Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I appreciate the point that my colleague has made, because I think sometimes when we talk about $5.5 trillion and $1.7 trillion and all of this interest and all of these numbers and all of these statistics, I think sometimes people do sort of tune out and they say, well, you know, that is green- eye-shade accounting stuff and it does not really matter in my life. But the point I make is that the debate about balancing the budget, the debate about ultimately paying off that national debt is really a debate about what kind of a future we are going to leave to our kids. I mean, is it going to be a future of hope, growth, and opportunity, or is it going to be a future of debt and dependency? We have made some real progress. I want to talk a little more accounting talk about what this really means, because sometimes it is hard and you have to almost break this down. What does $5.5 trillion in debt mean? If you divide that up by the number of Americans, 270 million Americans in this country, it works out to over $20,000 for every man, woman, and child. My wife Mary and I have 3 children. If we multiply our family of 5, that means we have a debt hanging over our heads larger than the mortgage on our home. Now, we might say, well, but we do not have to pay that. Yes, we do. The interest has to be paid. Last year we paid an average of about 7 percent interest on that national debt. Break that down and it works out to about $7,000 per family in interest that has to be paid. And people say, well, I do not pay $7,000 in Federal income tax. The average family may not pay that much. But one way or another, that has to be paid. And much of that is hidden in the price of the products that we pay. For example, a grocer buys a loaf of bread; whatever he pays for the bread, he has got some costs. He has got to pay salaries and he has got to pay overhead, but he also has to pay taxes. And hidden in the price of that loaf of bread when the consumer ultimately goes there and buys it for his family is the price of this interest bill that has to be paid. And that is distributed all through the economy because there is one debt that has to be paid. We have to finance that debt. So what we are really talking about, for the average family, the interest on the national debt equals about the average family's house payment. And as the gentleman has indicated, if we began to use some fiscal restraint, if we began to do the things that I think the American people really want us to do, the good news is not only do you preserve a better future for our kids, but we are starting to see the benefits right now. Real interest rates in the United States since we came to Congress have dropped by 25 percent. And we believe that they can drop more. Now that is perhaps the best tax cut we could ever give the American family because it affects their car payments, it affects their house payments, it affects how much that grocer has to pay, it affects everything. So we came here and there was some serious problems. And I will never forget a farmer in my district, and I think sometimes farmers make wonderful philosophers, and we were talking about this debt and we were talking about taxation and the old suggestion or the old policy in terms of balancing the budget was, I know, we will just raise taxes. But if raising taxes had been the solution, we would have had a balanced budget long ago. My colleague is a little younger than I am, but when I was a kid growing up, my parents could raise 3 boys on 1 paycheck and part of the reason they could do that was because the average family in America sent about 4 percent of their gross income to the Federal Government. Today that number is almost 25 percent. And when we add total taxes, when we add State, Federal, and local taxes all together, the average family spends more for taxes than they do for food, clothing, and shelter combined. There was a conversation going on here on the floor of the House earlier about why so many women have joined the work force. The truth of the matter is, a lot of moms have had to leave their families and go to work just to pay the taxes. And this old farmer in my district, and he said it so well, he said, ``You know, Gil, you know the problem is not that we don't send enough money into Washington. The problem is that Washington spends it faster than we can send it in.'' I thought, what a brilliant way to say it. The problem is that Washington continues, no matter how much money the American people were sending in to Washington, they always spent more. I do have some numbers. I used to have a chart, I have a chart somewhere. It is on my web site so if people want to look it up. But this is a great statistic. In the 20 years previous to our coming here, Congress spent on average a $1.21 for every dollar it took in. It really did not matter what the tax rates were. Taxes went up a little bit, then they went down a little during the Reagan revolution. But Congress tended to spend an average of $1.21 for every dollar it took in. That is the bad news. The good news is since we came to Congress, that number has dropped to $1.01. This year we will actually for the first time, in fact the Congressional Budget Office tells us we will actually take in more than we spend for the first time since I was in high school. That was in 1969. We believe that if we continue that kind of fiscal discipline we will talk a little more about what that has meant and what we have done since we came here; frankly, what we got beat up for in the last election. Do you remember the discussion? I am sure they ran many of the same ads against the gentleman from Arizona that they did against me, saying they were going to throw grandma out in the street, that the school lunch program would stop, that Medicare is going to be destroyed and all these things are just going to come to a screeching halt. And guess what? It was not true. We did make some serious changes, though. We did reform the welfare system. We need to talk a little bit about welfare too, I think, tonight, the good news about welfare reform, and of course it has saved money. It has saved a little money to the Federal Government, it has saved a lot of money for the States. The reason is welfare rolls around the United States have dropped dramatically. That is partly because of our reform and it is partly because of a stronger economy, and frankly I think the two work hand in hand. But because of what we did, because of the welfare reform and because of that stronger economy, the really good news is this, not just that we are saving money but 2.2 million American families who were on the welfare rolls have now moved onto payrolls. I want to share a story tonight if I could. I was at a school in my district, we were talking to some of the teachers. We talked about title 1, we talked about title 3, we talked about some of the other school problems. Finally, one of the teachers said, ``Of all the things you guys have done, the single most important I think is this welfare reform.'' I said, ``Really? Why do you say that?'' She said, ``Let me tell you a story about a little boy in my classroom.'' She said, ``Let's call him Johnny.'' All of a sudden Johnny started to behave better. He had a better attitude. He was a better student. He was a better kid in