Steve Chabot

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, the Cincinnati district that I am privileged to represent has an abundance of treasures. One of them is a good friend and former colleague of mine from our days together on the Cincinnati City Council, J. Kenneth Blackwell. After leaving the council, Ken went on to serve as Assistant Secretary for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and then as ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Conference in Geneva during the Bush administration. He recently became the first African-American ever elected statewide in Ohio and now serves as State treasurer. He also serves as a member of the National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform, which last week issued its much heralded recommendations for a new Federal tax system. Goodness knows, the present Internal Revenue System is an atrocious mess in need of complete overhaul. I was privileged this last Martin Luther King Day to attend the Cincinnati ceremony in which Ken and his distinguished wife Rosa were presented the prestigious Dreamkeepers Award. Today, I would like to enter into the Congressional Record a November 15 speech delivered by my friend, Ken Blackwell, at Ashland University's Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs (established in honor of the late, legendary Ohio Congressman John M. Ashbrook). Additionally, I'd like to include an article written by Mr. Blackwell and Steve Entin, resident scholar at the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, published in the January 18 edition of the Cincinnati Post. The speech and article follow: Devolution--Revolution in the Third Century (By J. Kenneth Blackwell, Treasurer of State of Ohio) For baseball fans in our home state, 1995 was a remarkable year. It was when Ohio became the third state to have two teams involved in major league post-season play in the same year. It is regrettable that Georgia's only team killed the Ohio I-71 World Series by knocking out the southern end, and that it then compounded its inconsiderate behavior by depriving the northern end of the championship. Still, for Ohioans, it was the greatest baseball year ever. Until next year. The Season was still in full swing when I began thinking about what I would say here today. Perhaps that is why a baseball story from the sixties came to mind. Even for non- fans, the name Frank Robinson should ring bells. My first paying job was selling peanuts at old Crosley Field, and one of that job's most important fringe benefits was watching Frank Robinson play ball. Frank was a more than adequate defensive player in the outfield and at first base, but he is remembered because he was an offensive dynamo. He hit for average and he hit with power. He made all-star teams in both the National and American Leagues, he played in World Series for teams in both leagues, and he was voted MVP in both leagues. Frank became the first African American hired to manage a major league team. He also had the dubious distinction of becoming the first one fired. He was one of two players in what some people consider the worst baseball trade ever made. Reds management called him old-at-thirty and traded him to Baltimore for Milt Pappas, which had the unfortunate side effect of laying a bad Trivial Pursuit rap on a very good pitcher. The story, which I confess may be apocryphal, takes place after Frank became a Baltimore Oriole. It is the bottom of the ninth. The Orioles are down by one run, but the bases are loaded, and Robinson is coming to bat. The crowd is going wild. You can cut the tension with a knife. Earl Weaver, the legendary Manager of the Orioles, looks over at Frank in the on-deck circle. He must see visions of grand slam dancing in Frank's eyes. Weaver crooks his finger to beckon Frank over. He puts his face in Frank's face. In a low, deadly tone-of-voice, Weaver says, ``Listen up, Mr. All- Star! Not too hard, and not too soft! Just la-de-da!''. Frank smiles at his manager. He nods. He goes to the plate, and he lays that beautiful grooved swing of his on the first pitch. He hits a frozen-rope single to center and drives in the tying and winning runs. ``Not too hard, and not too soft! Just la-de-da . . .! That is what we must learn to do with our government as we enter our third century of nationhood. We are a nation of home run hitters. We have a two hundred year history of swinging from our heels. More often than any nation in history, we have hit home runs, but all too often these days, we strike out. Especially at the federal level, we have forgotten that our national game is baseball, not sumo wrestling. We have considered it acceptable to weigh five hundred pounds as long as we stayed strong. It is time now for us to get back in shape. It is time for us to learn to be disciplined at the plate. We have to make our government not too hard and not too soft, not too fat and not too lean, not too big and not too small . . . just la-de-da . . . This will not be easy for us because imbedded in our national character, indeed, imbedded in our language, is the idea that bigger is better and smaller is worse. Expansion is good. Shrinkage is bad. Generous people are big people. Selfish people are small. Successful companies are green and growing. Unsuccessful companies are contracting and dying. Not until we are talking about diets or tumors do we arrive at the idea that becoming larger can be unhealthy and becoming smaller can be beneficial, yet that is exactly the thinking we must apply to our government if we are to return national growth to the places were we want growth. I submit that we want growth in personal opportunity. We want growth in personal freedom. And for Americans to have more personal opportunity and more personal freedom, we have to reduce the intrusion of government into our lives at all levels, but especially at the federal level. Today our most conspicuous area of national growth is in the national debt. Some people think that our nation has been in hock from the time we fought the Revolutionary War on borrowed money, but this is not so. It is true that we entered the nineteenth century with a debt of almost one hundred million dollars, about fifteen dollars per capita in the money of that time. This would be roughly one hundred fifty dollars in today's money. The debt went up to finance Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase, but it was then steadily worked down under James Madison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. In 1832, Andrew Jackson was elected President, and, believe it or not, toward the end of the first term of the first modern Democrat, thanks to rapid economic growth and pruduent fiscal management, the debt was eliminated. Our political landscape today would have a very different look if Jackson's Democratic successors had been equally tightfisted. Through our first century and a half, the national debt reached its highest levels as a consequence of wars, and it was always paid down between wars. Expressed in terms of Gross National Product, the debt was close to half of GNP coming out of the Revolutionary War. From zero in 1835 and 1836, it went over twenty-five percent of GNP in the aftermath of the Civil War, and again after World War One. It reached its all-time high, about one and a quarter times GNP, following World War Two. It came down in the sixties and seventies, but its low then was still higher than