Gilbert Gutknecht: “Mr. Speaker, it has been a privilege to be part of this 104th Congress. One of the most frustrating things that I found…”

“Mr. Speaker, it has been a privilege to be part of this 104th Congress. One of the most frustrating things that I found was how many times what we really have accomplished, what has really happened in this Congress, has been in some respects misrepresented by some of our adversaries and not always accurately reported by the press. As a matter of fact, one of the things we did in our town meetings, talking about reform and saving the Medicare system, it has been difficult sometimes, because we have to go over the same ground, and I found in my town meetings where we could explain exactly how much we are spending today in Medicare, how much we are proposing to spend in Medicare, and it goes from about $161 billion in fiscal year 1995 to $247 billion in the year 2002. Once people get those numbers, some of them actually scratch their heads and say, ``Well, wait a second, I keep hearing you are cutting Medicare,'' when in fact we are making big increases in Medicare.”