and increasing spending on defense. So, unfortunately, though it is a worthy objective to say that if we simply cut taxes first we will reduce spending, the truth is Congress has not chosen to follow that pattern. In fact, we accumulated over 30 years a $5.6 trillion national debt, because for 30 years straight the Congress and the Presidents that served during that time always spent more money every year than they took in. So the choice, when we do not have money coming in to the Treasury, is twofold: we can cut spending or we can go back in to deficit spending. And the pattern has been more the latter than the former.

Mr. TURNER. I yield to the gentleman from Colorado.

Mr. TURNER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks, and again we commend him on his presentation. I really do hope, however, that we will all at least come to the point where we will agree as a House, as a legislative body, that the budget act that we are governed by, requiring a concurrent budget resolution before we have tax cuts or enact appropriations for spending will be the pattern that this Congress will follow. Unfortunately, the leadership in this House has chosen to do it another way, because tomorrow they will bring to this floor a major tax cut before this House has adopted a budget. The Blue Dogs intend tomorrow to be heard on that subject because we think it is important to have a budget first. It is also true, as the gentleman from Colorado stated, that the President, in his budget plan, does reduce national debt. Our objection simply is that it does not reduce national debt as fast as we think it should be reduced. In fact, in an editorial in USA Today, the writer of that editorial acknowledged that the President is reducing debt, but he says that anyone looking closely at the President's budget will see that he does not retire debt as fast as current law would provide. And, in fact, the President's debt repayment schedule under his rough outline of a budget will reduce less debt than current law to the tune of $590 billion over the next 5 years. The Blue Dog budget plan reduces the debt at a faster rate than the President's budget does. Our plan is very simple. We say take the Social Security and the Medicare surpluses that will accumulate over the next 10 years and set them aside for Social Security and Medicare only. Whatever other surplus there is in the general operations of our government, then set aside 50 percent of that on-budget surplus for debt repayment. That means that the Blue Dog budget plan reduces debt at a faster rate than the President's plan. We further say set aside 25 percent of that on-budget surplus, outside of Social Security and Medicare, for tax cuts. And the final 25 percent should be reserved for priority spending needs, to take care of increased needs in the area of national defense, education and other priorities this Congress and this President may agree upon. In our judgment, that is a fiscally responsible approach to the forecast of budget estimates that we all know are merely forecasts, that may not arrive. In fact, we know that if the estimate of growth in Federal spending goes down only one-tenth of 1 percent, about $300 to $400 billion of the estimated surplus for 10 years disappears. That is how tenuous the estimated surplus figure really is. And so Blue Dogs simply say, let us pay down the national debt, let us have meaningful tax cuts for the American people, and let us preserve Social Security and Medicare for the future. And why do we say let us have a budget first? Because if we have a budget first, we have to address each of those issues that I mentioned and take the available Federal revenues that we hope will appear over the next 10 years and we have to fairly allocate them to those various priorities. To simply say let us bring a tax cut to the floor, it is a feel-good vote, let us do it, let us move on down the road, it will all work out, is not the way we would run our household budgets or our business budgets; and it is certainly not the way we should run the people's budget here in Washington. So I am hopeful that at the end of the day this Congress will have a budget debate. And, after all, just because the President says that spending will only go up 4 percent, just because the President says that we are going to be able to make all this work out does not mean that is the way the law is going to read at the end of the day. And when the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. McInnis) says that he thinks we ought to pass the tax cut first and then the budget, he is expressing a fear, a fear that his own majority party, who controls this House, who controls the Senate, and who now controls the White House, cannot be fiscally responsible. I submit to my colleagues that as long as the Republicans are in charge, they are going to be the ones ultimately that determine the size of the spending bill for the Federal Government for this next year. And to simply say that there is some projection out here of future surpluses