the highs following the previous century's wars. And from about a third of GNP in 1980, the debt has soared to more than half of GNP today. What has caused this growth where we do not want growth? Well, it is not low taxes. Total tax revenues have more than doubled since 1980. Taxes now consume more than forty percent of the income of the average American family. Taxes cost that family more than food and clothing and shelter combined. Taxation at the state and local levels in most parts of the country is relatively restrained. The lion's share of the American family's confiscatory tax burden goes to the federal level. Our federal government is a five hundred pound baseball player. There is no meal of tax dollars large enough that it will not wolf it down and growl for more. We have to get the monster on a diet before it kills itself and us with it. The first steps in curbing the federal appetite for our money have just been taken by both houses of Congress in passing budget bills which will eliminate the deficit in seven years. Differences between the bills will soon be worked out in conference committee, but there is no assurance that they will go into effect in the form they are passed because of a threatened veto. There is a straight forward solution to this kind of obstacle to balanced budgets and ultimate elimination of the national debt. It is the balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. Forty-nine of our fifty states had balanced budgets last year. Forty-eight of those have balanced budget requirements in their constitutions. There is no doubt that some members of all of those legislatures could, and would, have found ways to spend more tax money than their states took in, but they did not because they could not. We need the same discipline at the federal level. If the subject were not so serious and the need for the amendment so clear, the arguments of its opponents last year would have been funny. They remind me of a wonderful song in an album made some years ago by Harry Belafonte and Odetta. Odetta tells Harry, her husband in the song, to fetch some water. He can't fetch the water because the bucket has a hole in it. She makes a series of suggestions for solving the problem. He has a new objection to every suggestion. Toward the end of the song, she tells him to use a straw to mend the hole. He cannot use a straw because it is dry. She tells him to wet the straw. He cannot do that because he has no water. She tells him to fetch some water, and that brings him full circle. He cannot fetch water because the bucket has a hole in it. The opponents of the balanced budget amendment came up with an array of arm-waving objections to it, some on lofty, if somewhat vague, constitutional principles, but the bottom line is one reason is as good as another when you do not want to do something. If only one Senate opponent changes his or her mind during the session, the amendment may yet pass during this session, but if that does not happen, the American people will surely change the composition of the next Congress to pass it. And if that prediction is correct, I have to believe that the legislatures of three- fourths of the states will hear the message clearly enough to make it happen in short order. Requiring the Congress and the President to go on the line for the taxes necessary to support their spending will help immensely in reducing the federal appetite for our money, but in my judgment we need action which goes beyond that. Ten states now require a super-majority in their legislatures to increase taxes. I am a strong advocate of this form of taxpayer protection, and I believe that Ohio will soon join the ten states which have it in place. The super-majority idea should be applied at the federal level. Opponents say it is somehow anti-democratic to require more than a simple majority to raise taxes. They apparently think it is all right to require a two-thirds majority when the subject is amending the constitution, or going to war, or impeaching a president, but such a requirement is not all right when the subject is taking the property of one citizen to give to another. It would be interesting to see what the result would be if this question were put to a national referendum. I have a hunch it would pass by a super-majority. The third area of taxation which belongs in the federal government's diet is the tax code. All of us know it is a mess, but just how much a mess strains belief. In 1950, the tax code had one hundred and three sections. It now has one thousand five hundred and sixty-four sections. In the past forty years, Congress has on average changed the tax code every one point three years. Since the last major overhaul in 1986, there have been four thousand changes in the tax code. There are seventeen thousand pages of Internal Revenue Service rules. Each year, the IRS prints eight billion pages of tax forms. Americans spend five point four billion hours filling them out. Individuals and corporations spend, or should I say waste, in excess of two hundred and fifty billion dollars worth of time per year to pay their taxes. I believe that the time is right to simplify the federal tax system to the point that we can reduce Form 1099 to a postcard and virtually eliminate the Internal Revenue Service. I am serving on a National Commission to reshape the tax code for Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich. Our mission is a major overhaul, not an academic review. I cannot discuss the deliberations of the Commission at this point in our work, but I can discuss some ideas I believe have merit as we move toward a better system. I have a strong personal bias toward systems which encourage savings and investment. I would prefer a system which would tax consumption instead of income, but for solid, practical reasons, mostly rooted in the inseparability of our national economy from the global economy, I think we need to continue to rely on the basic structure of an income tax. We can and must vastly simplify our income tax. The starting point is a single-rate tax at about twenty percent of income. I favor a substantial exclusion from paying this tax, perhaps thirty thousand dollars for a family of four. This structure passes the tests of fairness and progressivity. As incomes go up, the percent taxes represent of total income go up, though in no case will they reach the single-rate because the initial exclusion will not be subject to recapture. We can eliminate the marriage penalty by setting the exclusion for a single taxpayer at one-half the level of a married couple filing jointly. By setting the exclusion well above the poverty level, we will also eliminate the disincentive of today's tax structure to poor families working their way off welfare. I favor retaining three deductions from gross income. One is mortgage interest. This helps young wage-earners achieve home ownership without having to wait through a lifetime of wealth-building. I realize that this amounts to accomplishing a social objective through the tax code, but I believe the benefits to families and neighborhoods make it worth this exception to theoretical purity. The second is money placed by individuals in savings toward retirement. We can tax that money as it comes out of savings, but while it is saved, we should let it grow. And the effect of exempting savings is to turn an income tax into a consumption tax without the complexity or wrenching transition that