John Mica: “and my colleagues, I come to the floor this morning to talk about two scams that have been perpetrated by both the…”

“and my colleagues, I come to the floor this morning to talk about two scams that have been perpetrated by both the administration and the other side of the aisle. The first scam is what I call the Clinton shutdown and the charges that were made about balancing the budget and about getting our Nation's finances in order. It is part of a scare scam, and it is pretty clever. It says, that Republicans will hurt the elderly, the environment, education. In fact, if we just take a minute and look at the facts involved here, in the area of Medicare, we have heard it over and over: Republicans are going to cut it. In fact, over the next 7 years we will add $724 billion in spending. Medicaid, we will add $348 billion in spending. In education and job training and student loans, we will add $25.7 billion in spending. But we hear it over and over. What they do not in fact tell us is that part of this argument is about the bureaucracy. EPA has 6,069 employees in Washington, DC. That is almost as many as a dozen years ago, a total of 18,000. I am not talking about the 12,000 outside of Washington, but 6,000 in Washington, DC. Education, we have 3,322 employees in Washington, D.C., out of a total of 4,876 employees. A total of 358,000 Federal employees. These are not defense; these are not civilian defense. These are part of that bureaucracy within just earshot of the Capitol building. That is what this debate is really about.…”