that we all hope are going to arrive, and to make a decision today to spend all of those surpluses on the tax cut the President has proposed, is irresponsible. The truth of the matter is, if they do not show up, we will be back in deficit spending. A fellow in overalls at a town meeting stood up after I had made a long-winded presentation about all these Federal budget numbers, and he said, ``Congressman, how can you folks in Washington say you have a surplus when you have a $5.5 trillion debt?'' It caught me a little bit off guard, because the point was well made and certainly well taken. Only in Washington can you owe $5.5 trillion in publicly held debt and in debt owed to the Social Security and Medicare and other trust funds of the government that have been taken all these many years and spent on other things, only in Washington can you also say you have a surplus. The debt we owe is real. It is here now. The surplus we are talking about has not yet arrived. It may not arrive. What would you do at your household if you owed money to the tune of $100,000 and somebody said, ``Well, we think you're going to have an increase in your pay over the next few years.'' Would you ignore the debt and start spending the surplus? No. You would try to pay down the debt that you owe. Keep in mind, the Blue Dogs do not apologize because the size of our tax cut is little bit smaller than the President is talking about. The truth of the matter is, if you look at the tax cut proposals on, for example, the marginal rate side of the tax cut, sure the President over the long term has a little larger tax cut for those in the upper income brackets. The Democratic proposal has larger tax cuts for those in the middle income brackets. But the truth of the matter at the end of the day, the Blue Dog plan is not only to cut taxes but to pay down debt, because we know and economists tell us that paying down debt will put more money in the back pocket of American families than any of the tax cuts that we are talking about today, whether it is the President's, the Blue dogs' or any other group in this House or in the Senate. Economists say interest rates across the board would go down over the next 10 years approximately 2 percent if we pay down the national debt. If you are struggling to buy a new home and you have borrowed $100,000 at the bank and we can get interest rates down for you 2 percent, you will save $2,000 a year. Who gets $2,000 a year even under the President's tax cut? Well, I guess the very wealthy do. I suppose by looking at the numbers, if you are a wealthy lawyer making half a million dollars a year under the Bush tax cut, you get $15,000. But under the Bush tax cut if you are a waitress making $20,000, you will no longer have to pay $200 in taxes. Your taxes will be zero. As I think the President has often pointed out, the waitress gets a 100 percent reduction in her taxes and the rich lawyer only gets a 50 percent reduction when the truth of the matter is the lawyer gets $15,000 and the waitress gets $200. But how can we help the waitress? If she is trying to buy a home for her family and we can get interest rates down 2 percent so that when she goes into that bank or that mortgage lending agency and she applies for that $100,000 loan, the interest rate quoted to her will be 2 percent lower and she will save $2,000 a year because this Congress decided to be fiscally responsible and pay down the national debt and reap the benefits that come from that kind of fiscal responsibility. That is what the Blue Dogs are for. And at the end of the day, our plan will put more money in the back pockets of an average American family than any tax cut that is being talked about today. I am very hopeful that we can at least have an opportunity to have a fair debate on priorities and a fair debate about a budget before we have to vote on major tax cuts that may jeopardize our efforts to bring fiscal responsibility and restraint and debt repayment to the American people. I really think that tonight, the debate that we are having, though there are only a few Members in the Chamber tonight, is the kind of debate that we need to be having in the full daylight with the Members of the House here on a budget resolution for this House. I have even read in some of the publications here on the Hill that the Budget Committee is going to make a special effort this year to have a realistic budget, because the truth of the matter is that many times, the Congress even after passing their budget has spent more money than the budget allowed. This year, the spirit seems to be different in the House Budget Committee. I am very hopeful that the House Budget Committee will pass a realistic budget, one that this Congress will live within, and one that will allow us to have meaningful tax cuts and significant debt repayment over the next 10 years. This is our goal. This is what we are working for. I think at the end of the day, we can find that the American people will benefit from fiscal conservatism. It is really unusual to be