would be involved in moving to a national Value Added Tax or sales tax. The third deduction is charity. As we move to replace governmental largesse with private initiatives, we need to stay away from tax disincentives. We should apply the same single-rate to individuals and to corporations. Doing so eliminates the historical incentives to move in or out of incorporation. We should apply the same single-rate to capital gains as to income. This will eliminate a ton of IRS rules designed only to distinguish between the ways people make money. At the corporate level, we should treat dividend payments the same way we treat interest expense. This will eliminate the bias of the current system for debt over equity. These, then, are the key elements at the intake end of our federal diet: one, a balanced budget amendment to compel our government to live within its means: two, a super-majority tax increase requirement to compel government to look first to its spending habits to balance its budget; and three, a clean, simple, fair system of taxation to restore incentives to work, save and invest. The next question is what we do at the outgo end. The answer is devolution. The answer is governmental change which is faithful to the principle of subsidiarity. The answer is change which reverses the upward flow of money and power and sends it back to levels of government which are closer to the people governed. The modem centralized welfare state--and like it or not, we are living in one--is built on a foundation of three wrong ideas. The first is that government can do a better job with our economy than the market. Wrong. The second is that bureaucrats can make better decisions about what is good for families than the families themselves. Wrong, wrong. The third is that the work ethic is outdated, and that we can have a healthy society which has disconnected effort from return. Wrong, wrong, wrong. We must reawaken our recognition of the fact that in most domestic matters, the states can perform more effectively and efficiently than the federal government. Our founders knew this. Senator Dole and Congressman Bob Dornan have repeatedly reminded their audiences of the tenth amendment to the constitution, the amendment which has been honored in the breach for most of the twentieth century. It reads, in one powerful sentence, ``The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'' It does not stop there. In most domestic matters, cities and counties can perform more effectively and efficiently than the states. In many domestic matters, neighborhoods can perform more effectively and efficiently than cities and counties. And in matters having to do with what to do with their money, families can perform more effectively and efficiently than any level of government. Colin Powell says it very well in his autobiography: ``Every tax dollar taken away from a consumer or a business is a dollar that will be spent less efficiently than if left in private hands.'' We are only just beginning to apply this thinking at the federal level, but successful state and local models are out there to show what can be done. One standout example is Indianapolis where Mayor Stephen Goldsmith reduced the size of city government, law enforcement functions not included, by an astonishing thirty-eight percent in three years. What he did was to systematically review city functions one by one using a team of entrepreneurs which he called the Service, Efficiency and Lower Taxes for Indianapolis Commission, SELTIC for short. The recommendations from SELTIC alone helped him trim $100 million from the city budget. Indianapolis opened the operation and management of the city's waste-water treatment plants to competitive bidding. The winning bid improved water treatment and cut costs by forty-four percent. Trash collection was opened to competitive bidding. The cost of trash collection has dropped from eighty-five dollars per household to sixty-eight dollars. Competitive bidding cut street repair costs by twenty-five percent. Microfilming public records was privatized for an annual cost reduction of sixty-three percent. What do the people of Indianapolis think of all this? They answered that question last week by reelecting Mayor Goldsmith in a landslide. And if the Republican elected President in 1996 continues the work begun in this session of Congress and applies the Indianapolis approach, we can look for a landslide reelection in 2000. The principle of subsidiarity can help us deal with two of our most intractable national problems, what to do about Social Security and Medicare. The cynicism of our young people toward Social Security is a matter of real concern. A recent poll of 1600 Americans between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five showed that more of them expected to see a UFO in their lifetime than a social security check. I was in Santiago, Chile last week to review what has been done there over the past fifteen years with their Social Security system. In 1980, their approach looked a lot like ours, a system of transfer payments featuring high withholding taxes and an endless, futile struggle to keep benefits up with inflation. In 1981 the government offered workers their choice of staying in the old system or moving to a new system in which a mandatory ten percent of wages are automatically invested in an individual investment account, with an option to add as much as ten percent voluntarily. The worker chooses one of several private Pension Fund Administration companies to invest the account. These AFP's are like mutual funds, putting money in stocks, bonds and government debt. Workers are free to move from one AFP to another, so there is competition among companies to provide higher returns and better service. About one-fourth of the Chilean work-force signed up for the new system in the first month, and more than ninety percent are now in it. The results have been phenomenal. More than half of Chile's retirees have done so well that they have taken early retirement. I believe a lot of Americans would choose a system like this over Social Security or UFO's. The thirty-eight million beneficiaries of the current system and the number of workers in their forties, fifties and sixties who cannot have a full working career under a savings plan present transition problems as we change systems. We cannot break faith with these people, but we do not need to. The problems are formidable, but they are surmountable so long as we fund the transition through reduced governmental spending in other areas, not future borrowing. A conceptually similar idea is emerging to deal with Medicare. The idea is medical savings accounts. In these, individuals would be able to put an amount like three thousand dollars into a tax-free account. The money could come either from the employer or the employee. Some form of catastrophe insurance would cover expenses beyond this first three thousand, but the effect would be to put individuals in charge of expenditures for routine care, medication, eyeglasses and the like. This would bring most health care expenditures under the control of the marketplace, with all the attendant benefits of competition and price comparison. This, then, is the shape of the revolution which can see us safely through our third and fourth centuries of nationhood. Devolution to give us a lean, responsive government with the power and the money where it belongs, closest to the people. Not