Steve Chabot

Mr. CHABOT

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

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, my amendment is simple and straightforward. It strikes all funding to the National Endowment for the Humanities, and it saves the American taxpayers $110 million. Members will recall that it was a former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the NEH, Lynn Cheney, who was head of that organization for about 7 years, from 1986 to 1993, who concluded that the NEH indeed does more harm than good and should be closed down once and for all. My amendment does just that. There are many problems with the NEH. First, it is an agency that historically has squandered millions of tax dollars on silly projects that benefit few, if any, hardworking taxpayers. Second, it has come to breed a form of arrogance that only a true culture bureaucrat, as George Will would call them, could concoct. We have debated this issue before, so I will not recite the laundry list of questionable projects funded for the benefit of the cultural and academic elite at the expense of the average taxpayers. I will not dwell on Sheldon Hackney's national conversation kit, which ostensibly would teach us all how to talk to one another, all for the mere $1.7 million to teach Americans how to talk. I will not dwell too much on the NEH's highly controversial national standards for teaching history in our school systems or any of the other questionable projects deemed worthy of our tax dollars by a handful of Washington bureaucrats. The NEH record is there for all to see. That is why when I offered a similar amendment to the fiscal year 1996 Interior appropriations bill, it was endorsed by groups like the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens Against Government Waste, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Americans for Tax Reform, and those same organizations, as well as the National Tax Limitation Committee, Capital Watch, Frontiers of Freedom, the Competitive Enterprise Institute and others, are supporting it again this year. Mr. Chairman, whenever I am called on to discuss the National Endowment for the Humanities, I cannot help but recall a letter that I once received from the top NEH bureaucrat in my State of Ohio. He told me, and it was a letter, so I cannot tell Members whether he had a straight face at the time he sent it or not. He said, ``if there were no NEH, the public intellectual life of Ohio would shrink considerably.'' He really said that. I can tell Members I spend quite a lot of time with the people of Ohio, and I have a little bit more faith in their intellectual abilities than do the NEH bureaucrats. I am pretty certain that without the NEH the people of Ohio would do quite well. In fact, I know they would do just fine. I am reasonably sure that very few of those taxpayers, save a handful of NEH functionaries and beneficiaries, would even notice the difference. Mr. Chairman, I think that most of us know that the NEH benefits the very few at the expense of all working Americans. It is unfair that those taxpayers should shoulder the burden. A yes for this particular amendment I believe is a vote for the taxpayer. A no vote signifies support for the status quo, and another $110 million tax for the culture bureaucrats to do with basically what they want. I know there are many, many things that one can point out that the NEH arguably has done a good job at, some programs that have benefited some people. On the other hand, there have been an awful lot of abuses. More importantly, it basically is a matter of one's philosophy. I happen to think that these things which are funded by the NEH, where some of them may be worthy, they should be privately funded, they should be locally funded, but they should not be funded by the Federal Government. These dollars should not be taken out of the pockets of hardworking taxpayers in this country and given basically to academic elites to do with what they want. They have programs where we have summer institutes and seminars, where they junket elite academics in places such as Hawaii, which I am sure is a very nice place, and Germany and all around the world to essentially take a vacation, pay them thousands of dollars to do that. I think these dollars ought to stay in the pockets of the hardworking American citizens. I do not think that we ought to give these dollars to academic elites. Again, I am sure there are many Members who will say they do this, they preserve books, they do other things. All those things are fine. It is a matter of should Federal tax dollars go for these things. I would argue no, they should be funded privately, locally, and not with the money of the hardworking taxpayers of this country.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that all debate on this amendment and all amendments thereto close in 10 minutes and that the time be equally divided.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, while the Congress is working over the next couple of weeks to provide tax cuts for working American families, President Clinton is doing just the opposite. His endorsement recently of a radical EPA proposal, new, unproven air standards, will wreak havoc on those very taxpayers, draining their pocketbooks and threatening their livelihoods. Rejecting sound scientific advice that the expected health benefits of new air standards would be minimal while the cost to the taxpayers would be astronomical, the President says he will go forward with the plan that will cost the taxpayers in my State of Ohio an estimated $2 to $3 billion per year and could affect as many as 1 million manufacturing jobs. What does President Clinton have to say to that? Well, he admits that the standards may be somewhat controversial. Mr. Speaker, I want my children to grow up in a clean and healthy environment. I also want there to be jobs in Ohio for those children. In Ohio, we have been working very hard to make that possible. We do not need President Clinton's help to do it.