in a position of having to be the voice of fiscal responsibility when for so many years we had support from the Republican side of the aisle for the same goals. It turns out that the Blue Dog Democrats have now been identified in this body as being the strongest deficit hawks, the most fiscally conservative and those committed to greater fiscal responsibility than any group in the House. I think it is really significant that this message be heard. That is why we are here tonight, at 11:35 Eastern Time talking about this issue that we all believe so strongly in. There have been several good editorials that have been published in recent days about this issue. It seems that more and more people across this country are beginning to question the path that has been charted by the leadership in this House which will lead us tomorrow to a vote on a major tax cut before we have a budget. More often than not in my conversations with my constituents, I hear the healthy skepticism that exists among people all across this country about cutting taxes based on a 10-year projection of a surplus. In fact, it was suggested to me the other day that perhaps this Congress and this administration could be characterized as somewhat arrogant for even suggesting that we cut taxes based on a 10-year estimate. Because the truth is, even if the estimate, perchance, turned out to be correct, this President and this Congress would have passed the last tax cut that could be passed by any Congress or signed by any President for the next 10 years. Perhaps that alone would suggest that perhaps we should look at a shorter time frame. When I served as a member of the Texas legislature, the House and the Senate there, I served on the Finance Committee, we met biennially, once every 2 years. What we did is project the State revenues for the next 2 years, projected our State spending needs, and adopted a budget accordingly. And if we had extra money projected for the 2-year period, we could pass a tax cut. We did not talk about 10 years out. Perhaps most legislators understand how foolish it really is to spend money that you do not even have yet. Only in Washington do we project for 10 years and then somehow declare that it is engraved in stone on a wall and we can spend it today. I think that we as a Congress should acknowledge that of the tax cut that we are talking about being given to the American people next year, that the surplus is so small next year that only 5 percent of the total tax of $1.6 trillion the President proposed is even being granted next year. And to grant more would put us back into deficit spending, because two-thirds of this surplus occurs in the second 5 years of this 10-year projection. Only one-third occurs in the first 5 years. And in the shorter term, very little surplus exists for any tax cut. Now I am not belittling the fact that the tax cut proposed gives a $56 billion tax cut next year, but $56 billion is only 5 percent of the total tax package that is being talked about. It was suggested the other day that perhaps what we ought to be doing is simply passing a short-term tax cut, coming back in 2 years, taking another look at where we are financially, passing another one, giving the next Congress after that the good fortune of being able to vote for a tax cut. But, no, in Washington the playing field has been defined for us, because the Congress in 1992 said that the Congressional Budget Office should project the financial estimate for 10 years. Once we did that, then I guess we opened the door to start spending the money, whether it is by tax cuts or spending or whatever means we want to use to dispose of it today, based on an estimate of what might occur over the next 10 years. So the Blue Dog Democrats are here tonight. We are working hard to convey the message of a budget first and we are asking for fiscal responsibility. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to our fellow Blue Dog colleague, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor.).

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor) does he happen to know how much interest we are paying on this national debt?

Mr. TURNER. I had heard a few months ago that the interest payment on the national debt was the third largest category of Federal expenditures. Is that correct? I think Social Security and perhaps national defense might have been a little bit ahead of payment of interest on the debt.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), in addition to the absolute waste that is represented by a billion dollars a day that we pay in interest on this huge $5.7 trillion national debt, there is going to come a point in time, is there not, where those debts are going to have to be repaid, those IOUs the gentleman talked about earlier this evening that represents the lockbox trust funds, that those monies are going to have to be paid? I mean, in Social Security, for example, is there not going to be a requirement, an absolute requirement, that some day those funds be repaid to that trust fund?