too big and not too small. Just la-de-da. A New Tax System for the 21st Century (By J. Kenneth Blackwell and Steve Entin) The National Commission on Economic Growth and Tax Reform has just issued its recommendations for a new tax system for the 21st century. The Commission wants to scrap the current tax system, with its biases against saving and growth and its complicated rules that give favors to some taxpayers and impose penalties and uncertainties on most of the population. In its place, the Commission favors a similar, fairer system that will reward thrift and hard work, raise employment, and lift family incomes. The Commission would like the new tax system to have a generous exempt amount, high enough to enable lower income families and individuals to take care of their basics needs and get an economic head start before the federal government takes a part of their income. The exempt amount should not be so high, however, that too great a share of the population becomes insensitive to the cost of government. Above the exempt amount, the Commission favors a single low tax rate that would treat all citizens equally before the law. Income is a measure of what one contributes to the economy through work, saving, and investment. Anyone contributing to the economy by producing additional goods and services should be equally rewarded. A single rate system allows that. The current system of graduated tax rates slaps increasing tax penalties on people the more that they add to the economy. It punishes people who take the time to get an education and earn higher income over a shorter working life. It punishes people who take the risk to start their own businesses in hopes of a greater income. It punishes people the more that they save and invest. These penalties hurt not only the individuals who pay the higher rates, but all the people they might employ or who might work at higher wages with the plant and equipment that more saving would make possible. The Commission favors extending the deduction of payroll taxes, now allowed only for employers, to employees as well. The object is to increase employment and to reduce the burden of the payroll tax on the incomes of middle income workers. Savers and investors are treated very badly under the current tax system, unless they have access to a very good pension plan. People pay tax when they earn their income. If they use the after-tax income for consumption, there is generally no further federal tax. If they buy a bond, there is tax on the interest. If they buy stock, there is corporate tax on the earnings, individual tax on the dividends, and capital gains tax if the earnings are reinvested and the share price rises. If they buy a machine for their business, complex depreciation schedules result in understated costs and over-stated taxable income. There is an estate tax if the saver doesn't live to spend the money. Current law is clearly biased against saving and investment. The Commission would end these biases. It would let savers defer tax on their saving until they withdraw it for consumption, as in a pension; if saving is not deductible, the returns should not be taxed, as with tax exempt bonds. Either approach would put saving on the same basis as income used for consumption, and would let people save more easily for a home, an education, or retirement. An individual saving $1,000 per year from age 20 onward could build a retirement nest egg of more than $400,000, compared to about $250,000 under current law, providing a 60% increase in retirement income and security. The Commission would end the estate tax and the double taxation of businesses and their shareholders. It favors deducting investment in full when the outlay is made, instead of stringing the write-off out over years or decades, as under current law, losing value and depressing investment and employment. What would such a tax system do for the average family? Professor Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University told the Commission that a tax system that ended the biases against saving and investment would lift the level of output and income in the economy by between 15 and 20 percent within a few years. Investment, productivity, wages, and employment would all rise. Gains of that size would rise the yearly income of a typical working family by between $4,000 to $6,000, and by more if they are savers. Some people worry that setting the system right will cost the Treasury revenue. But the current tax code is costing the economy and everyone in it a fortune in lost income. That lost income, and the added taxes that would be paid on it, must be factored into the calculation. That, and a modicum of federal spending restraint, could make a growth-friendly tax system a reality. There is no reason not to scrap the current tax system and set things right. Everyone would be a winner.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, the President said a lot of the right things last night. He says the era of big government is over. He says that he now understands that working families are overtaxed. And he even implies that he is now willing to sign the welfare reform, balanced budget, and tax cut measures that he has vetoed over the last few months. Good news, if he means it, very good news. If the President now means it and he will support tax cuts for working families rather than demagoging about mythical tax cuts for the rich, that is very good news. If the President now means it that people in Cincinnati should be able to keep more of their own money, rather than seeing it wasted by high flying bureaucrats like Hazel O'Leary, that is good news. In short, Mr. Speaker, if the President now wants to work together for tax relief and for an end to big government ripoffs--then I am with him all the way. It is great to see that the President is now a fan of the Contract With America. I just hope that he realizes that we need action and not just talk.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, President Clinton has not asked me for any advice, but if he were to ask in the spirit of bipartisanship, I would be happy to oblige. I would say, ``Mr. President, you are about to give your State of the Union Address. You have got your hands full right now with a host of problems. You vetoed the Balanced Budget Act while keeping Hazel O'Leary, who uses taxpayer dollars to hire Madonna's plane, still on the job. You still have got people upset with you because you raised taxes, the biggest tax increase in American history. You have promised to end welfare as we know it, and then you vetoed welfare reform. And you have gone back on your word to cut taxes on the American people.'' I would say, ``Mr. President, you can still make things right with the American people. You can still keep those promises you have made and broken so many times. You can agree to balance the budget by restraining spending and cutting taxes on hard-working American families. If you do that, Mr. President, you would finally be keeping your word and you would make an awful lot of Americans happy.'' For what it is worth, that is the advice I would give President Clinton.