The Economy

THE ECONOMY -- (House of Representatives - May 05, 2004)

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Mr. INSLEE. Mr. Speaker, I want to dovetail on this, to reference why this is so spectacularly ironic. About an hour ago one of our Republican colleagues was railing about the only problem with the Federal Government is waste, fraud and abuse, that that is the only problem, and just if the Democrats would stop all this waste, fraud and abuse we would have no problems.

I thought that was interesting, because this entire government is run by the Republican Party, a Republican President, a Republican Senate and a Republican House, yet he pointed out all this waste, fraud and abuse in the Federal Government. I wanted to stand up and say, who is in charge of the waste, fraud and abuse? Obviously it is the Republican Party, because that is who is running this government right now.

But here is this gentleman wailing about waste, fraud and abuse, when his party foisted down the throats of Congress and the American people this situation where they are giving $46 billion of taxpayer money to the insurance industry, which is totally unnecessary, because we could have given exactly the same benefits through Medicare.

Now, I challenge any Republican, any Republican or any Democrat, or any Green Party or socialist or independent, to show me a larger portion of waste, fraud and abuse than the $46 billion of taxpayer money going to the insurance industry, that does not deliver one penny of additional prescription drug benefit to seniors than Medicare could have done, had we not been involved in the shenanigan, not to pay off, but to pay benefits to people who are very, very powerful political forces in this town.

This I would nominate for the largest piece of waste, fraud and abuse, foisted on this country by the Republican Party, and it is an abomination. When you think about the generation having this done to them, think about who the victims of this fraud are, it is the men and women who we will be celebrating on Memorial Day down when we dedicate the World War II memorial. My dad is coming in. He was a World War II veteran.

This is the greatest generation. They prevailed in World War II, and how do we treat them? We foist this abomination, that can only pass this Chamber through fraud itself, a situation where my colleagues have talked about the 3-hour delay.

It reminds me of when we beat the Russians in 1964 in the Olympics in the basketball game. The only way the Russians won was to put time back on the clock. This was a Russian-style democracy, when they put 3 hours back on the clock. But during that 3 hours, what happened? There was a Republican Congressman who reported that he was offered a $100,000 bribe, in essence, to his son's campaign, if he would switch his vote. Does the greatest generation deserve that type of contempt for democracy in this Chamber, which has sullied the name of Congress and Medicare?

I have to tell you one thing, I will tell you, my Republican colleagues, this dog is not hunting with our constituents. I had meeting with 200 senior citizens in Edmonds, Washington, many of whom are stalwart Republicans, two weeks ago. I asked for their hands. This is a nonpartisan senior citizens group, just a bunch of folks concerned about this.

We talked about this bill in some detail, and I asked how many people believe this bill was substantially beneficial in their lives and that it deserved passage by Congress? Not one single hand was raised of those senior citizens, who were an eclectic group of conservatives and not-so-conservatives and Democrats and Republicans.

It is not playing, it is not being accepted, and because it is not accepted, people understand this, and people need to know why their taxpayer money is being wasted in another great incident of waste, fraud and abuse on this $18 million plan to try to sell this to the American people. Why is that waste, fraud and abuse taking place?

Well, there is a reason for it, and the reason about it is that this administration understands that the seniors have figured out it is an Edsel, and the seniors know about the Edsel. Maybe some of our younger constituents do not, but it is a turkey.

The seniors know it is an Edsel, and that is why these guys are spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money to try to dig themselves out of this horrible hole they have dug us into. It is an abomination.

I have to tell you, I am glad we all are here talking about it tonight.