every respect. Finally the teacher said, ``Johnny, is there something different at your house?'' The little boy said, ``Yeah, my dad got a job.'' It is easy for some of us who have had at least one job since we were 15, as a matter of fact during a lot of my lifetime I have had two jobs. It is easy for us to sometimes forget that a job is more than the way you earn your living. A job helps to define your very life. We have given a certain number of American families just a little nudge and moved them off the welfare rolls and onto payrolls. As I told people, the real goal of welfare reform was not so much to save money but it was to save people. It was about saving families. It was about saving children from one more generation of dependency and despair. That is just one area we have reformed. We have reformed Medicare and other things. I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I have joining me tonight my distinguished colleague, the gentleman from the State of Arizona (Mr. Hayworth). We are going to talk for a good portion of our allotted time tonight about the Federal budget and principally about where we were just 3\1/2\ years ago, where we are today, and a little bit about where I think we should go. First of all, if I could before I yield to my friend, I would like to talk a little bit about what was happening back not so many years ago. This is a chart that anybody, and any of the Members who watch us on C- SPAN from time to time, I am sure have seen. This is a chart that was put together by our colleague, the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann). What it shows is the budget deficit. This actually is the debt. The accumulated debt was growing out of control. In fact, there was a study by, I believe, the Congressional Budget Office, done just a few years ago, that said that if Congress did not get serious about this problem, by the time our children reached middle-age they could be paying a total tax rate of over 80 percent just to pay the interest on the national debt. I tell the people back home and sometimes they have trouble believing this, which does not surprise me because I have difficulty believing this as well, that the debt has become so large. But right now the debt is $5.5 trillion. And one of our other colleagues has done some calculations to try and explain how much a trillion dollars is; and the way he describes it is this, and I believe his numbers are accurate, that if you spent a million dollars a day every single day, it would take you 2,700 years to spend a trillion dollars. Previous Congresses have run up almost $5.5 trillion worth of debt that our kids are going to be responsible for. And worse than that, we have to pay the interest on that; that is like an entitlement, and it becomes the second or third largest single entry in the Federal budget. I tell people, as I say, back in my district that every single dollar of personal income taxes collected west of the Mississippi River now goes to pay the interest on the national debt. That is a very scary statistic. And I also remind people, and particularly where I come from back in Minnesota we still have an awful lot of farm families; in fact, many of the people who live in the cities like Rochester and Mankato and Winona and Austin and Albert Lea, they also understand that because many of them are no more than one generation removed from the farm. But the American dream back in farm country is, very simply, to pay off the mortgage and leave the kids the farm. But, unfortunately, what has been happening over the last 30 years is that Congress has literally been selling the farm and leaving the kids the mortgage. I think we all know that there is something fundamentally improper about that. Mr. Speaker, at this point, I would like to yield to my colleague, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth). It is nice to have him with me today.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, it is time to mark the end of an era, and that era lasted only 2 years. On January 23, 1996, just 2 short years ago, the President declared in his State of the Union address that ``the era of big government is over.'' Now it appears that that era is over. When we came to Washington just a few years ago, we were looking at a $250 billion deficit as far as the eye could see. We set to work to eliminate programs to reform the entitlements; and, as a result, we are looking at the first balanced budget in a generation. Last August, we had an agreement with the President. We set very tough spending caps for the next 5 years. That is represented here by this blue line. The red line shows what the President is supporting this year in his budget. He is talking about spending over $100 billion more than we agreed to last August, and he is also talking about raising taxes and fees by over $100 billion. Unfortunately, it sounds like the era of big government is not over, but the era of talking about the era of big government is really over.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell) and all of the people who are debating here today. This, in my opinion, is perhaps the most important debate we have had so far this year. I want to congratulate all of the participants on both sides of this issue. This is a tough vote. This is an important vote. It is particularly tough for me because, just a few weeks ago, I was in Bosnia; and like our colleague from Mississippi, I went there with a bad attitude. I happened to believe that the mission in Bosnia was just a big waste and that we were spending all of this money and at the end of the mission we would be no better off than we were when we started. But I must say that my attitude was changed, and when I saw what was happening over there, when I began to learn about the situation in Bosnia, I came to the conclusion that, frankly, we need to have our troops in Bosnia, that if it were not for the Americans, the truth of the matter is things would begin to collapse. It is only the Americans that can bring order out of the chaos over there. Frankly, we have a situation where the Germans do not trust the French; the French do not trust the English. It is almost as if Europe were some form of dysfunctional family with 16 different nations speaking 12 different languages, and the only Nation that they all trust is the United States. So it is important that the United States have a presence and provide the leadership in Bosnia. However, that is not the debate we are having here today. The debate here today is whether or not Congress should have something to say about long-term deployments of American troops, whether it be in Bosnia or in Africa, Mogadishu, you name the place. Since we have adopted this policy of Congress sort of abdicating its constitutional responsibility, the experts tell us we have had something like 20 different deployments in just the last 6 years. I think we all know that that is wrong. It is interesting. I find myself listening to the debates and some of the great arguments here today, but I think I agree perhaps more with the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) than anybody else. If we have an up-or-down vote on whether or not we should maintain an American presence in Bosnia, I will vote for it. I now believe that it is important that we have a presence there. These are the tectonic plates of Europe. This is where Asia, Europe and the Middle East come together; and it is where World War I began. Perhaps that is not going to happen again, but it seems to me it is worth a small investment of American resources and troops to make certain that we maintain that peace, but the Congress should have something to say about it. So I congratulate my friend from California (Mr. Campbell) for bringing this resolution forward. I am going to vote for it, even though I believe that we need to keep our troops there at least through September, and perhaps even longer. But the President ought to have to come back to the Congress and he ought to have to go to the American people and explain why it is important that America provide that leadership in Europe and elsewhere around the world and get the approval of Congress before we make these long-term and expensive commitments.