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, for 2 long years, Mr. Speaker, a career public servant has been targeted, smeared, and ultimately prosecuted, all the news suggested, as part of a political coverup designed to justify the Travelgate firings and the transfer of White House business to political cronies. Thank God for the jury system which acquitted Billy Dale in just 2 hours. But chilling facts continue to emerge. Today the AP reports a newly released memo in which a high administration official explained the origins of this Orwellian case by saying, and I quote, ``We knew that there would be hell to pay if we failed to take swift and decisive action in conformity with the First Lady's wishes.'' That is shocking, and I will tell my colleagues, regardless of how powerful the person who ordered it, no matter how high in the Clinton administration, if Federal law enforcement agencies were turned against a career public servant as part of a political coverup, there ought to be, and I quote, ``hell to pay'' on the part of all those responsible.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I can not think of a better Christmas gift that we could give our country this year than a balanced budget. You see, a balanced budget means that our children and grandchildren will have a future filled with the American dream instead of the American debt. What better present could we give to the American people than a stronger economy, more jobs, lower interest rates on home mortgages, car loans, and student loans. Mr. Speaker, all this could happen if the President will cut out the gimmicks and excuses and get serious about signing a balanced budget. It is time for the administration to stop the politics as usual. Our country depends on it. The people deserve it. Merry Christmas to all and to all a balanced budget.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, at a time when the President and this Congress are engaged in an historic battle over finally balancing this Nation's budget, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the importance of this date, December 21, 1995, to me. You see, 50 years ago today, December 21, 1945, a young soldier from Massachusetts who had just returned from the war in Europe and a young woman from North Carolina were married. Over that 50 years they raised four children. They now have 9 grandchildren and a 10th on the way. They are both now in their seventies. They are both on Social Security and Medicare, and they both realize, by the way, that we are not cutting Medicare or Social Security, despite what some in this House might allege. They never had a lot of money, material goods, or that kind of wealth. But they did have something and they still have something that is more important. They have love. They are my mom and dad, and they are an example of what America is all about.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, as we continue to try to achieve a balanced budget, I think we ought to keep in mind the one Cabinet Secretary who has been singled out by Vice President Gore for doing, and I quote the Vice President, ``a fabulous job on eliminating unnecessary spending.'' Yes, I am talking about the administration's poster child for government frugality, Hazel O'Leary. How can we be so callous, so downright mean-spirited, Mr. Speaker, as to work for a balanced budget at a time when the Secretary of Energy already may be going a whole night or two without staying in a 5-star European hotel at taxpayer expense? The Vice President insists that she is doing, in his words, a fabulous job. But here is a question: The law clearly states in title 5, section 3107, that a Cabinet Secretary may not use appropriated funds to pay a publicity expert unless the money has been appropriated specifically for that purpose. Was that law violated by Mrs. O'Leary when she used taxpayer dollars to hire a private PR firm? Let us look into that. Let us balance the budget. Let us get rid of Secretary O'Leary.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, politicians in this town have dressed up as Santa Claus, popped down the chimney and robbed American families blind. On, sure, they have given gifts to their special-interest friends, but they have used the American people's credit card to do it, and all they have left our kids is a debt so huge that every single child born this year inherits a bill for $187,000 just to pay the interest, just the interest, on the national debt. These fake Santas, Mr. Speaker, take more than our milk and cookies. They gorge themselves on everything they can get their hands on, and then they claim that American families do not really need their taxes cut. But the fact of the matter is that these fake Santas are eating the average family out of house and home. We have to slow the growth of wasteful Government spending, Mr. Speaker. We have to cut taxes. We have to cut the waste. Mr. Speaker, the American people deserve no less. It is time to remember that Santa Claus does not live in Washington, DC.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, 25 days ago, President Clinton promised in writing to sign a balanced budget agreement by the end of this year. It is now December 14. How much longer do the American people have to wait? Last week, the President vetoed the Balanced Budget Act of 1995. Last week, the President said ``no'' to a brighter future for our children and for our grandchildren. I would like to read something that this same President said back in March 1994, and how he said it: ``Why, then, are we confronted with an opposition party that just stands up and says ``No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no?'' Mr. Speaker, it is time for the President to ask himself that same question: Why is he saying no, no, no, no, no, no, no, to balancing the budget? Come on, Mr. President. Join us in balancing the budget now.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I am not convinced that the deployment of our brave soldiers in Bosnia will accomplish any lasting purpose other than to have put valiant American men and women in harm's way in a centuries-old civil war. I will support the troops once they are there, but I want to state, in the strongest possible terms, that those troops should not be sent to Bosnia in the first place. I am concerned that one of two things will happen. President Clinton says they will be out in 1 year. Either they will come back in 1 year and the bloodshed will begin anew, or they will be over there for a long, long time; and that is not acceptable to the American people, and it is not acceptable to me.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, more than a month ago I came to this floor and called upon President Clinton to dismiss the Secretary of Energy, Hazel O'Leary. I said that she should not remain in office for even 1 more day after we learned of her use of public funds to rank news reporters based on their treatment of her. But, Mr. Speaker, while the White House condemned her conduct the President allowed Secretary O'Leary to remain and to continue spending public funds. Now we learn that she has soaked the taxpayers for millions more by living the high life on foreign junkets--while padding the payroll here at home. Half a million dollars for a trip to Pakistan? Unbelievable. $850,000 for a trip to China? That's an outrage. No wonder this administration has such difficulty swallowing a balanced budget and letting taxpayers keep more of their own money. Cabinet status ought not entitle one to take a perpetual five-star vacation at taxpayer expense. Instead of dismissing these concerns, this time the President ought to dismiss Secretary O'Leary.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings had during the recess be printed in the Record.