Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Well, I would think that it would make absolute sense to clean up the highest priority ones first. But I want to inquire of the gentleman of one. Does the gentleman think when we clean up an environmental site that we should pay more to lawyers and lawsuits on cleaning up an environmental site or should we actually pay money to clean up that site?

Mr. BROWNBACK. Not only reasonable, but I believe constitutional.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I appreciate the work that the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot] does in representing Ohio in this great Nation, one of the big power forces we have had in this new freshman class of things we have been able to get done. I do not know how many American people recognize that this freshman class has hit here and people like the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot] have gotten things done, sent here to make Washington smaller, more efficient, work better for the American people, and it has happened. One of the things we have not gotten done yet is changing the taxes and being able to get the tax burden less on the American people. We have passed it and passed it again, and have been vetoed and sent back by the President. As the gentleman aptly put forward, the American people are I think taxed to the max, to the point now that they work nearly 40 percent of their year just to pay taxes at all levels, and it is just too much. I wanted to make another point, if I could, on the issue of taxes. I have got some words here in front of us that rule our lives, if I could show these to the American people. I think it will be kind of interesting to other Members of Congress. I have got on this page the Declaration of Independence, where we declared independence from a dictatorial nation that was telling us to live a different way than what we wanted to, and these are some words that rule our lives. Within this page is the Declaration of Independence that talks so much about the freedoms and justice that we treasure so much as the American people. I also have with me today the Holy Bible, words that help with our life as well. I have got the number of words here, 773,000 words approximately in the Holy Bible. The size of this, Declaration of Independence, 1,300 words. I have got to show the Members of Congress the 1940 Tax Code. I thought we would go back a little ways and we would see the 1940 Tax Code, and I can still lift this one up. It is 4 volumes, the United States Code Annotated, Internal Revenue Code of the United States, 1940's Tax Code. I cannot pick up the current Tax Code of the United States. I guess I need to be lifting weights better, then I would be able to. The gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] might be able to do this, but it is a stack about 2\1/2\ feet tall of books. It contains 555 million words that control our lives. This is no joke at all. Unfortunately, this is the real thing. This is just the Tax Code itself, so we can see how much it has grown and how much it has expanded over a period of from 1940 to what it presently is today. The IRS actually sends out 8 billion pages a year in forms and instructions, which itself would stretch around the world 28 times, just the words that they send out and the billions of pages. In 1948 a typical family paid only 3 percent of its income in Federal taxes, 3 percent. Imagine that. Because today they pay 24 percent, 8 times as great as in 1948. Imagine what an increase in salary and wages and income we would be giving the American people if we could cut the Government back even a quarter of the way to where we were in 1948. According to the Tax Foundation, more than 3 hours of every working day are dedicated to the Tax Code. That is how long Americans work on average to pay their taxes. In total, individuals will spend 1.7 billion hours filling out their taxes, responding to this stack of books here, of rules and laws and words that govern our life. My point in mentioning all of this, and there is a number of other facts that move forward with this, is that we have far too much tax burden on the American people. Average working American people across this country are working too much for the Government and not enough for themselves and their own families. We have got to much manipulation out of Washington, trying to micromanage our individual economic and personal decisions, trying to make everybody, I guess, perfect across the country as somebody might have designed from here. The Tax Code was written by a thousand different Members of Congress at different times over the eight decades that we have had an Internal Revenue Code. I just think it is time we say enough is enough. We have got too much of a tax burden, it is too complex, it is too much manipulation out of Washington, and it is time we cut it down to size. It is time we cut the tax burden, and give the American people a real raise by cutting their tax burden. It is time we cut back on manipulation out of Washington and say that the Tax Code is not for social engineering, it is not for economic engineering. The Tax Code is for raising revenue for the Federal Government. It should be done with a lot of change that we are going to have to get through, and making these sort of changes so the American people can get the relief that they need to have both in the burden and the quantity of manipulation they are getting out of Washington. I see we have been joined by some other colleagues.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield to the gentleman from Nebraska.