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I think that is clearly true; and now I think, at least from my own perspective, I do understand that relationship; and I think it is important. Part of the reason we are respected by all of the parties in Europe is because we are a reluctant leader. We are not there because we want to gain any particular territory or any particular political influence in the Balkans. It is only because we believe it is the right thing to do, and I think that does give us some moral authority that goes a long way. The other thing that we saw and we witnessed, and I know that we should not make some of these decisions purely based on emotional issues, but as we went out and toured some of the villages and actually met with some of the people themselves, the pictures, the stories, there are certain images that I think I speak for myself, but I know that I speak for everyone that was on that delegation, there are images that are just burned into our minds. I remember, as I am sure the gentleman does, the meeting we had with some of the mayors in that small little portable building that they had constructed and the emotion in their eyes. One of the mayors said, when we talked about people had been displaced from their homes, he said, I have moved nine times in the last 2 years. Please tell me which house is mine. I mean, that is something that Americans have a very, very difficult time even relating to. And the fact that the whole notion of a rule of law and having real estate laws so that one has clear title to the home that one lives in, that is somewhat foreign to the people of that region. There is so much that it is very difficult for us to understand, but it was easy for us to see in the people's faces the appreciation that they have for the American soldiers. In fact, I think the gentleman remembers the story, it may have been told to the gentleman, the old gentleman who told us that he sleeps soundly now because he hears the sounds of the American humvees. I remember the tears on the cheeks of some of the women when they realized that we were Americans and they said, thank you, America. So I think that we began to see in the faces of the Bosnian people the appreciation for what they know the United States has done and is doing to at least make it safe. I think we really cannot talk about Bosnia without talking about the Bosnian children. When we got off the planes we were told not to get off the concrete because there were over 1 million land mines buried in that country. They are gradually, with the help of American technology, getting those mines removed, but there are still a huge number of those land mines. I remember one of the mothers telling me that, yes, they tell the children to play on the traveled areas. They tell them to play in the streets, because the streets are safe. Somehow, for American parents, for a parent of three children myself, to tell one's kids to go out and play in the street is something we would not imagine, but it is safer for them to play in the traveled areas. There was so much about Bosnia. The more you saw the more you realized that these are people who ultimately do want peace. They ultimately do want to live together in harmony. They do not want to go back to the situation that they saw a few years ago, and that the one entity that stands between them and returning to the chaos of the past are the American GIs. I think I should say this, and I think the gentleman has already mentioned, that the other thing this is indelibly imprinted in my mind is the enormous professionalism of the American servicemen and women who are serving in Bosnia, from the top generals right down to the lowly infantry men who go to lunch every day with their rifles with them. They take it very seriously. It is a dangerous place. It is much less dangerous because they are there, but I think I would have to conclude by saying, the best salesmen of all for the Bosnian mission are those kids that are wearing camos and sleeping in tents and the ones who take their rifles with them to lunch and to supper everyday. They are the ones who literally, in having lunch with them, they told me to a person that they believed that what we were doing, what the United States was doing in Bosnia was important and that we should stay until the mission is done. And they said that in spite of the fact that all of them were homesick, all of them wanted to come home. I might just share, as long as some of my colleagues may be watching, one other point that they made. I asked them what I could take home and tell people, and one of them says, mail, sir. Mail is golden. They do love to hear from home. And those who may be watching this, we would certainly encourage them, if they have not written to a friend or a loved one who is over there or if they would like to write to somebody they may not even know, getting mail from home when you are 6,000 miles away and sleeping in a tent is something that is very valuable to our servicemen and women. So I encourage my constituents and my colleagues to write when they can.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I especially thank him for reserving this time today so we could have an opportunity to share some of our observations with our colleagues and others. I think most of us, and I certainly speak for myself, went to Bosnia with a bad attitude about the entire mission. Those of us who had a little bit of a history lesson in that particular region of the world were aware that they have been fighting over there literally since, I believe it is 1279. I think the feeling that I took with me was these people have been fighting in the Balkans for all of these generations, they have very long memories, it is a trouble spot that will probably never completely heal. My attitude going over there was that this was an act of ultimate American arrogance. To believe that somehow the Nazi panzers and previous occupation armies could not ultimately bring lasting peace to the Balkans, how is it that we now seem to believe that the American forces will magically make these people begin to love each other? I must say, and I expect that my colleague from Mississippi will agree, that when we first arrived, and particularly when we had our first briefings from the NATO High Command, we were awfully rough on them in terms of questions. In fact, I think one of our colleagues said, do you really expect to turn these