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker I rise in strong support of this bill. I rise in very strong support of the conference report. It cuts corporate welfare coming from the Commerce Department; it prevents U.S. soldiers from being ordered to serve under foreign operational command; it makes much needed cuts in foreign aid; it begins to crack down on illegal immigration; it prohibits Federal funding to provide Federal convicts with weight-lifting equipment and other counter-productive pursuits; it helps limit frivolous prison litigation; it sends a clear message to the courts that they had better stop wasting money on overly-lavish courtroom facilities; and it significantly improves upon last year's very flawed crime bill. The anti-crime block grants that will go to communities under this legislation are not bound up with the dictates, mandates, and restrictions that characterized last year's bill. I will tell you that the local officials in Cincinnati and Hamilton County are in a better position to judge how they can best spend anti-crime money than can Federal officials here in Washington. In fact, when Cincinnati was awarded a multi-million dollar grant last year under the old crime bill, my city found that it simply could not afford to accept the money--the Federal requirements were just too much. This bill provides local officials far more flexibility to spend the funds to meet the particular needs of the particular situations that they confront. Now, I've got to say, again, that I would have preferred to enhance the tax base of local communities by reducing the tax bite that Washington takes and simply not have any Federal crime grants at all. It's better to leave the money in the communities rather than running it through DC and then sending it back. But the approach that this bill takes represents a great improvement over the existing top-down system in which the feds micro-manage everything. I commend the committee and the conferees for their excellent work on these improvements, and I would like also to congratulate once again the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], and his absolutely tremendous staff, on the fine work that they have done to prove the way for the anti-crime provisions in this bill. I urge support for the conference report.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, in the midst of very pressing congressional business involving the budget, Bosnia, and the like, it sometimes is easy to overlook important events outside the legislative realm. But actions that affect our social fabric, that speak to our values as a society, often have the most profound impact upon our Nation. I rise here to applaud the recent announcement that Procter & Gamble, a fine Cincinnati-based corporation that makes just about every product that you can buy, has decided to pull its advertising from certain degrading and exploitative television talk shows. In taking this principled stance involving its quite considerable ad budget, Procter & Gamble demonstrates an admirable social commitment. Procter & Gamble is exercising choice, not censorship. It is choosing not to underwrite the moral decadence too often engaged in by these shows. Private individuals and private businesses can address many of our social problems far more effectively than can Big Brother Government. By making values part of its bottom line and by joining with Bill Bennett and Senator Joe Lieberman in taking off this TV trash, they are doing great things for our country.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, President Clinton has said time and time again that he supports a balanced Federal budget. True, he has never actually proposed such a plan, but because of the Balanced Budget Act passed by this Congress, he has now got an opportunity to walk the walk, not merely talk the talk. The President made a start last month when he agreed with this Congress to balance the budget in 7 years. Of course, the very next day, his chief of staff, Leon Panetta, told the American people that they should not read too much into that. But, Mr. Speaker, I am willing to take the President at his word, even if his own chief of staff apparently does not. Mr. Speaker, the Congress has brought to the negotiating table a detailed balanced budget proposal. The President thus far has brought only press releases. The President can accept our plan, or he can tell us how much more he wants to spend and just where he is going to find the money to pay for it. With a Federal debt at nearly $5 trillion, it is time for the President to get off the dime. Mr. President, let us work together to balance the budget.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the gentleman for using the French pronunciation of my name, which I do not hear very often. Thank you very much. I have been listening to the arguments and points made by my colleagues here. I think they made some very good, some very persuasive arguments. I would just like to reiterate some of the things they have made and make some new ones myself. First, I think it is important for us to always remember that these people in that very, very dangerous area of the world have been fighting with each other for centuries now, for hundreds of years. They have been battling each other, and, unfortunately, our President is now talking about and pushing forward with a plan which will put young Americans, both men and women, on the ground in Bosnia right in the middle of that bloody mess. I am very concerned that, rather than fighting and shooting at each other, in the very near future they are going to be shooting at Americans, and I hope and I pray that I am wrong. But I am very concerned that many, many Americans are going to come back to the shores of this country in body bags. There are many other dangers besides the snipers and rogue Serbs or rogue folks on either side lobbing mortars, mortar shells, artillery shells into our U.S. troops. There are 6 million mines in Bosnia. Many of those mines, nobody has a clue as to where they are at. People can be out on a routine patrol just walking down the street and could very easily set off a mine, could be mangled and mutilated or killed, and I am very concerned we are going to lost a lot of people to those very lethal instruments. That is the 6 million estimated mines there are throughout the Bosnian area. In addition, I think we really have to recognize that, whereas the Serbs have certainly been the most aggressive and have performed the most atrocious acts and have killed the most innocent people, that none of the parties really have clean hands in this incident. The Moslems, the Bosnian Moslems, and the Croats have also allegedly committed a number of atrocities themselves. All three parties have done some very awful things in the past couple of years in that very, very dangerous part of the world. Certainly, the Serbs have been the worst. In addition, the President is talking about our troops will be out in an estimated 1-year period of time. Again, go back to the point that these people have been fighting for hundreds of years now. How anyone can predict [[Page H 13793]] that our troops will have solved the problems over there, kept the peace and then pulled out in a year's period of time, I think that there is no way in the world that is going to happen. If our troops are pulled out, it is very likely that in