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, so the gentleman says that 13 years from now, in 2014, we start paying more Social Security benefits than we have income into the Social Security Trust Fund and payroll taxes, and at that point in time is when we need to have that debt paid down so that the money will be available for the Social Security recipients.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, let me ask this question of the gentleman. After 2014, 13 years from now, when the Social Security system begins to experience the retirement of those of us who are in that baby boomer category, what happens, as I understand it, is not only do we see in 2014 more money coming out of Social Security and benefits than goes in and Social Security payroll taxes, but that is just the tip of the iceberg. Because I read the other day that the Social Security service has already estimated, based on the number of folks that will be retiring in the years ahead, that 50 years from now, that the drain on the Social Security Trust Fund will be so great, that to have enough money going into the system 50 years from now to pay the benefits, to which people who will then retire will be entitled, will require a payroll tax of 50 percent of payroll. Now, the gentleman knows and I know and everybody here knows that we are never going to have a 50 percent payroll tax. Nobody could stay in business if they had to pay a 50 percent payroll tax. But to pay benefits that will be due by current law to the beneficiaries that will be retired 50 years from now, a lot of our children in that category, we need a payroll tax of 50 percent? I think what it says to me is that the talk about a surplus over the next 10 years really hides the true financial picture of the Federal Government, because not only does Social Security face a crisis in the years ahead, but Medicare does too. Is it fair, I ask the gentleman, to say we have a surplus when, in fact, if we look at a longer period of time, we probably have a deficit again because the demands on the Social Security system and on the Medicare system are so tremendous?

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that this debate comes right back down to where the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Tanner) said we were in his remarks earlier this evening. The question that must weigh on the minds, I hope, of every Member of this Congress is, are we going to leave this country in better shape for our children than we found it? And it seems to me, I say to the gentleman, that in order to do that, we are going to have to exercise some significant fiscal discipline over the years ahead. I really commend the gentleman on the presentation he has made. As I said to the gentleman earlier, he exposed, once again, the best kept secret in town up here, and that is that there is really no trust fund. And when we lock box the trust fund, all we have lock boxed is an IOU that some day is going to have to be paid by the taxpayers of this country, back into those trust funds so that the recipients of Social Security in the years ahead and the beneficiaries of the Medicare program in the years ahead will be able to have the commitment that we made to them honored and made good, and that is going to take a tremendous amount of effort on the part of this Congress and future Congresses. I hope that we have the wisdom to begin now to prepare for those very, very dire days when the baby boomers retire and the demands on Social Security and Medicare could literally overwhelm this government.

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, it sounds like to me if the gentleman's constitutional amendment had been the law in the Federal Government, that the trust funds of the Federal Government would be just like the trust funds that I am familiar with from my service in the Texas legislature. Because at the State level, and I suspect in every State in the union, when they set up the State employees' retirement trust fund and the teacher retirement system trust fund, the legislature actually puts dollars into those funds that are truly locked away and invested over time in real assets that are earning interest and increasing the value, the cash asset value of those trust funds. But because in Washington, we created trust funds that we allowed the government, the Congresses of years past to borrow from to do other things, what we are left with in Washington is trust funds with no cash, with no investment value, other than the fact that they hold an IOU, a Treasury obligation that does earn interest, but ultimately can only be paid through the taxing power of the Federal Government, because there is really no money there to pay the benefits that are guaranteed to the Social Security recipients, to the Medicare recipients, to the Federal employees who retire, to the military retirees. It is the taxing power of the future that will have to be used to honor those commitments.