Sam Brownback

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, in cooperation with the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman], the chairman, we are offering this amendment to bring H.R. 1561 in line with the budget resolution adopted last week. This amendment seeks further reductions and efficiencies without cutting essential functions that would support our national security, trade, or humanitarian interests. Members will recall we voted to support $18.2 billion for function 150 spending in fiscal year 1996. Working with the chairman and the other members of the Committee on International Relations, we have crafted a bill to cut approximately $1 billion from programs under our jurisdiction, which, along with cuts from programs outside our jurisdiction, reaches the Committee on the Budget's targets. For fiscal year 1997, the Committee on International Relations cut $1.5 billion from the foreign affairs budget, but since the Committee on International Relations was preparing this bill at the same time as the Committee on the Budget was crafting the budget resolution, we were not able to conform our numbers to the budget resolution. Therfore, my amendment is necessary to cut an additional $477.9 million from the bill so we can reach the Committee on the Budget's mandate and what this House voted on of $16.8 billion for fiscal year 1997. There are some very clear and specific reasons why we need to do this. This amendment is crucial, first of all, Mr. Chairman, because we are broke. I want to turn Members' attention to the chart I have here which shows just where we are going with the Federal debt. We are at nearly $5 trillion today. Under President Clinton's proposed budget, we would get to nearly $7 trillion by the year 2000, and the red ink continues to pile on. We cannot afford to continue to spend as much as we have on any program. That is why we passed a budget resolution last week that balances the budget by 2002 so our kids do not have to pay off our red ink. That is why we have to bring H.R. 1561 into compliance with that resolution. People on the other side of the aisle will say that we are isolationists. I would refute that because of the number of things the Republican Party has [[Page H5451]] done over the years to disprove that, and I would further say we may become a nation of isolationists if we do not get our fiscal house in order, because we are not going to have any more credit to be able to extend across the rest of the globe because of being broke. There will be those that will say, as well, that this amendment is an outrage, that we cannot make these types of cuts, that it will kill U.S. foreign policy. To them I respond that what is outrageous to the American people is that Congress has mindlessly spent them into debt to the tune of nearly $5 trillion. It is an outrage that we have left this mortgage on America to our kids. I would ask, will it kill foreign policy if we cut funding to the U.N. Industrial Development Organization, when we already have provided multilateral development assistance through the World Bank? Will it kill foreign policy if we force the State Department to close extraneous consulates and reduce the size of bloated embassy staffs? Will it kill foreign policy if we reduce educational and cultural exchange programs? We are all going to have to sacrifice to balance this budget, to be able to get it in line so we do not sacrifice our kids because we were not willing to make the tough choices and the tough cuts. The sacrifices that we are asking to recipients of foreign aid are not inordinate, not whatsoever, given our precarious financial situation and the mountains and mountains of debt that we are piling on future generations. We must sacrifice to achieve fiscal stability. We must get our own fiscal house in order for this country to be strong and grow into the future so our children can have a foreign policy, so they can push the initiatives that we desire rather than paying off our debt. For that, I think we should ask this of the recipients of our foreign aid, to make these responsible and reasonable cuts. I submit this amendment, Mr. Chairman. I urge my colleagues to support and vote for the Brownback amendment. It gets us in line with the budget resolution passed by this body last week. It staunches the flow of red ink.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Salmon] for yielding. Mr. Chairman, to respond quickly to the comment on the cuts in the Peace Corps, which I think is an excellent program, a very worthwhile program, I would note in our cuts that we are proposing it is a 2- percent cut in the Peace Corps. At a time when we have just got to balance the budget and we cannot afford to stack more debt on future generations, I think that is a responsible cut so that our future kids and our children can be in the Peace Corps as well.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I just point out in response to the last speaker briefly that was saying that we are pulling out completely away from the world, going isolationist on our policies, that what my amendment proposes is a 3- percent cut overall in the 150 account. A 3-percent cut it seems to me hardly qualifies for us completely disengaging in the world, particularly how engaged the United States is militarily, trade security. And also I would point out specifically on the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency area cut, it is an additional $1 million, $1 million cut, which again I do not believe really qualifies for the overstatement the gentleman has given of we are pulling out of the world. What these are are targeted, specific cuts that, what we are trying to get at is balancing the budget, and if not this area, then somewhere else.