a very short period of time the atrocities will start again, the fighting will start, and we are going to have the same type of chaos and death that we have over there now. So the 1-year period of time, I think, is a period of time that has been grabbed out of the air, and some would argue that it has to do with the fact that there is an election a year down the road. Who knows why the President picked 1 year. But I do not think there is any way we are going to be able to go over there and then suddenly peace is going to break out in that very dangerous part of the world after we have been there for a 1-year period of time. This is in Europe's backyard. It is very, very difficult for anybody to make the argument that this is in the vital interests of the United States. We have an interest to the extent that I think we think it was a good idea for the President to get the parties together. I think it is appropriate for us to play a role in getting people to talk about peace. I think we can play a role in supporting the Europeans through our air power, which we are able to project without great loss of life to American citizens. But I do not think that a legitimate argument can be made that it is necessary for U.S. troops to be at risk on the ground, and it does not take very long for anybody to pick out a couple of examples of the type of things which could very well happen in the very near future in that very dangerous part of the world. Look what happened in Lebanon. You know, it was something as unsophisticated as a truck filled with explosives to blow up a building and kill over 200 United States Marines in Beirut, Lebanon. In Somalia we went in with the best of intentions to feed people, and then mission creep set in. The goal got expanded. We were trying to build democracies over there. We got in the middle of the warlords. Our helicopters got shot down. American lives were lost, and the bodies of young Americans were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. What we are trying to do here is to prevent the President from making a very, very tragic mistake. He certainly has not convinced me that this is in the vital interests of the United States to put United States troops on the ground in Bosnia. From the calls that I am receiving in my office every day, he certainly has not convinced the people of Cincinnati, the people that I represent, that this is the right action. The calls are overwhelmingly coming in that we should not put United States troops on the ground in Bosnia. I have talked to many, many of my colleagues here on both sides of the aisle, both Democrats and Republicans, and the calls are coming in from people all over this country, ``Don't do it. Don't put United States troops on the ground in Bosnia.'' The President apparently is determined to move ahead with this venture. I think he is making a terrible mistake. I wish he would listen to Congress, and I wish he would listen to the American people and, please, prevent this tragedy from happening. We do not need to lose American lives in Bosnia. I beg the President to reconsider this effort that he seems to be determined to make. I think it is a very tragic event. I hope I am wrong. I hope and pray that my concerns are unfounded and things will go well. But I am very, very concerned that I am right, and if that happens, we are going to have many, many Americans who lose their lives in that very dangerous part of the world.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, on October 30, 315 Members of this House, Republicans and Democrats, sent a resounding message to President Clinton. The message was simple, and it could not have been more clear: Do not send American troops to Bosnia without first getting authorization from Congress. But make no mistake about it. The real vote on Bosnia is here, and it is now. We have asked the administration for casualty estimates for weeks now, but all we have gotten is silence. Mr. President, answer our question. How many American lives are you prepared to sacrifice in Bosnia? Not one drop of American blood should be shed in Bosnia. Mr. Speaker, enactment of this legislation could prevent a potential disaster from taking place, and therefore, I strongly urge its passage tonight.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, it read like a bad movie, except it's true. This is the story of a career government employee, Billy Dale, a man now 58 years old who had worked for the last seven Presidents helping with travel reservations. But in 1993, the new President and his wife decided to fire the veterans in that office and replace them with relatives and cronies. Billy Dale was fired and the cronies were hired and the Travelgate scandal was born. It became so serious that it was at the center of the note found after Vince Foster's death. But that was not the end of it for Billy Dale. Apparently, to justify the firing the White House had him investigated by the FBI for more than 2 years. They poured over every aspect of his life and then prosecuted him for supposed embezzlement. From all appearances, Billy Dale and his family were caught up in a political show trial. Yesterday, it took a jury only 2 hours to find him not guilty. This is not supposed to happen in America. But it did.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, so now the President tells us he does not want a balanced budget, and we were wrong to believe him when he said he did. Sure, he campaigned promising a balanced budget in 5 years, and sure, at one point he said he favored a balanced budget in 7 years but how insensitive, how downright mean-spirited, of us to take him at his word. What were we thinking? Last night, we passed what the President said he wanted, a clean bill with simple language reiterating the President's commitment to a 7-year balanced budget and he's throwing it back in the face of the American people. But it shouldn't be that surprising. After all, this is the man who said he wanted a middle-class tax cut and then gave us the largest tax increase in history. This is the man who said he wanted to end welfare as we know it and is now fighting us as we try to make welfare reform a reality. So, you know, on second thought, maybe it's good that the President says he'll veto our balanced budget. Maybe that means he'll sign it and the Government shutdown will end.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, I am a little troubled by some of President Clinton's comments the last couple of days. I have been listening to the White House press conferences, which seem to occur about every 20 minutes, and I can keep hearing the President claim that he wants to balance the budget. Now, that is interesting, because the budget that he sent to Congress called for $200 billion annual deficits into the foreseeable future and added $1 trillion to the national debt over the next 5 years. His so- called balanced budget was so unbalanced, the Democrats in the House refused to offer it. In the Senate, where it was introduced, it received not one single vote. Now every time we turn on the television we see a somber President Clinton proclaiming that theoretically he supports some balanced budget at some time, just not this particular balanced budget. Baloney. The President could care less about balancing the budget. He should join us and we should work together to finally balance the budget for this country.