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, well, the liberals in this place have finally done it. After 40 years of building the welfare state, the liberals have finally come up with the ultimate welfare policy. They have discovered a way to try to turn a tax cut into a welfare program. Under the Republican plan, 75 percent of the tax cuts go to people who make less than $75,000. Liberals want to give welfare to people who are not paying any taxes at all and then call it a tax cut. Welcome to liberalism in the 1990's. Taking money from the taxpayers and giving it to people who do not pay any taxes at all is not a tax cut at all. That is welfare. Let us call it what it really is. In fact, it is so ridiculous that I dare anyone on the other side to try to come and explain it to my constituents with a straight face. Good luck.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, the White House has been sending signals that the President will veto the Interior appropriations bill if the National Endowment for the Arts is phased out. The NEA, my colleagues will remember, is that bureaucratically bloated $100 million-per-year Federal agency that purports to decide what does or does not constitute quality taxpayer-funded art. Can the Republic survive without government art? I think it probably can, but the President apparently does not. He feels so strongly about this pet program that in order to save it he is willing to jeopardize the funding of such Federal entities as the National Park Service, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center and the Holocaust Museum, all funded in the Interior bill. Mr. Speaker, let us not create a legislative log jam to satisfy the elite special interests in the arts community. Let us say goodbye to the NEA once and for all, and let us hope that President Clinton does not stand in the way.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I think we all know when a big government liberal gets his hands on your money, he is going to be very reluctant to give it back. Today we are hearing from a lot of our liberal friends on the other side of the aisle who are facing that very dilemma. In 1993 this Congress, then under control of the liberal Democrats and joined by President Clinton, engineered the largest single peacetime tax increase in American history. Shortly thereafter, the taxpayers decided to elect a Republican Congress; and today that Republican Congress is attempting to cut taxes. Mr. Chairman, the howling has started. Our liberal friends have come to the well, one after another, waging what amounts to class warfare, trying to convince us that tax cuts for working families are somehow unfair. Like it or not, Mr. Chairman, we are going to pass a bill today that cuts taxes for American families, that cuts taxes for those who sell their homes, that cuts the death tax. Hopefully the President will not stand in our way. We keep hearing ``tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for the rich.'' Seventy-five percent of the tax cuts that we are talking about go to people who make less than $75,000. Let me repeat that. Seventy-five percent of the tax cuts that we are talking about go to people who make less than $75,000. So what is the liberal Democrats' definition of the rich? I guess it is anybody who has got a job. So let us pass the tax cuts. Let us get away from all this ``tax cuts for the rich.'' Let us do something for the American people.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, as James McDougal, former business partner of President Clinton, begins his prison sentence today, I think we should take a look back at some of the additions to the American vocabulary in just the last few years: Whitewater, Filegate, Troopergate, Travelgate, Lippogate, Pillowgate, Donorgate, Indo-gate, and who could forget Buddhist Templegate. Goodness gracious, and Janet Reno says there is no need for an independent counsel? Yeah.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the amendment offered by my friend, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Sanford]. For the first time in recent memory, the Congress is moving away from its free- spending ways. A balanced budget in the next 5 years is now a real possibility. Tax breaks for working American families, albeit not large enough tax breaks, I think we should go much larger than those that are proposed at this time, but they appear to be in the offing. But we could go much further. The gentleman's amendment, similar to the one I voted for in committee, is a fair one. It simply freezes spending authorization at the level appropriated for fiscal year 1997. Freezes. It was not a cut, although I would support a cut. It is a freeze. We are simply saying that while we work toward a balanced budget, while we reduce taxes for the overburdened American people who are just overtaxed, while we try to move our own citizens off welfare rolls and into productive jobs, that the State Department, the foreign aid bureaucracy and others learn to live on the same allocation appropriated by this Congress for fiscal year 1997. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Sanford] in my opinion offers a modest amendment, an amendment that will allow us to proceed even faster to balancing the budget and to giving tax relief to the American people. They are entitled to tax relief. We keep hearing that we are drastically cutting back, that we are slashing this and slashing that and cutting this. This is not a cut. Some of us would agree to drastically and dramatically cutting, but that is not what this is. This merely freezes last year's levels. American families go through this type of process, this decisionmaking process, when they have to set priorities all the time. They oftentimes freeze parts of their budget. This is what we ought to do. It is a modest proposal. We ought to support it. I know the gentleman has already mentioned this early on, but we have had a lot of folks against this amendment for a while. There are a lot of very significant groups that favor this amendment, such as Women For Tax Reform, Citizens Against Government Waste, the National Taxpayers Union, Citizens For A Sound Economy, Americans For Tax Reform. These very pro- taxpayer groups support this amendment. I would strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I urge my colleagues to support this very modest amendment. Many of us would be willing to go much further than this, and really think we should cut. This does not cut, it merely freezes at last year's levels.