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. It is interesting to note in all four of our task forces to eliminate these departments, we have a former Secretary of that department working with us on each of these that believes clearly we can get this eliminated, and do a better job in the process and get us back to that limited government. One final point I would make is the Supreme Court is starting to look at this this way as well. The Lopez case that just came out said the Federal Government is a limited government, first time in 60 years that the Supreme Court has spoken about the Federal Government being a limited government. It is time we limited back in.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the Gentleman very much. I appreciate the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania yielding to me to explain a key project we are working on at this time in the Congress. I would like to give a quick bit of background of where we have come with this. Starting in January, actually even a little bit earlier than that, in December, before the freshman class had even become a part of the this Congress, a number of us gathered to start discussing how is it that we could reform the Federal Government. If there was one very clear message of the this last election, it was that people believe and know that the Federal Government is too big, takes too much, is on their back and in their pocket too much, and they want it less, they want it less in their lives, they want it to tax them less, they want it to be demanding less out of them. A number of us were talking about how is it then we could go ahead and deliver to the American people a smaller, more focused, more efficient Federal Government, one that does its core missions very, very well but does not do the thousands of activities it has done over the past number of years and the many activities it got into it does not do well or really should not be in the Federal Government at all. So, we began discussing that. Then, in February, a number of us, actually it was on February 14 of this year, we were joined by the chairman, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], and the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], and the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Boehner], chairman of the Republican Conference, in announcing the creation of four task forces to develop legislation to eliminate four Federal Cabinet bureaucracies, Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, and HUD. At that time, our critics thought it could not be done. Well, today we announced the first of those proposals on the Department of Commerce, to eliminate the Department of Commerce, and we are proving our critics wrong. Three of these four Cabinet-level agencies have been targeted for elimination by the House budget that was passed last week by this body, as we move to balance the budget by the year 2002. And I would point out for people who are watching and our colleagues that are looking at this, a clear reason why we need to do this, and there are a number of them, one I want to draw their attention to is the thing that is right to my left, and that is the Federal debt. This is the mortgage on America, and it is now at nearly $5 trillion. If we do not balance the budget, this mortgage on America goes to nearly $7 trillion by the year 2000. If we do nothing on this, if we keep adding nearly $200 billion annually, and we just keep mortgaging and mortgaging the future of our children, and somebody some day has to pay. Well, I think it is time for this Congress to step up to the plate and to make the tough choices and to do that in a responsible fashion. I think we can actually do this and improve the Government, making it smaller, more efficient, and more focused. We announced today the plans of eliminating the Department of Commerce. We were joined today in our efforts by the Senate task force to release the first of these four proposals which represents a thoughtful approach to dismantling the Commerce bureaucracy. The question we applied to each of these programs and these bureaucracies is this: Is this program an essential and necessary function of the Federal Government, of a limited Federal Government that was never intended to be all things to all people? Let me repeat that question: Is this program an essential and necessary function of a limited Federal Government? James Madison, one of the chief architects of the Constitution, said this about the Federal Government and its limitations, he said, ``The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined.'' Yet lately over the course of this century we have lost sight of this vision. The Federal Government has tried to become all things to all people and done a poor job in the process. Every time our Nation has faced an internal challenge, we respond with centralized solutions. We look to the Federal Government to solve our problems; yet, by nearly every measure, these centralized bureaucratic command-and-control solutions have failed, and you can just go off and tick off some of the things we have done recently. In 1965 we decided we had an urban problem in this country. And what did we do? Let us create a Department of Housing and Urban Development, in 1965. Where are we? In 1995. We have worse urban problems than we had at that time. We created a centralized focus. We are going to solve the problems out of Washington, where the truth of the matter is these problems are solved at the local community