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, let me begin by congratulating Chairman Gilman for the hard work he and his staff have put into reforming the defense and security assistance provisions incorporated in H.R. 3121. I think H.R. 3121 represents a common sense approach to advancing our foreign policy goals of promoting global security, ensuring the security of U.S. citizens and U.S. allies around the world, and encouraging democracy. However, the bill achieves these goals while effectively reducing the amount of excess defense articles that will be transferred to our allies on a grant or no-cost lease basis. We need to use the grant and no-cost lease options sparingly so that these programs recover as much money for the taxpayers as possible. H.R. 3121 will force the Defense Department to drastically reduce the number of no-cost leases and grants that are used to transfer excess defense articles to our allies. The bill creates the national security interest determination that the President will have to invoke in order to provide a no-cost lease for excess defense articles. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 3121 also requires the Pentagon to evaluate whether excess defense articles should be transferred on a grant basis or on a sale basis, depending upon what the potential proceeds would be from a sale, what the likelihood of selling a defense article would be, and what the foreign policy benefits of a transfer would be. Mr. Speaker, I simply add that in this time of budgetary constraint and austerity, I think this is a very good measure that we move forward with that, we say to the Defense Department and we say to the administration, if you are going to give away these ships, if you are going to give away these airplanes, you better have a darn good reason to do it, because we are broke and we need to be able to recognize and get as much funding as we possibly can and have as much restraint here as possible. That is in the bill, and I commend Chairman Gilman for inserting it.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the gentleman very much.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler], the gentleman from California [Mr. Berman], and also the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith], for the excellent work they have done on the issue of immigration. Mr. Chairman, I would like to point out a couple of things. I rise in strong support of the Chrysler amendment. I think the bill as it is currently written would cut legal immigration far too far. According to the State Department, and I have a chart up here showing the numbers from the State Department, it would cut legal immigration a minimum of 30 percent, and maybe as much as 40 percent. That is simply too much. The Chrysler amendment has broad support from the Christian Coalition to the AFL-CIO, from the Wall Street Journal editorial page to the L.A. Times. It has broad support because it just simply goes too far, the current bill does. Mr. Chairman, the Senate has split this legislation already, legal and illegal immigration. We should pass this amendment, deal with illegal immigration aggressively, as the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] has dealt with illegal immigration very aggressively, and then take up the issue of legal immigration with the Senate bill. Finally, I would just like to plead with my fellow Members, we are a Nation of immigrants. Congress should preserve this proud tradition and not threaten it. Ronald Reagan, in his final address to the Nation, spoke often and spoke then of America being a shining city on a hill, and in his mind it was a city that was teeming with people of all kinds, living in peace and harmony. Then he went on to say, ``And if this city has walls, the walls have doors, and the doors are open to those with the energy and the will and the heart to get in. That is the way I saw it, that is the way I see it,'' is what Ronald Reagan said then. That is the way we should see it. Support the Chrysler amendment.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I want to rise in support of the Chabot amendment, and also in recognition of the fine job that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Smith] and others have done in working on this overall issue of illegal immigration. I think they have done an outstanding job. However, on this issue I have a dispute and a disagreement with them on it. I think the Members in looking at this amendment should consider and ask themselves three questions in being up-front about what is going on. First, where are we headed with this? If there is a legitimate thought in your mind that where we are headed with this is a potential of a national identification card system, and you disagree with that, you should vote for the Chabot amendment. Second is, what precedent are we setting in putting forward this provision? If you are questioning the precedent that we are setting is something that we are going to go toward a national ID system, again you should vote for the Chabot amendment. Finally I would ask Members, the question is how competent is the Government to do this? If you have a question about the competency, call the IRS right now with a tax question. I think that might answer some questions about how competent is the Government to get this right when we have got a huge nation of so many people. For those reasons and for the reason of which I think I was sent here to Congress, which is to get the Federal Government off of people's backs and out of their pockets, I am supporting the Chabot amendment.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I congratulate our chairman on a fine bill, and I also want to congratulate the ranking member for his leadership for many years in this field. I rise in strong support of the conference report. The American people clearly want us to balance the budget, they want us to cut foreign aid bureaucracy, and this bill does that. This is not an isolationist bill. The United States cannot and should not engage in isolationism. But the world has changed. The cold war is over, and we need to reduce the apparatuses that are associated with that cold war in this time of tight budgets. And I have to disagree with some of my colleagues on the Democrat side of the aisle, that they would suggest that we are pulling back and being isolationist by some of the reforms of the cold war institutions and suggesting that the United States' leadership in the world is dependent upon having the United