people who have been fighting for all of these generations into Republicans and Democrats, and you are going to create a new American democracy here in an area where they have never known democracy, they have never known the economic freedoms and so forth that we take for granted in the United States? Those were troubling questions. Frankly, we did not get completely satisfactory answers on that first day or two that we were in Europe. But as we began to listen to some of the experts, the picture became clearer as one of the experts over there described Europe. First of all, to understand, I think, the region we call Bosnia, the entire Balkan area, to really understand that, I think we must first understand Europe. I think Americans do have a somewhat hazy and fuzzy understanding of how Europe works and how it fits together. I think the best description that I heard and that began to change my whole way of thinking was that one of the people described Europe in some respects like a dysfunctional family. It is roughly 16 different countries, they speak about a dozen different languages, and they all have memories as well. There have been world wars and there have been various wars down through the centuries so that we have a situation where none of the countries completely trust the others. The one thing that the United States can bring to the mix, as one of them indicated, the French do not particularly trust the Germans, the Germans do not trust the Italians, the Italians do not trust the British. There is a certain dysfunctionality to this European family. In some respects the United States is like the big brother of this dysfunctional family. When the United States enters the discussion, we are the one entity that can come in and say, ``Okay, knock it off, this is what has to be done.'' We saw that as an example when the European allies first went into Bosnia and tried to bring peace to the region. It was, to use Jimmy Carter's term, an incomplete success. It really was not until the United States came in, and what was very, very apparent to me when we saw the successor to Rommel, who was the German general who was in charge of the panzer division that Rommel had commanded in World War II, when we met with him, I think on the second day, and had lunch in Sarajevo, it was clear to me that he had no problem whatsoever taking orders from an American general. I do not think that that would have been the case if he had to take orders from a French general or some other general, and I think vice versa. I think the Italians would have had a hard time taking orders from one of the other commanders in Europe, but they had no problem whatsoever responding to the orders and the commands of an American general. So the first thing I began to conclude that, without an American presence there, this whole thing would begin to unravel.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I do apologize, but I have another meeting that started at 4:30. So I have to run, but I appreciate this time and this opportunity. In terms of what really happened in Yugoslavia when communism collapsed, when the whole country sort of was torn apart, we need to understand that the real precursor, in my opinion, having seen this now, to the ethnic unrest that then started was really an economic motivation. When unemployment hit 40 percent, all of a sudden that created tensions between the groups that had not been there when the economy was relatively strong. It may have been a false economy, it was a Communist economy, but I think that is something that is important. I think where the administration has, in some respects, done a poor job of communicating the situation over there, I think long-term what we need to think about, and I think that this was generally the consensus of the delegation, that rather than focusing on this myopic view of an exit strategy and when are the troops going to be out, I think our conclusion was that we need to focus on what are the expectations of the Bosnian people. In the book of Proverbs it says, ``Where there is no vision, the people perish.'' And the question we asked several times is, what is the vision of the Bosnian people? Can they return to a peaceful coexistence? I think, generally speaking, the answer to that question is yes. But I think we have to be there to provide that police force while we move to a transition of a stronger economy. By that, I mean, I think ultimately we are going to be able to reduce our military force. I don't think we do that precipitously. I do not think we should do it before the September elections. But I think, ultimately, we can draw down those forces; and the need for a military presence will be less. But I think, coupled with that, I think the gentleman already mentioned, we have to do more in the way of helping to rebuild their economy. If there is jobs and prosperity and freedom and opportunity, then I think the likelihood for resumed hostilities between the ethnic bands is dramatically reduced long term. So I say our strategy should not be about how soon can we get the troops out. Our strategy should be much more about what are the expectations of the Bosnian people. Are they interested in electing people in September who are committed to a long-term, peaceful relationship in Bosnia? Or are they the hardliner militants who would just as soon return to solving their problems with guns and with violence? If that is the answer, then, obviously, then the United States can probably do no real good over there, and perhaps we should bring the troops home, strike the tents and bring the kids home. But that should be our message. That should be the message of the administration. And I think that has somehow been lost in all of this discussion about when the troops are going to come home. I think that is a mistake, because I think the American people and the American Congress, to a large degree, has been denied the real reasons we are there; and the real issues at stake in the Balkans have been ignored and, as a result, I think we have rather clouded thinking about how important that area is and, frankly, in the end, how important Europe is to the United States. We do have a vital national interest in a strong and stable Europe. That is important to the United States. It seems to me a relatively modest investment, I think perhaps $2 billion is too much, but certainly there is a level of investment that the United States can make to ensure a strong and stable Eastern and Central Europe; and that is I think, in the end, something that needs to be talked about as well. So I appreciate the gentleman getting this time today. I regret that I have to go to a budget meeting that started about 15 minutes ago, but this was a very, very important, and in my life I think almost an epiphany type of an event, because it did change my whole view of that region and our role that we can and probably should play. I would also suggest, as I did earlier on the House floor, I think the President, the administration, needs to work in consultation more carefully with the Congress. Because I think if we are going to have strong and solid and defensible national policy, in particular as it relates to diplomatic and military policies, I think we cannot do that unilaterally. It cannot be done simply at one end of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. I think the United States Congress has to be full partners in those debates, those discussions and, ultimately, in those decisions. So we can have our differences about it, but I think we need that healthy debate and dialogue, and I think the Congress needs to be much more actively participating in those discussions. So I think this Special Order today, I say to the gentleman, the gentleman's participation, the leadership in the delegation, the mission that we took to Bosnia was very important. I thank the gentleman for my own behalf because it really did open my eyes; and, frankly, this is something that is seldom said by people here in Washington. It made me change my mind. Too often, those of us here in Washington are unwilling or unable to say, I was wrong; and, frankly, in the area of the Bosnian policy, I think having seen for myself what is going on over there and what can happen and what our role in the world should and can be, it did change my mind. So I thank the gentleman for inviting me to go along on the delegation. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today, and I regret that I have to leave now.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman will yield, I will just say that he is doing a wonderful job. I apologize for being late. I had thought we were going to start a little later than this. I think the gentleman should proceed through that. Then we can talk about our trip, what we learned and saw, and what an effect it had on the people who took part in that particular CODEL.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, for the first time in a generation, Congress will spend less than it takes in this year. We should take this good news with a dose of caution. I am afraid that President Clinton has a different opinion. With surpluses in sight, he has decided that the era of saying ``the era of big government is over'' is over. In his budget, the President proposes 85 new government initiatives costing $150 billion over the next 5 years. He pays for these programs with $129 billion in new taxes and user fees, raising taxes to their highest level since 1945. Even worse than that, the Clinton budget falls out of balance next year and breaks the spending caps of last summer's balanced budget agreement by $69 billion. The President's budget is built with higher taxes, deficit spending, bigger government and broken promises. My grandmother used to say, ``If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got.'' In 3 short years we have cut taxes, eliminated deficits and kept our promises. We must not now return to the failed policies of the past.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, back home we say a deal is a deal and a bargain is a bargain. A farmer back in Minnesota described our deficit dilemma best when he said the problem is not that we are not sending enough money into Washington; the problem is that Washington spends it faster than we can send it in. In other words, ``It is spending, stupid.'' When I came to Washington, the Congressional Budget Office was predicting $200 billion deficits for as far as the eye could see, well into the next millennium. Well, since I came to Washington, we have eliminated over 300 programs, reformed welfare and dramatically cut the growth of spending here in Washington. As a result, the Federal budget is balanced today. Last August we set tough spending caps. Now the President wants to renege. This is what the President is recommending. The blue line represents what we agreed to spend in our spending caps. Now the President wants to exceed those by $69 billion. Mr. Speaker, a deal is a deal. Keep faith with the caps. Let us pay down some of the debt, and slow down the Washington spending machine.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, due to illness, I was in Minnesota today and unable to vote on H.R. 217, the ``Homeless Housing Programs Consolidation and Flexibility Act.'' Had I been present, I would have voted in support of H.R. 217.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I proudly rise today to pay tribute to a sturdy Irishman, a fine farmer, a distinguished lawyer, a committed naval officer, a devoted family man, a solid churchman who has served the farmers and ranchers of America, the United States House of Representatives, and indeed all of his countrymen for better than a quarter of a century. I am, of course, speaking of the recently retired Chief Counsel of the House Committee on Agriculture and, Janesville, Minnesota's favorite son, John E. Hogan. It is tough for any of us to measure the loss to this body that will result from John's departure. This is not because we cannot quantify his many contributions to the United States House, not the least among them are five farm bills. Rather, we cannot predict the loss this body will sustain because few Members of this Congress can imagine a day without John Hogan. To be exact, only seven Members of this body, seven Members were around when John committed himself to public service back in 1969. John Hogan grew up in rural Waseca County on the family farmstead. He and his sister, Agnes, still own that farm today. Those years growing up on a farm in southern Minnesota left an indelible impression on John and he never, ever, in style or substance, lost his roots. Even today far from home, John Hogan farms in southern Maryland and drives an old Dodge truck when negotiating the streets of this capital. It was not at all unusual to see John wearing work boots at the office when Congress was not in session. And occasionally you could even find denim overalls folded behind John's desk. But this is not mere window dressing. Passion for agriculture and those who provide Americans with the most abundant, affordable and safest food supply in the world courses through John Hogan's veins. For nearly 29 years John Hogan gladly and dutifully put in a farmer's workday on behalf of America's farmers and ranchers. Mr. Speaker, John Hogan is living proof that you can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy. Having lost his father at a very early age, the young and determined John Hogan pulled himself up by his own bootstraps. Equipped with little besides his intellect, work ethic and the strong values instilled in him by his devoted Irish Catholic mother, John headed off to the University of Minnesota, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. John Hogan became first in his family to graduate from college. Upon his graduation, John was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy and served aboard the USS Hood. During his active military duty, the Navy ultimately transferred John to the Nation's capital, whereupon the young and industrious naval officer took advantage of any spare time and the GI bill to enroll at George Washington University School of Law. In 1957, John Hogan left the U.S. Navy to practice law and further pursue higher learning. In that tradition, in the tradition of an Irishman, John Hogan did so with a happy vengeance. Between 1967 and 1969, John Hogan would work as a legal assistant for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, as a law clerk for a Federal judge, as an assistant U.S. Attorney, as senior trial attorney for the Small Business Administration, and as a director of the Commission of the