by individuals and States and by people committed there, rather those focus our attention and our focus here in a centralized, bureaucratic approach. We said we had an energy problem in 1979, and what did we do? ``Let's create a Department of Energy,'' that that is going to solve the problem, and yet I think, as we found, our real problem is we had too much regulation in a market sector in the Department of Energy, and we decided in 1979, or thereabouts, we had a problem in education. What do we do? ``Let's create a centralized, command-and-control answer that create a Department of Education,'' and yet our test scores have gotten worse since 1979. The truth is that the genius of America is not centralized planning, is not centralized control. The genius of America is the individual, that individual working out there, struggling, pushing to solve their own problems, and the more we focused on centralized answers, the more we will fail. We need to give it back to the people. So we announced the program on the Department of Commerce today. Tomorrow we will announce the program on the Department of Education for a sensible, thoughtful elimination of the Department of Education that is proeducation, and elimination of the Department of Commerce is probusiness, and elimination of the Department of Housing and Urban Development is prohousing and urban issues, and elimination of the Department of Energy is proenergy. We just think the solutions are not here and we would be better off if we did not focus here. We would be better off if we got it out to the marketplace, to the community, to the individual, to States and local units of government, and certainly, if the debt is not enough of a reason, then we can just go back to our basic federalist principles of the Federal Government being a limited, focused Federal Government. Those are the things that we are doing, and I think those are responsible, I think it is what the American people voted on this past November as things we are going to get done with this Congress, and I would yield back to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Funderburk second amendment basically and point out that what this does is the proposal that I am putting forward in fiscal year 1997, it would do it in fiscal year 1996 and making those reductions in fiscal year 1996. The other things that I would like to point out were that the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Funderburk] can also properly be responded to and called Ambassador Funderburk. He was Ambassador to Romania. I do not know how many other people we have in this body that have been Ambassador, and have worked inside the State Department and been able to see the sorts of things that he has and the operations within the State Department. He comes with great credentials in that particular area and one that can say: ``Look, folks, this is something that we can get done. This is something we are pushing to do in FY 97. I think it's reasonable to be able to do it in FY 96.'' Now, as far as these are totally irresponsible, it is the sort of things we cannot do, we cannot make these sorts of things happen, I would point out again that this is we are talking about a 5-percent cut at a time when we are nearly $5 trillion in the hole. We have got to make these sorts of decisions, these sorts of reductions, if we are ever going to get to a balanced budget by 2002, and, if this is not reasonable, I am not sure what is, nor in what other functions we might look, that we would ask our own people at home to be making these sorts of reductions in the foreign affairs area. So, with those points, Mr. Chairman, I would rise in support of this secondary amendment.

Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations. I just wanted to clarify one other point, if I could, of what is taking place here. There has been some discussion about Radio Free Asia, and I do not touch any of the funding for Radio Free Asia in the amendment that I am putting in front of this body. Furthermore, I just would point out that I think the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] makes some good points about what has the foreign aid been used for, at different points in time. Is it really being used for foreign aid, or is it being used for some forms of corporate welfare, like Robert Riech, the Secretary of Labor, has talked about? I think there is a fair amount, and with the streamlining with this reasonable 3-percent cut, we can hope to get back some of that.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I will make my comments brief. I applaud the coalition plan for coming forward. I appreciate that at least now there is something we can have discussion about. There has not been a Democrat alternative there, and I think that is a great failing on the part of the other side, so I am pleased we can now have at least a discussion about options. One critical thing I would point out, and that is simply that if we are looking at growing this country and growing our way out of this debt, we have to have some growth built into it, and that is why we have to have the tax cuts, particularly the capital gains tax cuts, so we can grow the economy. The last two times this Nation has cut capital gains rates, under the Kennedy and Reagan administrations, revenues to the Federal Government actually grew. We need that in this plan. That is not in the alternative, the coalition plans, and it is one of the failings against it, and it is one of the reasons I will be voting against the coalition plan.