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me. I appreciate the opportunity to share this hour with my fellow Blue Dog Democrats, the voice of fiscal conservatism in this House. We have worked long and hard on fiscal issues: paying down the debt, cutting taxes, balancing the budget. I am glad to be here with the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd), the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), my colleague, the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Matheson), and the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), to talk about what will be the dominant issue in this Congress for the next several months. I think we all understand that when we began this Congress, we all shared a commitment to try to work together in a bipartisan way. I was pleased to see President Bush, who I served with when he was Governor of Texas, come with a pledge to try to work in a bipartisan way, because for too long the two parties in this House and in this Congress have warred with one another in such a way that the American people have become tired of seeing the bickering that exists here, and perhaps we have an open window of opportunity to work together in a more congenial and more bipartisan way in the common interest of all the American people. Mr. Speaker, I think the President's first test of bipartisanship will probably be the proposal on tax cuts. The Blue Dog Democrats believe there are two ways to put more money in the pockets of the American people. One is to cut taxes, two is to pay down our national debt and realize the lower interest rates that will flow for all Americans if we are fiscally responsible enough to pay down our national debt. It is not only the right thing to do for our children, not to pass that big debt to them, but it is the right thing for all Americans, because the combination of cutting taxes and paying down debt will put more money in their pockets. Economists estimate that if we can pay down our national debt, the publicly-held portion of it, over the next 6, 8 or 10 years, that we can lower interest rates by 2 percent for all American families. Now, that is a big deal, if you have to borrow money. I come from a poor district, where people have a relatively low average annual income, and a lot of folks I represent have to go to the bank occasionally to borrow money to buy a new car or to borrow money to buy a new home or to borrow money to send their children to college. For a family that has to borrow $115,000, for example, to buy a new home, if they pay that out on a 30-year mortgage at a fixed rate, 8 percent interest would cost them a monthly payment of $844. If we can get interest rates down just 2 percent for that family, that monthly payment would be $155 less. That is $1860 a year that we could put in the pockets of that family if we could get interest rates down. Paying down the national debt not only will prevent us from passing on that terrifically huge debt to our children for them to figure out how to pay off, but it will put money in the pockets of American families today; so that is the choice. Are we going to be for the big tax cut that does not allow us to pay down the national debt, does not allow us to protect and preserve Social Security and Medicare for the future, that does not allow us room to strengthen our national defense? That is the choice that the American people and this Congress have. I know we all believe in tax cuts, and I want the biggest tax cut that we can afford, but this Congress must operate the same way that we all know we must operate in our own households. When we sit down at the beginning of the month, we balance our checkbook and we determine what our income is, and we divide that income up among the bills that we owe. If there is something left after we pay our bills, then maybe we can go out for a fancy dinner or maybe we can even decide to buy a little nicer automobile or maybe we can afford to take a trip, but at my household, and I know at yours, we decide that on a month-by-month basis. I do not know anybody who has ever sat down at the kitchen table and said, talking to their wife, you know, honey, I think, that we are going to be able to afford some things on down the line. I think I will probably get a raise every year for the next 10 years. And since I probably think I may get a raise, that means we have a surplus, and I think we ought to go ahead and spend that surplus now. That is what this Congress is doing when this Congress decides to cut taxes in an amount equal to the surplus that is estimated to arrive here over the next 10 years. You would not do that at your household, and this Congress should not do it either. We really have a very fundamental issue that I think every American family can understand. When you owe money, you pay your debt first. And if there is anything left, then we can cut our taxes, or we can spend on something like national defense or something that this Congress would like to support. These budget estimates of surpluses are really funny numbers. We tell the Congressional Budget Office to develop an estimate of how much money might come into the Treasury over the next 10 years under a whole bunch of assumptions that do not make a whole bit of sense. One of the assumptions is that Federal spending go up at the rate of inflation. Government spending, for the last 5 years, even under the Republican Congress, and all of us who have joined with them trying to hold down spending, government spending still went up at the rate of the gross domestic product. That is a fancy word, but it is a number that is bigger than inflation. If we just continued to spend on defense at the rate of the gross domestic product, $450 billion of this surplus we are talking about over the next 10 years would disappear. If we simply continue to spend on education at the rate of the increase in the gross domestic product, $400 billion of that surplus would disappear. What makes us think, after all of the efforts that we have made to be fiscally conservative and to hold down spending for the last 5 years, that we are going to be able to do even better than that? I hope we are better than that, frankly, but to cut taxes in an amount that prevents us from being able to meet the legitimate need of this country in areas like national defense is foolish. I am convinced that the tax cut that the President has proposed is too big. We simply cannot afford it. So what can we afford? I think the Blue Dogs have a reasonable plan. We have always said, as this whole Congress has repeatedly pledged, we will not touch the surplus that accrues in the Social Security trust fund or the Medicare trust fund. Those