Xavier Becerra: “In a letter dated July 24, 2000, the National Council of Senior Citizens described this bill that we are debating today…”

“In a letter dated July 24, 2000, the National Council of Senior Citizens described this bill that we are debating today as an irresponsible political gesture to upper-income persons which will have severe consequences for the Social Security System and the solvency of the Medicare part A trust fund. Today, my colleagues, 12 million Medicare benefits lack prescription drug coverage. Twelve million seniors who, on a daily basis, have to decide, ``Do I buy my prescription drugs or do I buy my food? Do I pay my rent or do I pay for my medicine?'' Twelve million. And today we are talking about a bill that will take $117 billion out of a system which right now cannot even provide prescription drug coverage to 12 million of those senior citizens. Mr. Speaker, we are here today debating a bill that does absolutely nothing for four out of five of those seniors when we talk about tax cuts. Let me say that again because it gets lost in the shuffle of all these words. This is a tax cut bill that will cost $117 billion over the next 10 years; $117 billion that will go to people out in America in a tax cut, who are seniors, but only to one out of every five of those seniors. Four of those five seniors will get nothing because this bill benefits only 20 percent of the most affluent of our seniors who are retired. On top of that, we do nothing in the future about prescription drug coverage.”