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support today of both the Neumann budget and the Kasich budget that are going to be coming in front of this body. These are both good bills, and they are both going to do a good job and something good for America that we have not seen for 25 years--balance the budget. These are important things, and this is an incredible and historic debate that the people are watching take place that we have not had in 25 years. Let me tell you the specific reason why I am also voting for the Neumann budget. That is simply this: It pays the debt off in 30 years, something we can all identify with. Most of us have mortgages on our homes that are 30 years in length. It pays the mortgage on America off in 30 years. It is tough medicine. this is a tough thing to do. This is difficult, but I would submit to you it is very analogous to going to the doctor's office, and going to that doctor and getting a shot that would protect you against a future disease. If you went in to that doctor and you got a shot and you asked the popularity of that doctor that day, I would guess that the people that got the shot, they would say he is not a very popular doctor. But ask 6 months or 1 year later when somebody does not get that disease, and can live a healthy life and grow and prosper in this country, and they will say that is a good doctor. This is tough medicine. It is good medicine. It is what we need to do for the country. Vote for Kasich. Vote for Neumann.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to make a couple of quick comments and then talk briefly about the agency elimination that we have been talking about in the overall budget package. Mr. Chairman, I hear a lot of comments about, well, we are cutting taxes and that is wrong, we should not be cutting taxes, that the American people need to pay all this money into the Government. I make the simple point, and I ask the American people that are watching and listening, do you know how long today you work to pay the taxes at all levels, Federal, State, local, all levels combined? The answer is, you work until May 5. You just passed Tax Freedom Day that you work. I think if you get back a little bit of that, that is your money, and you are working hard enough and long enough for the Government. The other thing I hear a lot is people saying, well, we are not spending enough on Government programs. Indeed, many of these programs are very good programs, very worthwhile programs. But I simply point out that around the turn of the century, the Federal Government as a percentage of this economy was roughly 3 percent of this economy. That is what it was. It was 3 percent. Now it is 23 percent of this overall economy. Overall I would like to point out, we are eliminating in our budget package three Cabinet level agencies, or propose, Departments of Commerce, Energy, and Education. We are following a process and a procedure here. This is not just a thing of, OK, we are going to go in and eliminate them completely and they are out of there, they are gone. We are thinking this through and asking the questions of how can we do this better? How can the American people get these services? We are going through a process of asking, can we localize these services, send it back to the State and local units of government? Do we privatize? Are these services that can be done better in the private sector? Can we be more efficient by doing it there? Can we consolidate, within other Federal agencies and programs, services that are currently done somewhere else? We have 17 agencies doing trade promotion. Do we need that many of them? Can we consolidate? What can we eliminate? What services and programs have done their job and it is time to move on, particularly at a time that we state clearly and unequivocally to the American people, we are broke.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I just noted the gentlewoman across the aisle was saying that there are no special lobbyists for the children, no powerful special lobbyists for the children back home. I know one man that is standing right here who is a powerful representing them, as many of my colleagues are. We are terribly concerned about them. That is why we are balancing the budget.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, for the first time today in 26 years, something very, very unusual has happened. That is, this morning at 1:05 a.m., the Committee on the Budget of the House of Representatives proposed a balanced budget, a balanced budget, one so that in 7 years our kids and grandkids won't be having more debt to pay off because we were not willing to face the tough task and make the tough choices now to be able to cut things back. I think this is a grand moment that we are finally addressing this most critical of problems. This year alone the Federal debt is going to $5 trillion. If we don't balance the budget, going on the current projection path we have, if we don't put our oar into the water to make this happen, it is going to be at $7 trillion by the year 2002. It is time we do it. There is only one way we are going to be able to balance the budget. That is, creating a smaller, more focused, more efficient Federal Government, one that was originally intended by the Founding Fathers, one that is not into all functions and tries to do everything for everybody but a limited government, a focused Federal Government, one I think that Thomas Jefferson would be proud of, one that I would hope that Peter Drucker, the management guru, would be proud of for its efficiency, and one most of all that I would hope the American people would be proud of for what it delivers of services of what they call on their Government to do. We have