trust funds are going to need every penny that will accrue in those funds. What do we have left even under the optimistic estimate? We have about $2.7 trillion over 10 years. The Blue Dogs have said repeatedly take half of that and use it to pay down our national debt; take 25 percent of it and let us cut our taxes and let us set aside 25 percent to be sure that we save Social Security and Medicare and strengthen national defense and provide our kids with the kind of education that we know they need. That is a fiscally conservative approach to budgeting, and the Blue Dogs believe foremost of all that we have to have a budget first. The President sent his tax cut down here the other day. He has not sent his budget yet, and he has pledged to us that his tax cut will fit within his budget. Frankly, I do not think it will, but even if he moves the numbers enough to make it fit, there is going to be some things that will have to be neglected that I think most Americans want to protect; foremost among those is to protect Social Security and to protect Medicare. Our seniors and those of us who will soon be seniors deserve the protection of a sound Social Security system, and we need to protect Medicare. Health care costs are going up. Many of the hospitals in my rural district are threatened with closing. I want to protect Medicare because those hospitals depend largely upon Medicare revenues to keep the doors open. We believe in fiscal responsibility. The Blue Dog Democrats are going to fight for fiscal responsibility, and I am glad to join my colleagues on the floor today to advocate what I think is in the best interests of the American people.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I would say to Charlie, each member of our delegation shares in your loss and we express our deep sympathy to you. I guess the best story I ever heard about your father was really not about his early political races or about his 37 years in the Congress or about how he worked to single-handedly break down racial barriers in our country, but it is a story about how the 70-year-old Congressman slugged a man in a San Antonio restaurant who called him a communist. Henry B. loved his country. He had the kind of fierce patriotism that has always driven America. He did not back off, he did not give in, and he was not afraid to take on the most powerful people in Washington, even if they happened to be in his own party. Henry's early political career was marked with both important milestones and political failures. His success as the first Tejano to hold a seat on the San Antonio City Council, the Texas State Senate and here in the U.S. House of Representatives inspired a generation of leaders in the Mexican-American communities, many of whom are serving with us here today. But Henry faced setbacks in his life as well. Half a century ago he thrust himself into San Antonio politics by trying to convince several of his friends to run for the legislature. It seems Henry had become convinced that Bexar County needed a full-time domestic relations court, and he knew the only way to get it was to get it through the legislature. After being unable to find anyone else to run, he ran himself. But he lost that first race. Today in Texas, however, domestic relations courts are a common fixture of the judiciary. As with so many other issues which he championed as the lone voice crying in the wilderness, Henry was a trailblazer, a trailblazer for the downtrodden, the poor, the disadvantaged, the disenfranchised. Henry B. Gonzalez once ran for Governor of Texas and for the United States Senate, only to come up short. But the fire inside Henry B. was fueled not by personal ambition, but by love for his country and a belief in a higher cause that could not be extinguished. For 38 years, Henry fought for the cause of justice and equality in this House. He served under eight Presidents and he chaired the powerful Committee on Banking and Financial Services. He was a legend in Washington, a master of constituent service, and a patron saint of San Antonio politics. His passion was contagious. His legacy gives all of us the strength to fight, the confidence to succeed, and the resolve never to give up. That story of the man who called Henry B. a Communist in Earl Abel's restaurant in 1986 reflected that rare combination of passion and character that mark the greatness of Henry B. Gonzalez. It is told that after being hit by the 70-year-old Congressman, that that diner who called him a Communist demanded of Henry B. an apology. Henry said his only regret was that he pulled the punch. We do not know if Henry really pulled his punch that day, but Henry B. Was a fighter. He was in every sense a great American. If he did really go easy on the man in that restaurant that day, it would have been the only punch he ever pulled.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is somewhat disingenuous for our friends on the Republican side to advocate their Medicare give-back bill just claiming providers support it. The truth is, if one asks any of the Medicare providers and any of the hospitals if they prefer the version that they put on the floor or the version that we are trying to offer, I can assure my colleagues they will support that which we are trying to offer. I want to read to my colleagues a letter I have from my hospital administrator from Jasper, Texas. I am trying to help many of my rural hospitals. Here is what he has to say: ``We are extremely concerned because as the present language reads in the Bill, one-third to one- half of BBA relief over 10 years would go to the HMOs, leaving less for providers and beneficiaries in East Texas.'' The truth of the matter is only 16 percent of the Medicare beneficiaries in this country are enrolled in HMO Medicare+Choice plans. Under the Republican version of this