Mr. CHABOT. I yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, sometimes we have just got to wonder what they are thinking about sometimes down at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. What is the President up to now? Well, here is a quote from a recent Washington Times article: In a single sentence, President Clinton last month quietly revoked an executive order issued by President Reagan that required that all Federal policies be assessed as helpful or harmful to families. Now, President Reagan's 1987 order was issued so that any new Federal policy would take into account its effects on American families. Now that sounds pretty reasonable to me. Apparently, President Clinton feels otherwise. Mr. Speaker, President Reagan's executive order was issued to protect American families from intrusive and overreaching government bureaucrats. By revoking that commonsense order, President Clinton clearly showed us all where his loyalties lie. The score: Big Government 1, American families 0.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, yesterday President Clinton sent a callous message to the flood-ravaged American families in the Midwest. Only minutes after receiving the disaster relief bill from Capitol Hill, the President who likes to say that he feels our pain told thousands of flood victims that he was going to veto the bill that would help them rebuild their homes and get on with their lives. Why did President Clinton veto the legislation? Because the bill contained a provision that would stop him from forcing another Government shutdown. Let me repeat that. The President is withholding aid to thousands of flood victims so that he can reserve the right to once again put thousands and thousands of government employees out of work and bring the work of the Federal Government to a halt. Despite the fact that the President is a master at spin, Mr. Speaker, I do not think he is going to be able to spin this one much. The American people are going to see through this. It is politics at its worst. Let us get the disaster relief to the people who truly need it.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the conservative budget alternative. Why? Because the American people are overtaxed, and they deserve tax relief, and they deserve that tax relief sooner rather than later. The thing all of us in Washington should always keep in mind is that the money we spend up here does not belong to us, it belongs to the American people. Let us let the American people keep more of their hard-earned money, let us support the conservative budget alternative, let us cut taxes and do it sooner rather than later.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, the American Medical Association struck a blow for innocent human life yesterday when it endorsed legislation to outlaw the heinous practice of partial-birth abortions. Now the major obstacles in the way of a ban on this horrific procedure are President Clinton and the leaders of the most radical pro-abortion lobbies. Let us hope that the American Medical Association's statement that we must restrict a procedure that, and I quote, ``We all agree is not good medicine,'' will get the attention of the last remaining diehard on the wrong side of this issue. A partial-birth abortion is literally the killing in a most brutal fashion of a baby about to take its first breath of life outside the womb. It is a grotesque and inhuman practice. In a civilized society, it has absolutely no place. Mr. Speaker, the Cincinnati Enquirer, my hometown's newspaper, in a hard-hitting editorial this morning, summed it up best. Again, I quote. They said, ``It is time to declare that our society will no longer tolerate infanticide as a choice.'' Let us ban this horrible procedure once and for all.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, let us face it, the American people are just overtaxed. Why? Well, too much of their hard-earned money comes here to Washington and it gets wasted in many, many ways. Examples. We have a program called the Market Access Program, where we actually take the taxpayers' money and pay for corporations to advertise their products overseas. We still subsidize far too many farm products, cotton, peanuts, sugar, and the list goes on and on. We still pay farmers in this country not to grow crops. Maybe that made some sense back during the Depression, it makes no sense nowadays. To pay for all these wasteful programs, our taxes have gone up. During my lifetime they have gone, for example, from 5 percent that people send to Washington to now 25 percent. If we add State and local taxes, it is about 40 percent the average American family pays out in taxes. So if we work a 5-day week, Monday and Tuesday we are working for the Government and only Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday are we working for ourselves and our own family. We are talking about a historic budget agreement between the Congress and the President. Let us make sure a substantial part of that budget agreement has to do with tax relief. Let us get the Government off the backs of the American taxpayers. Let us cut taxes and do it now.