had a Federal Government this past quarter of a century that has grown out of control and everybody has contributed to it, everybody in this country, and in this institution here on both sides of the aisle. It is time to get it back into control. It is time to cut it back. It is time to recreate the limited Government that was always intended by our Founding Fathers. The Federal Government was not meant to be all things to all people. James Madison wrote early on in the founding of our country this: ``The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government are few and defined.'' We must get the Federal Government back to its core functions of what it was originally intended to be and not flung out here into so many different things but focused, efficient, and smaller so that we can be able to cut back on the spending, so that we can be able to not deliver so much debt to our children, so that we can hold the dream out and push toward even paying off the debt, the nearly $5 trillion in debt that has been accumulated. There are a number of proposals that have been put forward. Some of them call for the elimination of whole agencies in the Federal Government, agencies such as the Department of Commerce and Energy, HUD and Education, keeping certain of the core functions that are functions of the Federal Government and should be done by the Federal Government and eliminating other portions, privatizing some functions and sending some functions back to State and local units of government so that at the end of the day we have a smaller, more focused, more efficient Federal Government. This is an absolute need, if for no other reason than for our children and grandchildren, so that they can have a future, not saddled with this huge debt, not saddled with such an enormous mortgage on America.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Hilleary] for yielding this time to me. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of term limits and the Hilleary substitute. My comments will probably not be as eloquent as a number of the other people on the other side of the aisle that have been here quite a bit longer than we have. This is primarily a freshman initiative and one that we are putting forward, and so we do not, perhaps, have quite the member of years of experience that a number of other people do in this body. I think that we bring the will of the people clearly with us because one of the key reasons to have term limits, one of the key reasons it has not been discussed so much today to have term limits and limiting terms, is limiting government. I say, if you generally have people here for long periods of time, they're looking to build something for a legacy to live for for their life, and here is something of a legacy that they put forward, and the longer one is here, the more they want to build something, and that builds some more government, and that gets away from limited government toward an expansive government that we have had over the past number of years to a $5 trillion debt that is a mortgage on the children, and we have got to cut it back. The reason to have term limits is to limit government. Mr. Chairman, I would like to respond very briefly to a couple of the arguments put forward here tonight already. One is that, well, if we have term limits, we are going to give all the power to the lobbyists and bureaucrats. I would ask my colleagues, ``Who has it now? Who is taking it now?'' I concede that a number of it would go to those places already. A second point that people put forward is, well, it was not in the Constitution. Well, limiting the President to just two terms was not in the Constitution, but it was put forward by the people after we had a President that served nearly four terms, a very good President, I might add, that served nearly four terms, but the people said we do not need the same leaders for life, we do not need them for a career, we ought to have different people cycling in and out with new ideas and new leadership, and that is what term limits is about, new ideas, new leadership. We do not need the same people even though they are good people. There should be turnover coming into this body, and I think that is what the people are saying in their support for term limits, and those are the reasons that I strongly support term limits.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that my name be deleted as a cosponsor of the joint resolution, House Joint Resolution 2.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Secretary Mossbacher that used to run the Department of Commerce was there at the press conference endorsing this. Don Hodel, who used to run the Department of Energy I talked to today is strongly supporting us. Henson Moore that used to be the secretary in command at the Department on Energy, I visited with him today and working with him on this particular project as Education, Dr. Bennett and Lamar Alexander have publicly endorsed doing away with the Department of Education as a way we can create better education and innovation across the country. They both have publicly endorsed this as well in that field. So, you have got secretaries in Commerce, in HUD, in Energy, in Education, all saying ``Look, folks. We tried it. We tried it hard. We tried it with billions and trillions of dollars. Centralized planing in the Soviet Union, former Soviet Union or the United States, doesn't work. You got to get it back home, and this is the way you do it.'' And we are just starting, and I hope the American people lean in toward this concept and help us move this on forward to get the government back out to the people.