bill, 40 percent of the money goes to those HMOs. That is just not right. It is not going to save our rural hospitals. We can do better. Mr. Speaker, I include the letter from the Christus Jasper Memorial Hospital Administrator for the Record, as follows: Christus Jasper Memorial Hospital, Jasper, TX, October 18, 2000. Congressman Jim Turner Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC. Dear Congressman Turner: I am writing to you as CEO/ Administrator of CHRISTUS Jasper Memorial Hospital in Jasper, Texas, a small and rural Catholic hospital serving the citizens of Southeast Texas. We are still reeling from the devastating cuts of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and are seeking relief at your hands. We are asking for a full market basket update from Medicare inpatient services in 2001 and 2002 and also expand health care coverage from legal immigrants. We are extremely concerned because as the present language reads in the Bill, one-third to one-half of BBA relief over 10 years would go to HMOs, leaving less for provider and beneficiaries in East Texas, such as CHRISTUS Jasper Memorial Hospital. Further, the Bill does not prohibit HMOs from dropping benefits or leaving the community as they have done here in Texas and left many of our patients without HMO coverage. We need your help. Also rural hospitals need additional help by passing re- basing of sole community provider status and also Medicare dependent hospital status, as we are both. I will be glad to discuss this with you at any time concerning this very vital issue. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, George N. Miller, Jr., CEO/Administrator.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Bryant) express his concern about his rural hospitals and his health care providers in his district because I have the very same concern, and that is why I hope that he will join with us in urging this Congress to put a larger percentage of the increased funding for Medicare in increasing those reimbursement rates to those rural hospitals and to those rural health care providers instead of giving about 40 percent of it directly to the insurance companies that we do not even know if they will be passing that money along to those rural hospitals. That is why I oppose the Medicare funding plan that the Republican leadership has put before this body. The truth of the matter is, Medicare+Choice HMO insurance plans are not working for our seniors and they are not working for the taxpayers. The bottom line is, in my district, as I went around in August talking to my seniors at town meetings, they stood in lines to tell me that their Medicare+Choice plans have been cancelled. In fact, 5,000 of them in my district received notices of cancellation just a month ago, and the truth of the matter is Medicare+Choice is being cancelled all across this country. That is why we need greater accountability, and that is what this motion is addressing. Thirty percent of all Medicare beneficiaries in this country will have no Medicare+Choice option. Last year, 328,000 seniors got these notices of cancellation. This year almost a million seniors got notices of cancellation. If one has looked at the recent General Accounting Office report on Medicare+Choice plans which was just issued, it will reaffirm the case that I am making tonight that our HMO plans are failing our seniors and our taxpayers. Listen to this from the summary of the GAO report: Industry representatives contend that the Balanced Budget Act's payment rates are too severe and that low Medicare payment rates are largely responsible for the plan withdrawals. However, since the BBA was enacted, Medicare+Choice rates have risen faster than per capita fee- for-service regular Medicare spending. In addition, many plans have attracted beneficiaries who have lower than average expected health care costs while Medicare+Choice payments are largely based on the expected costs of beneficiaries with average health care needs. The result is that Medicare can pay more for a beneficiary who enrolls in a plan than if the beneficiary had remained in regular fee-for-service Medicare. As we, the GAO, recently reported, these additional payments amounted to $5.2 billion or 21 percent more in 1998 than the fee-for- service program would have spent to provide Medicare coverage benefits to plan enrollees. The plans offered by the HMOs are costing the taxpayers more money than regular Medicare and increasingly those HMO plans are withdrawing from our seniors, and they need to have something better. That is why we fought for a prescription drug benefit under regular Medicare, which works for our seniors.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is apparent to all of us that the question is not how much is enough. We are already spending more than we ought to be. The majority voted to spend $645 billion when you raise the caps. The President did not ask us but for $637 billion. The issue is what are we spending the money on? That is why we are here. That is what we are arguing about. The truth of the matter is most of us on this side of the aisle want to spend more money on our rural hospitals and our health care providers and less money on the insurance company HMOs than the Republicans have put in the bill. And the truth of the matter, even Senator John McCain pointed out that there is $21 billion in this legislation that is just pure pork. Every newspaper in the country has been editorializing on the fact that the majority has stuffed this bill with pork for partisan purposes to help folks that are in tough races. So let us get the pork out, and let us save our rural hospitals that are about to close in my district. Let us increase the reimbursements to our health care providers. And let us not give the lion's share to the big insurance companies.