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, like many of my colleagues, I go back to my district every weekend. Since there is a lot more common sense, in my view, in Cincinnati than there is here in Washington, I try to listen to as many people as possible when I am back home. The one question that keeps coming my way is this: ``Why can't you folks in Washington cut our taxes?'' That is a question they have got every right to ask us. It is their hard-earned money that comes to Washington every year in bigger and bigger chunks. The Government keeps getting bigger, and Federal programs up here grow and grow and that money comes right out of the paychecks of hard-working people in my district in Cincinnati. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am with them. I am one of those Congressmen who is going to work very hard in the next few weeks to see that any budget agreement considered by this House contains serious tax cuts for the working families in Cincinnati and all around the country. We have a golden opportunity to let the people of this country keep more of the hard earned money that they make and they send up here to Washington. For the people's sake, let us not blow it this time, let us cut taxes on people all over this great Nation.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, why is it so important to balance the budget? I get that question quite a bit when I speak to school groups back in my district. Well, it is a fair question. After all, the economy has been doing OK lately and we have not had a balanced budget. Perhaps the best way to answer this question is to consider a person using a credit card who spends a little bit more than he makes each month. Every month when the bill comes, he pays off part of it, maybe just the minimum amount possible. Well, he can keep that up for a while, but eventually the mounting debt will overwhelm him and threaten his standard of living. The interest payments he is required to make each month just keep getting bigger and bigger. Well, that is exactly what has happened to the Federal Government. A $5 trillion debt that we have, unbelievable. It is time to get a grip. We need to balance the budget and start putting our financial house in order before it is too late. Let us cut the tax rate on the American people. The people of this country are overtaxed. Let us do something about it and let us do it now.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, in recognition of National Teacher Appreciation Week, I want to mention an issue I believe all teachers support, getting more of our Federal education dollars into the classroom. When we vote here in Congress to spend money on education, how much actually reaches our children? As I am sure most teachers can attest, too little. An Ohio study determined a local school may have to submit as many as 170 Federal reports totaling more than 700 pages during a single year. Ohio gets 6 percent of its money on education from Washington, yet over 50 percent of the time it spends filling out forms come from right here in Washington. These unnecessary bureaucratic procedures consume vital resources while doing nothing to improve the quality of education that our children receive. As my colleague the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Hoekstra], has found through the Crossroads Project, there are approximately 760 Federal education programs covering 39 Federal agencies. I say we need to put an end to the wasteful bureaucracy from here in Washington that siphons off our precious education dollars. Let us spend the dollars where they ought to be spent, in the classroom. Let parents, teachers, and local schools decide where the money should be spent.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, this week we are honoring this Nation's teachers, those hardworking men and women who under increasingly difficult circumstances train and mold young minds. The work teachers do today will influence those young Americans every day of their lives, and they are to be commended for their dedication. As my colleagues know, too many of our Nation's schools have become havens for drugs and gangs, endangering our children and our teachers. When we consider the Juvenile Crime Control Act later today, we are going to do something about this problem. Language I was able to incorporate into the legislation with the cooperation and support of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], the chairman, will permit cities and counties to use Federal block grant funds to protect students and teachers from gangs and drugs and violent crime in their schools. Mr. Speaker, when parents send their children off to school, they should not have to worry about their safety. The same goes for the families of those who teach our children. Sadly, we cannot guarantee their safety, but we can help. We can pass the Juvenile Crime Control Act today.