States Information Agency, and AID and ACDA when our real tools for leadership in the world and the reason the United States is the leading country of the world is a strong, vibrant, growing economy, a strong military apparatus and standing for principles, principles of freedom, and justice, and liberty, and those are the things that give the United States leadership. It is not bureaucracies, and there are fine people that are in these agencies, and they work hard, and they do a good job. But the truth of the matter is we are broke. We are $5 trillion in the hole, and the American people are far more concerned about health care for our children than they are about a foreign aid bureaucracy, and we should be far more concerned about Medicare than about foreign aid, and that is what this is about. This is about making tough decisions during times of tight budgets. I think this is a good bill in doing that, in changing the apparatuses. I think it should have eliminated the three international affairs agencies that were involved. But they compromised and went to one of the three and told the executive branch, ``You decide in working with this of what you think works best in your foreign policy decisions that you have.'' That seems prudent to me. They cut the operating budget of the State Department and related agencies by $1.3 billion, and in a time of tight budgets, when we are trying to increase health care for our children in this country, when we are trying to balance our own budget so we can have a strong economy, a strong military and stand for principle, those seem to me to be prudent and wise things to do. It reduces the program budgets of the State Department and related agencies by $500 million below the fiscal year 1995 funding levels. These are all things that are going to be necessary, that are necessary, to balance the budgets so the United States can continue to have the global leadership by virtue of having a strong economy, a strong military and standing for the principles that we always have. That is why I think this is a good bill. I congratulate the chairman on it.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the lockbox amendment that can save the dollars. We should lock it away and not spend it somewhere else, and I would like to hook onto what the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey] was just mentioning, that it seems to me that ultimately what this is really about is making it more likely that we will ultimately balance the budget, which is what this whole exercise is all about. That is why I am in strong support of this amendment.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the gentleman from Michigan for yielding. I want to recognize what the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler] has been doing. Here is a businessman coming into the Congress. Normally, people would say, well, this would be the type of person that would defend the Department of Commerce, help the Department of Commerce because it is going to deliver goodies back to him or to his organization or people that he knows. Instead, he is going in saying, ``Why do we have this Department of Commerce the way it is currently configured and can we not save money and help the American people and help the American taxpayer in the process?'' I think that is a very worthy goal and objective and something that the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler] has really put forward. Mr. Speaker, the other night I was really attracted to very supportive to very supportive of the President's statement in the State of the Union where he said at the outset, ``The era of big Government is over.'' The era of big Government is over. It is over. He said that, and he said that we have got to get on past this point in time. I was very appreciative of him saying that, that the era of big government was over. And I anticipated that shortly thereafter in the speech, the State of the Union, that he would call for the elimination of the Department of Commerce as an indication that the era of big government is over and here is something we can do without and we can save $7 billion in doing this, $7 billion. We can cut corporate welfare in the process of doing this, as well, and we can deal with some of these issues of excessive travel expenditures in the process, too. We can show a smaller, more focused, more limited Federal Government. We can do as the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica] has talked about previously as well, consolidate our trade functions. Instead of 19 different agencies and entities doing trade promotion, get it into one, and we can have an effective, focused force in international trade that will help us, although I think the biggest help we can do to help ourselves in international trade is negotiate good treaties, have less regulation, have less litigation, have less taxation and a balanced budget to cut interest rates by 2 percentage points, and if we could get the Federal Government as a smaller percentage of the gross national product, that is going to do more than anything else to help us promote international trade and get our balance of payments. I would be happy to yield back to the gentleman from Michigan.