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, the Washington Post was just right this morning when they said the real issue is balancing the budget, and this is the time to decide. Are we going to continue adding to a $5 trillion debt that smothers the economy and drives up interest rates and imperils our children's future or do we want to exercise some fiscal responsibility, trim the growth in spending and cut taxes? The choice to me is clear. We cannot continue business as usual. We are going to balance this budget. That is what we were sent here to do. I still have some hope, perhaps naive, that the President will stop his obstruction and begin to work with us. It was only a month or so ago that the President again conceded that the balance budget goal is necessary and essential. It was only a few weeks ago that he confessed that he had raised taxes too much. If the President believes his own words have any meaning at all, he ought to work with us to cut taxes and cut spending and, yes, let us balance the budget. Today would be a good time for the President to start to work with us to do just that.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. Madam Speaker, my hometown newspaper, the Cincinnati Enquirer, I think got it just right this morning in their editorial. I would like to read from that editorial here at this time. To hear the overwrought, over rated White House experts tell it a ``train wreck'' between the president and Congress will shut down the federal government and end life as we know it. Wrong. It would only interrupt life as they have come to know it--by temporarily slowing the juggernaut that increases spending with no regard to the future. To the real world, a backward crank on the federal spending spigot would have a welcome effect: It could wake up Washington with a dash of cold war in the non-stop shower of taxpayer revenues. By the time this is printed this month's ``crisis of the century'' in Washington may already be averted. But if today marks the disaster that the White House has predicted so long and loudly Americans should react accordingly by taking their cue from the president. Go golfing. That's right. After he refused to negotiate and castigated Congress for not working overtime to give him another blank check, President Clinton laced up his spikes and left to play a round of golf. Some crisis. Can this be the same president whose foaming mouthpiece, Leon Panetta had the appalling bad taste to compare Congress to ``terrorists'' who ``put a gun to the president's head''-- this, in the aftermath of the assassination of Israel's prime minister? Yes. Because no matter what happens to government, politics goes on as usual. The game plan by Republican leaders Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich is to box in the president by delivering a plan to balance the federal budget and wipe out chronic deficit spending in seven years as promised in the Republican Contract With America. But Clinton, who once profusely promised to balance the budget in five years has balked, threatening a veto unless they restore enough of his spending to prolong the deficit pain for nine years. So Republicans stapled the lid shut on the box around Clinton. They offered a temporary credit line to restrain spending but avoid a shut down until December 1 by continuing Government borrowing. At first, Clinton refused to discuss it and would not even take phone calls from Gingrich and Dole. Then he agreed to negotiate if Republicans would scrub the key element of their plan, Medicare reform. Republicans said no way. Both sides are playing politics, but at least Congress is trying to accomplish what the majority of voters demanded in 1994, a balanced budget. If that goal is finally achieved, short term pain is justified for long term gain. Stop the swelling of a $5 trillion debt that will be hung on the necks of future generations. Besides, the pain is not that bad. Even the worst-case train wreck is more of a bad fender-bender. Essential Government services continue, and despite the White House attempt to blame Congress, it is the President's constitutional duty to negotiate a budget with lawmakers. If Clinton refuses to negotiate, voters should remember that he alone decided to risk spreading flu through financial markets rather than balance the budget 2 years sooner than his own cobbled budget would have achieved. In this overhyped showdown, this much is clear: For the first time Congress has a plan to balance the budget, and the President is trying to kill it. That is from my hometown newspaper, the Cincinnati Inquirer, just this morning. Madam Speaker, the Washington Post, on its front page this morning, also has it exactly right. I will quote from that. ``For all the vitriol, all the finger pointing, all the carefully staged photogenic events, the real issue is the Republicans' plan to balance the budget in 2002.'' Let us balance the budget now.

Mr. CHABOT

Mr. CHABOT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, just following up on the point about what a balanced budget means, it means real things to real American citizens, if we can finally balance the budget. For example, a person who buys a home, say they spend $75,000 for a home, and there is a 30-year loan for that home. If we can balance the budget, interest rates are estimated to go down by about 2 percent. So for that family who buys that home over the time that they pay for that home, they would save $37,000 over the life of that loan if we can just balance the budget. It will be money in people's pockets so the economy can thrive, and we will have people working rather than being on unemployment or being on welfare. There will be a lot of benefits. It will mean good things for American citizens if we can balance this budget.

Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. CHABOT. Getting back to what the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] said, what is extreme, I think what is really extreme would be to go along with what the President has been posturing to do. That is, to continue to bankrupt this Nation by not balancing the budget. That was the message that I heard, and I have been hearing all year, is it is time finally to balance the budget. I have parents. My parents are in their seventies. They are both on Medicare. They both receive Social Security. We are trying to save Medicare for the elderly folks in this country so it is there when we are going to be using it. I also have little kids. I have a daughter that is 13, I have a son that is 6 years old. What has been happening in this country over the past couple of decades, however, is huge debt has been built up and spent, and we are turning it over to these kids and saying, ``You are going to pay this debt, because we have not been able to do it. We have not had a Congress that has had the guts to balance the budget.'' We have one now. We have got a Congress that is saying, ``We are no longer going to spend this Nation into bankruptcy.'' I hope and I pray that the President of the United States will work with us, so we can cut out all this posturing and balance the budget, cut taxes, and do the things which we promised to do. I think the American people, as they learn what the overall plan is, will be supportive. I am from Cincinnati, and the calls that I got today were 7 to 1 saying, ``Stick to your guns, don't back down, don't back down to the President; balance the budget.'' That is what I, for one, intend to do.