Mr. BROWNBACK. That is obviously the case, and that is what I am getting as well, and we had at that same press conference the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], the chairman of the Committee on the Budget, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich], the chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon], all of which acted as if their soul was having a chorus of angels singing to it, but they were ecstatic that here were people willing to stand up and say, ``Enough is enough. We tried it. It doesn't work. It's time to try something else.'' And then they were all saying that, and that is what I continue to get from people all across the Government and across the Nation. Look, we have tried it, and we have really tried it. It is time to move on, and let us try something different that we think really can work and can be liberating to the people across the country, and you are seeing it take place from this freshman reform group, 73 of us coming in strong at this time, many of us elected on the type of agenda I was, reduce the Federal Government, reform the Congress, return to the basic values that built the country, those being the watch words for us. And I cannot help but think the original Federalists are saying, ``It's about time.''

Mr. BROWNBACK. If the gentleman will yield further, and that is absolutely what it is. It is not about the ideology or the left or right or center or the middle or whatever the case might be. What this is about is what has failed. I do not think that we can stand here and at all say to the American people, ``Look, we have not tried this. We have not tried centralized planning from Washington on these areas.'' We have. We have tried it up to 30 years in HUD. We tried it for 15 years in these other agencies. It has not worked. It does not work. The American people want to be liberated, and I will tell you what will happen when that does occur. If we say, as far as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, look, we are not going to do this in Washington anymore. We have got some funds we are going to block grant to the States, local units of government. We want it generally used for housing, ``but you figure out your problems.'' There will be thousands of different solutions that will come forward because we have millions of different people and thousands of different ideas and how we solve it; Topeka, KS, is different than they solve it in New York City or Austin, TX. It is just we are different people in a different nation, a diverse nation, and will come up with different solutions, because one size does not fit all in America, and the same will work in education. People were saying, well, if we do not have somebody in Washington looking out for our children, well, what is going to happen to them in education. I think what will happen to them in education is things will get better, because parents care more for their children than somebody running a government agency does, and people on a local school board know those families much more than somebody working in a government office building in Washington. One final point, and then I will yield back the rest of the time. The final point is that there are a number of good people that work in government, and that is what Jack Kemp said at our press conference, who was the former Secretary of HUD, who is also on board in supporting us. We have former cabinet secretaries of all these agencies working with us to dismantle all these agencies. They run them. They know they do not work. Jack was saying, ``Well, these are good people; there's just too many of them, and we shouldn't be doing this. It should be happening out in the communities and the individuals,'' and that is what we are about, having people doing these things to where the answers really occur and not just command and control out of Washington.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me for a moment. I would just like to talk to Members, the Chamber and those listening about what we did this past week. It was on Wednesday we came forward with a proposal announcing task forces that would develop the proposals to eliminate 4 Cabinet-level agencies, the agencies of Commerce, Education, Energy, and HUD. And the proposals are that we would look at these agencies and we would ask the questions: Do they perform essential functions? And if not, can they be eliminated? Can we get many of these solutions and these issues back to the people? Can we give these things back to the people, back to local units of government? Can we consolidate some of these functions? Can we eliminate others? And getting back to what the Founding Fathers had envisioned for our Nation. It is interesting to me to note Alice Rivlin, the current Director of the Office of Management and Budget, in a 1992 book, said she does not think the Federal Government ought to be involved in education. It should not be involved in economic development. It should not be involved in some of these centralized planning functions that are taking place. And that is what we are talking about here. You know, most of these Cabinet agencies, three of the four, were created since 1965. Housing and Urban Development was created in 1965. Energy and Education were created in the late 1970's. They were created at a time when we had a crisis. In the urban areas in the mid-1960's, we had a crisis in urban America. What was our solution in that time period? Our solution was let us build a government bureaucracy. We built one. In the late 1970's we said we have a crisis in energy. What is the solution? Let us build a government bureaucracy. We have a crisis in education. What was the solution? Let us build a government bureaucracy. So we focused centrally in Washington for all the solutions to these problems, and we put our energy and our focus and our efforts and intensity here when the problem was out there, and our urban cities were decaying in New York and in Washington, DC, as the city, not the capital, and in Los Angeles and in our classrooms is where the problem was. It was not we needed more bureaucracy. It is we needed more help in the classroom, and we needed to liberate and free people. In housing areas, the problem was not the need for a centralized planning agency. The need was for more