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, National Teacher Appreciation Week gives us an opportunity to recognize the hard work and dedication of teachers across the country. Teachers every day inspire young students and help prepare our children for the next century. One especially outstanding teacher in my community is Sharon Draper, an English teacher at Walnut Hills High School, recently named the National Teacher of the Year. Now Mrs. Draper is helping train other teachers by serving as an instructor at the Mayerson Academy in Cincinnati. There are other teachers, of course, who deserve recognition back home in my district in Cincinnati: Susan Staub, a government teacher at Mercy High School; Tim Taylor at Oak Hills; Gene Jesse, at LaSalle, my alma mater; Mike Odioso at St. X; Jim Pharo at Seton; Jim Fiehre at Mt. Healthy; Mary Helen Beimesche at St. Ursula; Shad Stigle at Diamond Oaks, and the list could go on and on. I want to also commend all those teachers just beginning their careers, like Shannon Crim at Lakota, who right now is completing her very first day as a teacher. As a former schoolteacher myself, and as a parent, I appreciate the vital role good teachers play in the future of this Nation. Today and every day we should thank the teachers.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Question: How many Federal directors does it take to run the National Sheep Industry Improvement Center? Answer: Nine. Now, if this sounds like a bad joke, it is, and once again the joke is on the American taxpayer, because this sheep center is going to cost American taxpayers at least $20 million, maybe $50 million, and it is run by the very industries that it benefits. Now, what is it supposed to do? Typical mumbo-jumbo. Listen: Promote strategic development activities and collaborative efforts; to maximize the impact of Federal assistance to strengthen and enhance the production and marketing; infrastructure development and on and on. Well, it gets my goat, that is for sure. This is one more special interest rip-off that uses taxpayer dollars to do what corporate America should do for itself, and so the taxpayers keep getting fleeced. Mr. Speaker, I am introducing a bill to eliminate this bad program. Let us end this ridiculous bit of shear nonsense.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend both the gentleman from New York [Mr. Gilman] and the gentleman from California [Mr. Royce] as well as the Africa Subcommittee staff for the excellent job they have done in bringing this important and timely resolution to the floor. I also want to express a special appreciation to my colleague from New Jersey [Mr. Payne] and also the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Menendez], both of whom have shown great leadership on this very important issue for years now. The message we are sending to Zaire is straightforward. President Mobutu must resign from office immediately and leave the country. The transition from dictatorship to democracy can only begin after the dictator himself has gone. The continuing political chaos in Zaire can only exacerbate a very bad situation and could, sadly, lead to chaos in all of central Africa. Witnesses testifying before our subcommittee maintain that, and I quote, a disintegration of Zaire could create a dangerous situation in that region that could take decades to fix. Mobutu's exit from Zaire will help to prevent that disintegration from taking place. Mr. Speaker, the beleaguered people of Zaire have suffered for far too long under the autocratic and thoroughly corrupt rule of President Mobutu. They deserve a better life than they have under him at this time. They deserve freedom. This resolution expresses the sense of this House that the United States supports the creation in Zaire of the enabling environment necessary to conduct democratic multiparty elections as soon as humanly possible. It is a good resolution, and it sends a strong message to President Mobutu. I urge adoption of the resolution.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, it is a sad fact that simply to mention today's date is to utter a phrase that most Americans find repugnant: April 15, tax day. The words just sort of lie there, cold and hard and ugly. We take a perfectly good month like April and we spoil it with this tax ritual, because the amount of money that the Federal Government takes away from working families is a scandal, the amount of money that the Federal Government spends and wastes is a scandal, and the arrogant, bureaucratic system by which the Federal Government takes that money is a scandal, too. We have to change the system, Mr. Speaker. We have to get back to the idea that the bureaucrats work for the taxpayer, not vice versa. The presumption ought to be in favor of the taxpayer, not in favor of the Government. The presumption ought to be against Government boondoggles, like the National Sheep Industry Improvement Council. Not a single sheep is being improved but the taxpayer is being fleeced. We need to end corporate welfare, we need to stop the government rip- offs, and we need to give the American people tax relief. Let us cut taxes now.