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Yes, to be able to allow farmers to decide themselves what they want to plant rather than somebody that is planning for this out of the centralized bureaucracy in Washington telling my dad and my brother what they can plow on their farmland in Linn County near Parker, KS. They sit out there now and they go, ``Now who is telling me that I have got to plant this many acres of corn and this many acres of wheat,'' and they are saying, ``Well, OK, I will go along because that is what the system is.'' But you have got to question, is that really the way it should be decided? Should the marketplace not send those signals and then individually decide in that system? And they would much rather do that. I would say, as well, there are a number of very good things done by the Department of Commerce that we keep. Patent and Trademark Office, you have to keep that and you want to keep that. The National Weather Service does a very good job. I think we could probably do some more with some increase in technology, but they do an excellent job as well, and there are other things within that agency that do a good job. But it is also well known about the political nature of many of the appointments within the Department of Commerce. There are problems that it has had recently, and we have seen these recent reports about the Secretary in the Department of Commerce. I think overall, as a statement of faith and as a statement of commitment from the President of the United States and this Congress, that the era of big government is over, we should take this very first step and eliminate the Department of Commerce, keeping the core functions that are good and necessary, eliminating the corporate welfare, getting it out, saving the American people $7 billion in the process, and showing them a smaller, more limited, more focused Federal Government. I would be happy to yield back to my colleague, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler], who has brought this debate thus far with a great deal of difficulty.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, yesterday in this House we voted to give and grant to two people, well deserving, the Congressional gold medal, and that was to Dr. Billy and Ruth Graham, and that motion passed overwhelmingly in this House. It is going to the Senate and hopefully will be passed by a similar margin there and signed by the President of the United States. I just wanted to recognize these two extraordinary Americans and what they have done, for their extraordinary service they have committed to this country and the people of this planet. Dr. Graham has evangelized to more people on this globe, on this effort, than any human in history that he has witnessed to during the time period of his service, and it continues. Many writers, both political and religious, in this country are saying we as a Nation are entering a period of a fourth awakening, a time period of moral and spiritual renewal in America, where we look at ourselves and say, Are we doing the rights things? Are we doing the things that will last, not just for this lifetime, but for a further period of time on into eternity? They are saying we are entering into a period of moral and spiritual renewal, a reassessment of our values as a country. That is going to do a great deal to solve our true problems in America. Mr. Speaker, as I travel my district in eastern Kansas and talk to people back home, I ask them, do they think the biggest problems we face as a Nation, are they moral or are they economic? Are they the problems associated with the economy or problems associated with values? And I will get in almost every crowd 8 or 9 to 1 that will say the problems are moral rather than they are economic we are facing. They are problems with family and a disintegration of the family. They are problems with drugs. They are problems with crime. They are problems with people not willing to work. They are problems with people willing to do things that if they would think about it or if their own moral compass was a little better set, they would not do at all. The problems we are facing are moral, and the decline is taking place there. Yet I am optimistic in looking to the future, because I think we are finally starting to address the fundamental problems we have as a society, the value problems we have, and one does not address them in Congress. One addresses them in the individual community, in the individual family, in the individual person and what he does. That is how we change the culture, the society of this America. That is how we make ourselves better. That is how we solve our problems of family. that is how we solve our problems of crime. That is how we solve our problems dealing with drugs, problems dealing with welfare. We change ourselves and our own values and moral and spiritual outlook. Mr. Speaker, I think we need to get back to the basics and get back to the basic values, values of family, values of work, and recognition of a higher moral authority. When we as a society do that, we will solve many, many of our problems. That is what Dr. Graham and his wife Ruth have been about for a lifetime, is dealing with that, looking at the internal person and what they are doing and their personal relationship with a higher moral authority. So that is why I voted in favor of that. I was very strongly in support of it. And I hope that when Dr. and Mrs. Graham get this, if it passes the Senate and is signed into law by the President, I hope that he and Mrs. Graham will be invited to this Chamber to address a joint session of Congress and address the Nation, calling for moral and spiritual renewal in America.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield just a moment, because the gentleman from Arizona has been deeply involved in, and started, what has been called the Constitutional Caucus. I would ask the gentleman if the Founding Fathers were alive today, does the gentleman think they would find that we have a constitutional government existing and operating in Washington?

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back to my good colleague, who is educating this body about the perils that we are really in and what we can do to help this and make the future for our children better.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be withdrawn as a cosponsor of the bill, H.R. 2644.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think it is a tremendous point and that that needs to be driven home to this body even more. Right now, the Federal Government, and this is a massive amount, it is hard to understand, takes 22 percent of the U.S. economy. It is the Federal Government. This huge piece, 22 percent. Now, the gentleman from Arizona I am sure probably knows this figure, but in 1950 does the gentleman know what percent of the U.S. Government was of the Federal economy?