housing in communities and to free people up to be able to deal with the problems they had in their communities. We say these experiments have not worked, that centralized planning, whether in the former Soviet Union or in the United States of America, does not work in a large, diverse nation like the United States. We think that these agencies, that four things will guide our purposes in developing the proposals to eliminate these four agencies. No. 1 will be to privatize. Wherever we can privatize functions and get them out to the private sector, we will do that in the efficiency of the private sector. Second will be localize. Anytime we can send these issues to the States or local units of government to handle, closer to the people, closer to the people, that is what we will do. We will consolidate. Where two agencies grew that we will have one in the future so we can consolidate a number of these functions and that we can eliminate whatever functions are outmoded, outdated, or antiquated, that those would be eliminated. So at the end of the day that we empower people, we empower communities, we empower the States to be able to really deal with these issues, and we think that is where actual solutions will occur. That is where homes are built. They are built across this Nation. They are not built in bureaucracies in Washington. Kids are taught in classrooms across this Nation. They are not taught in a bureaucracy in Washington. Energy is dealt with in the marketplace and by individual decisions, by 250 million Americans. They are not dealt with by a bureaucracy in Washington. We will free and liberate people. We will be realigning the relationship of the Federal Government to the people, and it will be a very powerful thing for growth and for actually dealing with our problems, for actually accomplishing solutions to our problems, and it is desperately needed. You quote one of the early Federalists. I quote Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson was quoted a saying that moments for great innovation in history are few and far between. We stand at one of those moments of great innovation in the history of this country, of the ability to realign the relationship of the Federal Government to the people, of making the Federal Government the servant once again and not the master of the people. We are supposed to be able to help and encourage, not to direct, command, and control, and that is what we seek to do, and we will be a better country, and we will be a growth country. It will be a better society. It will be a government for the people, not commander of the people. And that is what we seek to do. We will be developing our plans and proposals, bringing those out sometime in the springtime. I would encourage the American people to contact their Congressmen if they are interested and encouraged about that. It has been interesting to me, the early feedback we have received has not been you cannot do that; it has been, ``Well, would you look at the other agencies? What about the Department of Labor? What about some of the other agencies?'' I think that is very encouraging to open the floodgate of ideas and liberation for the people in this country and get the Federal Government back to its core flung areas.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, I rise to address the body to comment about the elections on November 8 and the clear statement the American people spoke of at that point, which was to reduce the size, the scope, and the intrusiveness of the Federal Government. It has come that time to stand and deliver. I call on the administration to put forward proposals looking at all Federal agencies for their continued work and their efforts in questioning whether or not we should reduce the Federal role in these areas, and I ask the administration to address that and to examine whole roles of agencies and programs. This body has been continually focused on the costs of these programs. I would ask the body to consider the responsibility of us to our children and the enormous deficit that has been put forth, the enormous debt that has been accumulated and what responsibility we have to the children of this country to free them of that debt. Mr. Speaker, it is one thing to spend our children's inheritance. It is quite another to spend them in debt, as we have, and also the opportunity we have to free the society of these strains.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. I think it is a legitimate question, one that we have not asked, one that needs to be asked, and I hope that we, as Members of this new 104th Congress, will be asking that very question of that agency and many others. What is it indeed that has occurred here, and should we continue it, or should it be stopped?

Mr. BROWNBACK. If the gentleman would yield back, my point with this is that so much of the time when we talk about cutting the Government we absolutely must do this, too. It is insane to run $200 billion annual deficits and put that on the backs of my children and grandchildren to come. That is wrong. That is morally wrong to do that. At this point in time in our history it is wrong. But instead of focusing all the time, as we do so much of it on saying, ``OK, this cut is going to hit here, this one is going to hit there, it's going to hit here,'' what about all the liberation that takes place with that? What about all the freedom of the people? I think this has been an insidious relationship between the Government and its people over time, that it has grown and strengthened those bonds and surrounding us to the point that the Government has become our master and not our servant, and it is time to cut those shackles off. It is time in many cases to pull the whole tree up instead of saying we are going to cut the little branch off. Here it may be time, and it is time, I believe, to cut the hole and pull the whole tree up to give that freedom back. and let us talk about the freedom and the opportunity that that will yield to America and to this society and the growth that that is going to create, the entrepreneurial spirit that that will create for us instead of the, well, what is it going to do here and this for you? What about this particular program? What about that? That is the narrow. The bigger picture is much prettier.