Organization of the Government of the District of Columbia. Meanwhile, John would earn his Master's in Law at Georgetown School of Law, a Master's in Business at American University and would do graduate work in government and politics at the University of Maryland. Through all of this, John somehow managed to find time to search for a bride. He courted and caught Edith Howard. Together for 36 years, they would raise two children, Christi and Terry, and nurture along three grandchildren, Cassie, T.J., and Abigale. John Hogan made his way to Capitol Hill in 1969, where he began his 29 year career for the House of Representatives. In that year, John took a position with Minnesota Congressman Anchor Nelson, the ranking member on the House Committee on the District of Columbia. But it was not until 1975 when John Hogan finally arrived at the place where he has since become an institution in his own right, the House Committee on Agriculture. In that year, Congressman Bill Wampler, the ranking Republican, added John Hogan to his committee staff as associate counsel and 4 years later promoted him to minority chief counsel. John Hogan remained minority counsel until January, 1995, when the GOP took control of the House; and to the incoming chairman of the committee, Pat Roberts, it was a foregone conclusion that John Hogan would be elevated to committee chief counsel. John Hogan has served in 15 consecutive Congresses, outlasted all but seven Members of this House, outran four Committee on Agriculture chairmen and six ranking members and worked on five farm bills, effectively shepherding U.S. agriculture law for the past 23 years. He did it all with a keen wit and sense of humor, which is characteristic of the Irish but perfected by John. In short, in two lifetimes' worth of achievement, John Hogan never compromised principle, never forsook his family and never shrunk from his duty to God and country. We can all be thankful that John served us. To John Hogan I wish to say good luck and may God bless you.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, later today we are going to vote on a very important resolution concerning former President Ronald Reagan. I love President Reagan for many reasons, but he was a great storyteller. I wanted to relate a story that he told, and I quote: I remember one day I was sitting in the principal's office. I was not invited there for a social visit. He said something that fortunately stuck in my mind and I remembered. He said, Reagan, I do not care what you think of me now. I am only concerned with what you will think of me 15 years from now. Thank the Lord I had the opportunity to tell him shortly before he died how I felt about him 15 years later, after that visit in his office. And I was very grateful for the influence he had on my life. Mr. Speaker, President Reagan was a man who worked for the people. He was a man concerned about the people. He was a man who put the people first. It has not been 15 years since President Reagan left office, but I believe we, the people, can honor his life by renaming our national airport after him.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan said, we all have the right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say we are in a time when there are no heroes just do not now where to look. We can see heroes every day going in and out of factory gates. Others, a handful of them, produce enough food to feed all of us and then the world beyond. We meet heroes across the counter and they are on both sides of that counter. They are entrepreneurs with faith in themselves and faith in a new idea who create jobs, new wealth, new opportunity. They are individuals and families whose taxes support the government and whose voluntary gifts support church, charity, art and education. Their patriotism is quiet, but deep. Their values sustain our national life. Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan believed in us, in our capacity to perform great deeds. He was the American President in the American century. It is altogether fitting that we rename our National Airport after him.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, a lot of our friends on the left today and in the past several weeks have been talking about campaign finance reform. I wonder if any of them sees the great irony in the administration's sense of curiosity. On the one hand, White House political operatives seem to have such an extraordinarily developed sense of curiosity that they miraculously ended up with 900 confidential FBI files on their political enemies. But on the other hand, the White House seems to have little curiosity about the possibility that John Huang might have seriously compromised national security while working for the Commerce Department in his capacity, apparently, as foreign fundraiser-in-chief. What is even more remarkable that every single Democratic Senator, with one exception, investigating some of these events seems to have a lack of curiosity about exactly how much money the liberal group was able to funnel into the 1996 Presidential campaign. Maybe all of this curiosity is entwined with some of these folks having attended some of these White House coffees. Maybe there is something in the coffee that makes them curious on the one hand, but then lose their curiosity on something else, and maybe that is something that should be investigated as well.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, last week President Clinton told the voters of Virginia, the ones who supported repealing the car tax, that they were selfish. Well, excuse me, Mr. President, but maybe you have forgotten what the Declaration of Independence says. It says that all men are created equal and they have certain inalienable rights, and among those rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I find it remarkable that anyone would not notice that liberty and the pursuit of happiness both apply to the idea of who gets to decide what to do with their money. That is really the point. This is not a question of selfishness, but whether and who will decide how to spend their money. Conservatives emphasize that people are the best judge of how their money should be spent, whereas liberals tend to think that politicians are a superior judge of how and where the money should be spent, especially if they, the liberals, are positively excited about spending the people's money to carry out social engineering plans. As for me, I think I will stick with the original intent of the American Declaration of Independence.