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak to an issue raised by the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune), my friend, regarding the concern that I think we all have regarding our rural hospitals. The main reason that I object to the bill that was passed on this floor that the President has said he will veto is just the issue the gentleman raised, and that is, it is inadequate in terms of its funding for our rural hospitals and dedicates too much of the money set aside to increase funding for Medicare to the insurance company HMOs. Mr. Speaker, I have a letter here from a hospital administrator in my district, George Miller. He is the administrator of the Christus Jasper Memorial Hospital. He writes to me and he says we are extremely concerned because as the present language reads in the bill, the one we passed, one-third to one-half of BBA relief over 10 years would go to HMOs, leaving less for providers and beneficiaries in east Texas, such as the Christus Jasper Memorial Hospital. Further, the bill does not prohibit HMOs from dropping benefits or leaving the community as they have done here in Texas and left many of our patients without HMO coverage. We need your help, Administrator George Miller, Jasper, Texas. That is the concern that I have about the bill that was passed, and that is why I support the President's threatened veto of the bill. The truth of the matter is, HMOs are abandoning our seniors. I only have four counties out of the 19 that I represent that even have an HMO plan offered to them after December 31 of this year. I clearly, in representing my constituents, want to see more of that increase that we have provided in this bill applied to the rural hospitals, the health care providers, rather than giving 40 percent of that new money to those HMOs. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, it is always easy to question motives, and I really think that what we have to do is try to form our own views on these issues. I am sharing with my colleagues mine, and that is too much of the increase in Medicare money in this bill goes to the insurance company HMOs, and there are only four counties in my district that even offer an HMO Medicare choice plan. I am not sure how long they are going to be there. I would invite my colleagues to take a look at the report just issued by the General Accounting Office, which tells us a whole lot about the status of these Medicare HMO choice plans. Basically, the message is pretty clear. HMOs are not working in Medicare for either our seniors or for the taxpayers, because what we have seen, last year we had several hundred thousand seniors receive notices of cancellation of their HMO+Choice plans. I believe it was 328,000. And here this year, we have had almost a million receive a notice of cancellation. The bottom line is, our seniors know that these HMOs cannot be depended upon, and I think what we see in the GAO report is that not only are they dropping out and canceling our seniors, but on average, it is costing the taxpayer more for a senior to sign up for these Medicare HMOs than regular fee-for-service Medicare costs. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).

Mr. TURNER

Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, on October 18 and October 19, 2000, I was not able to vote on roll call votes No. 531-540. Had I been present, on roll call No. 531, I would have voted ``yea.'' On roll No. 532, I would have voted ``yea.'' On roll No. 533, I would have voted ``yea.'' On roll No. 534, I would have voted ``yea.'' On roll No. 535, I would have voted ``yea.'' On roll No. 536, I would have voted ``yea.'' On roll No. 537, I would have voted ``no.'' On roll No. 538, I would have voted ``no.'' On roll No. 539, I would have voted ``no.'' On roll No. 540, I would have voted ``yea.''