Mr. BROWNBACK. It was about 4 percent. Can the gentleman imagine what the liberation would be of this Nation, of the people here, if the Federal Government, instead of 22 percent, was just 4 percent? Or, what if we got from 22 percent to 15 percent? There would be a blossoming across America of growth, of productivity, of jobs, of opportunities, of people going forward themselves and saying, ``My goodness, why were we carrying such a heavy load?'' The next number of years, what has to take place in this country is we have to shrink the public sector, because the private sector is tired of carrying it and cannot carry it any further. That is what we are trying to do. It is not Draconian; it is very compassionate to help people. This could be one of the greatest Christmas gifts that we could give the American people, my children, and our future grandchildren, and the children of the gentleman from Arizona, to get this down so that they can be liberated and free.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I think it also ties into this overall issue of the budget debate. If we would get back to what the Founding Fathers had envisioned of a limited Federal Government and saying this is a limited government of limited powers, the Federal Government would not be 22 percent of the economy. It would not be the burden that it is today. We would not have as much centralization; we would have much more decentralization and things out amongst the people where they could control them closer to home and closer to them. That was the original design, and I think we have gotten away from that to our peril. The gentleman has a particularly good effort going on, that before any bill is introduced, before it is taken up on the floor, that the constitutional basis for that bill would be discussed.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague from Arizona yielding to me. This $1 million check, I think, is a clear statement to the American people, to anybody anywhere in the world, that if there is a real cut in Medicare, show us. We will pay them $1 million. The point of it is, and it is just to make a point, there are no cuts in Medicare. I appreciate my colleagues explaining that to this body, so that this body can understand, as I think most of them do, but in some cases act like they do not, what the situation really is. I particularly appreciate the earlier dialog that I have been watching as well, saying to this body and educating this body, look, we are in a dire situation. We have got to do that and we have got to do that compassionately and we are doing it compassionately.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I continue to oppose President Clinton's plan to deploy 20,000 United States troops to Bosnia. While I want to end the genocide that has plagued the Balkan Peninsula for the last 4 years, the administration's plan for achieving peace in Bosnia is severely flawed, and, I fear, destined to fail. We would not be debating whether the United States should send troops to Bosnia if Presidents Bush and Clinton had not supported the misguided international arms embargo imposed upon Bosnia. If we had lifted the arms embargo several years ago and imposed a no-fly-zone over Bosnia, the outnumbered Bosnian Serb forces would never have achieved military superiority over the Bosnian Government troops. Instead, we prevented the Bosnian Government forces from defending themselves while Serbia armed the Bosnian Serbs. This policy led to more than 200,000 deaths and created more than 2 million refugees. Having suffered the consequences of one bad policy decision, we now face another. However, this time, we are risking not only more Bosnian lives, but American lives as well. The greatest flaw in the administration's current strategy is that peace has not yet been achieved. There will be no peace as long as there are 4,000 or more foreign Moslem fighters in Bosnia. There will be no peace as long as the Bosnia Croats refuse to fully cooperate with the International War Crimes Tribunal. In addition, there will be no peace as long as rank-and-file Bosnina Serbs continue to oppose the peace plan. All sides in this conflict have a considerable amount of work to do before peace can be achieved. Until all of the parties demonstrate their commitment to ending the bloodshed, long-term peace will not be possible, regardless of the number of troops that are used to separate the warring parties. As long as there is no meaningful peace, United States troops deployed in Bosnia will serve as convenient targets for rogue units frustrated by their inability to attack their real enemy. Even though, as Commander in Chief, the President has the constitutional authority to commit United State soldiers to Bosnia, I cannot support a plan that does not minimize the risks to, and maximize the security of, our troops, especially a deployment that is not vital to our national security interest. I fully support every man and woman who has volunteered to serve in our armed services. I have the greatest admiration for these men and women, and they enjoy my unequivocal support, whether they are here or abroad. By deciding to deploy our troops in Bosnia under the current plan for a mission that is not vital to our national security interests, the President has not properly minimized the risks in military duty, and has jeopardized the credibility that our political leaders enjoy with our Armed Forces.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the Buyer bill, supporting the troops, opposing the President's policy.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I yield to the gentleman from Michigan.