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, experts tell us that the bumblebee should not be able to fly. They tell us that the bee's body is too heavy and its wings are too small. Washington experts, with similar assuredness, told us that the budget could not be balanced, entitlements were too large, taxes were too low. Experts can be wrong. Just a few years ago, the experts said that the Republicans could not take control of Congress. It had not been done, after all, in 40 years. Well, the voters proved them wrong in 1994, when they sent a new majority here to Washington. I was a member of that new class of representatives, that I like to call the Bumblebee Brigade, because we did not know what we could not do. As we reach the end of this session of Congress, let us see how the hive is doing. In 1995, Republicans swarmed onto Capitol Hill with the promise to reform Congress and vote on 10 historic bills within our first 100 days. We called that promise the Contract with America. The experts told us that we were too ambitious and that it could not be done. Instead of listening to them, we kept our promises, and today almost all of that Contract has been signed into law. Those same experts told us that we could not reform welfare. Well, once again, they were wrong. We passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act last summer. By converting much of the program into block grants and requiring work, we have nudged more than one million families off welfare rolls and onto payrolls. Today we are saving money. But more importantly, Mr. Speaker, we are saving people. The critics told us we could not cut taxes while we were balancing the budget. On this issue, too, they were wrong. This summer, we passed the Taxpayer Relief Act, providing American families with their first tax cut in 16 years. We also encouraged investment and savings by slashing capital gains taxes by more than 30 percent. Despite this, the experts have continued to criticize this Republican Congress. But as John Adams said, ``Facts are stubborn things.'' The truth sometimes stings. The critics say that ``business as usual'' is still the rule on Capitol Hill and nothing has changed in the last 2\1/2\ years. The facts say otherwise. We cut congressional committee staffs by one-third, passed term limits for the Speaker of the House and committee chairmen, opened congressional hearings to the public, forced Congress to get a three-fifths vote before hiking taxes, and made it live by the laws it passes. And that was all done on just the first day of the 104th Congress. Shortly thereafter, we cut congressional spending by 10 percent, banned lobbyists from giving gifts to Members of Congress, and rescinded more than $9 billion in 1995 spending agreed to under the old majority. Critics say that Government spending has not changed since 1995. The fact is that in the 7 years before the GOP Congress, Government spending grew by an average of 5.3 percent per year. In the last 2 years, however, spending has grown by an average of only 3.1 percent. In the 20 years before a GOP majority, Congress spent an average of $1.21 for every dollar it took in. Today that number is $1.01. The critics have been especially rough on our balanced budget agreement, saying that it does too little to entitlement programs and assumes a future of tall clover, balancing the budget with rosy economic forecasts. The fact is that Government spending slows the rate of growth of entitlement spending by over $400 billion over the next 10 years. Rather than relying on pie-in-the-sky economics, the agreement actually assumes that the economy, which has been growing at an average of 2.7 percent in the last 5 years, will actually slow down and grow by only 2.1 percent over the next 5 years. The critics say that we have gotten off track in our plan to balance the budget. Once again, they were wrong. In our 7-year balanced budget plan, we estimated that we would collect about $1.43 trillion in revenue in 1996 and $1.45 trillion in 1997. Similarly, we projected spending $1.59 trillion in 1996 and $1.62 trillion in 1997. Because of the strong economy, however, we have actually taken in $149 billion more than we expected. And the sweeter news is that in the last 2 years we have actually spent $48 billion less than our projections. To put it another way, for 2 years Congress has had $149 billion more to spend than it planned. But unlike previous Congresses, we held the line on spending and came in $48 billion under our goals. Does anyone seriously believe that if a Democratic Congress found itself with nearly $150 billion in unexpected revenue it would spend $48 billion less than its budget targets? Teddy Roosevelt once said, ``It is not the critic who counts.'' Similarly, the bumblebee really does not care what the experts or critics say about how he is flying. He just flies and goes about his business. He simply does not know any better. Since we buzzed into Washington to begin our work in 1995, the stock market has doubled, interest rates have dropped by 25 percent, and 6.4 million new jobs have been created. Above all, this year the deficit stands at $23 billion, the lowest it has been in more than 20 years. If the critics can continue to ignore the facts, we will just have to ignore the critics. To paraphrase the old Arab proverb, ``Dogs may bark in the night, but the bumblebee brigade flies on.''

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, Jonathan Rauch writes on school choice in the November 10 edition of the New Republic. He says he has always found it odd that liberals have handed the issue to Republicans rather than grabbing it for themselves. He says, and I quote: It is hard to get excited about improving rich suburban schools. However, for poor children trapped, the case is moral rather than merely educational. These kids attend schools which cannot protect them, much less teach them. To require poor people to go to dangerous, dysfunctional schools that better-off people fled and would never tolerate for their own children, all the while intoning pieties about ``saving'' public education, is worse than unsound public policy. It is repugnant public policy. Mr. Rauch, we agree.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, it is against the House rules to question the motives of other Members. But in the last several days, we heard our Democratic colleagues saying that the reason we want to pass A-Plus accounts is to harm public education. Does anybody really believe that? Eighty-eight percent of America's schoolchildren attend public schools. I went to public schools my entire life. Two of my children graduated from public schools. I believe in public schools. What A-Plus accounts are really about is giving the same kinds of choices to poor families, like those here in Washington DC, that wealthier families have all across America. What is wrong with giving American families, American schoolchildren choices? That is what this is all about. It is about who decides. Some of our Democratic friends wanted to have bigger bureaucracies here in Washington. They want more of the decisions made in Washington. But look at the Washington schools themselves. We are spending over $10,000 per student per year on the schools here in Washington, and they are arguably among the worst schools in the country. What we want to do is allow those parents, whether in Washington, DC, or Baltimore or Minneapolis, to have the same kinds of choices that the wealthy people have.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, it has been said that death and taxes are the only sure things in life. The difference between the two is at least the IRS cannot make death any worse. The instruction book for the original income tax form was just 15 pages long and the highest tax rate was 6 percent. When Congress debated this issue in this Chamber in 1913, some Members worried that the rate would someday reach the unthinkable level of 10 percent. Today the lowest Federal income tax rate is 15 percent and that 15-page booklet has swelled to more than 9,000 pages. The average American family pays more in total taxes than they do for food, clothing, and shelter combined. It is time for a complete overhaul of the Tax Code and the IRS, which have become overly burdensome and unfair. A lot of so-called experts told us we could not reform welfare, we could not slow the rate of Washington spending, we could not balance the budget and provide tax relief for American families. Today we are told that we cannot replace the existing Tax Code with one that is simpler, fairer, and less burdensome. I say it is simply amazing what can be accomplished when we do not know what we cannot do.