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to be able to address this body, and it is a pleasure to be able to be a new Member of this body. It reminds me of all the newness, that perhaps there also is something else new, that perhaps the new federalists, to take a phrase from the gentleman from Florida that was used before, that we are the new federalists coming into Washington with an idea of less government, with an idea that government is governing too much on the people, with the ideas that Thomas Jefferson put forward, that many of us, as quoted frequently and often before. One of my favorite Jefferson quotes is him saying that the moments for great innovation in society are few and far between. I think we are at one of those great moments where society has spoken with such great clarity that they want much less government, that they want a reformed Congress, that they want a return to the basic values that built the country, values of work, values of family, a recognition of a higher moral authority. It seems to me that that is what the people said on November 8. They wanted to reduce the Federal Government, reform the Congress, return to basic values. I think we were sent here to this new Congress not to make the Federal Government work and do more with less. We were sent here to make less government. Republicans did not seize the majority because the other party did a poor job of trying to run the country from Washington. We won because they tried to run the country from Washington, and you know this country is just too big, too diverse, and its people love freedom too much for that to work. In a free society government is the people's servant, not its master. You know today the U.S. Government employs more people than we do in the manufacturing sector all told. We have more people working for the Government than we do making tractors, and tires, and computers. That is just insane. The fact is there are more Government departments and agencies which I believe could be completely abolished without American citizens even knowing. In fact, the public would be better served if most of the decisions government makes were instead left up to individuals, and families, and communities. Government today collects more taxes, spends more moneys, and issues more regulations than ever before. We have never had so many laws, or agencies, or regulations. Even through the Reagan and Bush administrations not a single Cabinet-level agency was abolished. In fact, one was added. The growth of government has been slowed, but it has not been stopped. It now must be reversed. We must question the entire existence of many of the bureaucracies. Merely trimming a branch from the tree will not be sufficient. I think we are going to need to work to pull out the whole tree, roots and branches, if necessary. With this approach we can certainly find enough savings to balance the Federal budget and return money to the taxpayers, which is what we should do, which is what the goal of the new federalists should be. But the most important point in this new paradigm is that these cuts are not just about paying. They are about freedom. They are about opportunity for a new society. They are about a new relationship between the Federal Government and its people, and that is the vision that we need to deliver to the American people, that new vision, that new relationship, that less government dependence is more personal freedom and that freedom to express, to grow, is what has made America in the past. That is what will make America grow even greater into the future. Mr. Speaker, remember always the Government actually produces nothing. Government cannot give until it takes away. We must never forget this central premise. We need to get the Federal Government off the back of the people and out of their pockets, and that should be a goal of the new federalists.

Mr. BROWNBACK

Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. Speaker, what a great day it was for America yesterday, and for this farmboy from Parker, KS. We put in place a number of reform initiatives that needed to take place. I was delighted to carry the bill to do a complete audit of the House of Representatives. It passed, 430 to 1. I say that is unanimous bipartisan support. I am going to look for the one guy that did not agree to vote for this particular bill. One other thing that I was amazed and very saddened and mad about was the fact that this institution has never been audited before. Can Members imagine any business, any not-for-profit entity, any agency that has never been audited? In the history of this institution it has not been done, not in the past 40 years, not in the past 50 years, not in the past 5 years. What is going to happen? We are going to make this place accountable to the American people, and we are going to tell the American people how the assets have been used and where the dollars have been spent. So keep watching as we reveal and we open the doors to the people's House.