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, today and most of this week we are going to be voting on education initiatives. I want to call my colleagues' attention to what has been happening back in my home State of Minnesota. Our Governor, Arne Carlson, decided several years ago that ultimately what we need to do was empower parents and decentralize what is happening in education. The net result is in this year's legislature back in Minnesota, they passed some of the most wide-ranging tax reforms I think in any State in the Union. I am proud of that. Most parents in the State of Minnesota are proud of it as well. What they included was tax credits and tax deductibility, making it easier for parents to send their kids to the school that they choose, not that is chosen for them. They made it easier for them to buy equipment for their students, including computers, and so forth. This is a giant step forward. It reinforces, I think, what we are trying to do here in Washington, what parents want and what ultimately most people know is best for children, and that is to decentralize the school system, empower parents and create school systems that serve students rather than serving bureaucracies.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this rule and this bill. Some will argue that we need more time to study, we need more time to debate. I would suggest this issue has been debated and has been studied for years and years. In fact, ratepayers around the United States have paid $13 billion, and let us remind every Member who may be listening to this debate that a promise is a promise. Since the dawn of the nuclear age and since the first nuclear powerplant, the Federal Government has promised that we would find a permanent storage site. This bill would recognize that the Department of Energy has an obligation to create a storage area in an area about the size of the State of Connecticut and this recognizes that it is time that we live up to that end of our bargain. The Federal court of appeals has ruled that we have that obligation. It is a binding obligation under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Mr. Speaker, I think the time has long since passed for Congress to take action. Where I come from a deal is a deal and a bargain is a bargain. The time has come for us as representatives of the Federal Government to live up to our end of that bargain.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to a special friend of mine who was called home to glory just in the past couple of weeks. On August 19, 1923, a baby was born to Melvin and Agnes Olson at Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, WI. They named him Donald. Two weeks ago on October 3, Don Olson died in St. Paul, MN. I am honored that I was able to have met him during his 74 years of life, the time God gave him to be on this Earth, and I am blessed to have called him my friend. After graduating from his rural Wisconsin high school in 1941, Don answered his country's call to duty and served in the 70th Army Air Force Technical Training Detachment during World War II. He graduated from the Army Air Forces Navigation School in San Marcos, TX in 1945. After the war, Don came back to Minnesota and graduated cum laude from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN, which is also in my district; he earned a master's degree from the University of Minnesota in 1949; and later a law degree from the St. Paul College of Law. Earlier this week I was telling my staff about Don Olson and I said, he probably has forgotten more about government and the way it is supposed to work than most of us will ever know. That was not an exaggeration. After working in the Minnesota State legislature, Don came out here to Washington and served in the office of Senator Ed Thye, worked as congressional liaison for the Small Business Administration, and later he was the administrative assistant in the office of Minnesota Congressman Ancher Nelson, where he served for 14 years. In 1974, Don returned to the Midwest when he was hired by a little family clinic in my district, run by the Mayo brothers, to be their governmental affairs specialist. He was the first person that Mayo Clinic ever hired to do this important job, and his work was nothing short of outstanding in his 14 years there until he retired in 1988. It was during his years at Mayo that I met Don Olson. It was about 1976. He was always a man of impeccable honesty and a record of personal integrity that no one would ever question. He was also the kind of person that you could confide in. You could tell Don Olson your deepest fears and know that they would go no further than his ears. Robert Frost once wrote, ``Government is a thing made of men and it dies as the men who made it die.'' With these words in mind, I cannot think of a better place for me to remember Don Olson than from the floor of this House of Representatives. I know that Don's daughters Tina and Lori as well as his son Wayne and his loving wife of 38 years, Terri, are watching this afternoon. I want you all to know that my thoughts and prayers continue to be with you. This is a great loss for the family, it is a great loss for me, and it is a great loss for America.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Madam Speaker, I join my colleague today, the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Nick Lampson, and congratulate Texas law enforcement agents for identifying a prime suspect in the kidnapping and murder of young Laura Smither, but I also share his frustration that things might have turned out differently. We need tougher mandatory sentences; we need more effective community notification programs. While every State now registers child sex offenders, many of their notification programs have been stalled by legal challenges and confusion. This is unacceptable. To help the States, 31 of my colleagues have joined me in introducing a resolution which gives the States a model community notification program that they can follow, if they choose. This resolution is not a Federal mandate. Instead, it expresses the sense of Congress that States should enact a tier-based system, like nine States have already done successfully. For example, a released sex offender posing a high risk of repeating his crimes moves into a community. Everyone, police officers, past victims, and, most importantly, neighborhood parents, are notified. As someone who served in the State legislature for 12 years, I urge my colleagues to join me in helping the States to protect America's children. Cosponsor House Concurrent Resolution 125.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. We said we were going to spend $1586 billion, but this Congress actually spent $1560 billion.