Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I am going to close. I just want to share one other thing that I learned from one of my constituents, and it is a very important thing. He said, this was several months ago when I was home, he said, sometimes, and we get into this, Republican versus Democrat, he said, it is not Republican versus Democrat. In fact, he said, it is not even really right versus left. He said, it is right versus wrong. And what we have been talking about, some of the instances that we have been talking about tonight, it really is right versus wrong.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I will tell you what, what really eats at me more than anything else, maybe it is because my dad is getting on and my father- in-law is now gone, but what really bothered me more anything about that story was that two of the seven of those individuals had to bury their fathers while their fathers went to their graves not knowing that they were not crooks. In other words, their dads went to their graves not knowing that their sons were not crooks because the White House fabricated these stories. They used the FBI. They abused the IRS. That is all part of the testimony.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. As the one fellow said, if this was an innocent bureaucratic mistake, why is the bureaucrat most responsible taking the fifth amendment: If it is innocent, I would think they would be eager to get all this information out. They would be eager to get it all cleared up. But somebody said, Well, the people in the White House should come clean. It only helps to come clean if you are clean. And the fear and the suspicion that is building here, and I think among the American people, is that there are people inside that White House who are not clean. And there has been things going on there that they are not proud of, no one is proud of. The only way it is going to stop is if the Congress exercises its constitutional responsibilities and actually, the whole system is built on a system of checks and balances. It would not happen if it were not for the Republican Congress.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman will yield, I would come back to a very important point that Representative Rohrabacher raised. That is this whole story started with the firing of the White House Travel Office, and we heard the testimony. We have the documentation, sworn testimony that the reason was they wanted their people out, they wanted out people in. We need those slots. That was a direct quote. That was a direct quote. What really disturbs me about this story probably more than anything else was they had every right to fire those people. The truth of the matter is, they had the right to fire them. They were at will servants. They could be fired at any time. But they were not satisfied just to fire them. They had to make the story better. They had to embellish the story. They had to besmirch these people.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. It is true that the money cannot be replaced. What really cannot be replaced is your reputation. I cannot imagine much worse than having my daughter call me, as I think Billy Dale's daughter did call him when she saw the story on the national news, where they were accusing him of fraud and so forth. And his daughter said to him, Dad, say it is not so. I do not know how you could talk to your family. I do not know how you could face your family when on the national news you are being besmirched this way. I sat in these hearings. I was absolutely certain, absolutely convinced that they were wronged and that I told them I hoped that whoever was responsible, and I think we have a responsibility to try and get to the bottom of who is culpable under this, but I told them that I hoped that whoever was responsible would have to pay and pay dearly because it seems to me that where this whole story started with the seven White House travel office employees and then you see the pattern that has evolved, and it is always denial, delay, an they do not want to give the documents.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. It is almost 1984. It goes back to that book. But I will say this, again, I will close becasue I know you want to talk about patents. I think it is really refreshing to go home and have town meetings. And, frankly, I think the American people are a lot smarter than some of the polls and some of the newspaper people and some of the media people and some of the people in this city give them credit for. I think they are beginning to figure this out.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon].

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. If I could, just for 1 minute, one other very important question was raised. I think this is one of the best questions that I heard. I am embarrassed that I did not think of it. If this is an innocent bureaucratic snafu, why is it that the bureaucrat who was most responsible when he was called before the Senate, why did he take the fifth amendment? There are a lot of unanswered questions and I think the American people are expecting us to get to the bottom of it.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. One of my constituents raised a point that I had forgotten, and that is that a number of years ago a guy by the name of Chuck Colson went to jail for mishandling one FBI file, and he went to jail for 3 years. I think there is an instinctive understanding among the American people that if they can misuse the FBI against Republicans here in Washington, that they can misuse the FBI against anybody. It can happen to them. It is a grave concern to the American people. They are happy that Congress is looking into it, but they also suggested that we have to be very careful that this does not become just a partisan political witch-hunt. I think we have to do our jobs and exercise oversight without becoming overly partisan.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think the two fundamental questions, and this comes up in my town meetings as well, and I am sure you hear it, and it comes down to two very important questions. The first question is who decides? Is it going to be the Federal Government or is it going to be decided by local units of government and, more importantly, by families? And second, and I think it is almost the same question, but who knows best? And I think an attitude has developed here in Washington, and I agree that is one of the reasons they sent so many of us here in the last election cycle, was that the attitude that had developed here in Washington that Washington knows best, whether you are talking about raising broccoli or raising kids, there is this attitude that somehow Washington knows best. I think it was exemplified a few months ago in a hearing in the Senate when one of the education experts ultimately said to one of the Senators that he really felt that he cared more about children than the average parent. And the Senator finally stopped him and he said, well, if you care more about my kids than I do, then please tell me their names. And when you get right down to it, the truth of the matter is parents care more about kids than bureaucrats and it really is a question of who decides and who knows best. And we have tried to say that we think families know best. We think we ought to allow them to keep more of their own money, to make more of their own decisions so that they can do more for their kids, so that they can save more, so that they can take mom out for supper on Saturday night and leave a little more in the collection plate on Sunday morning. That is what this is all about. This is not some mean-spirited accounting exercise; it is about renewing the American dream. And for too many Americans that dream is dying today.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is exactly right. And it was a very simple medical type diagram to demonstrate exactly what happens in this procedure. But again it comes back to what the gentleman has been talking about what we have been advancing, whether we are talking about regulatory reform, balancing the budget, or allowing families to keep more of what they earn. And your point was made as well that back in the 1950's when we were growing up, I am not sure about you, Mr. Kingston, you are quite a bit younger than us, but when we were growing up, my parents, and we talked a little too about working families, my dad worked in a factory all his life, union man, member of the AFL-CIO, and my folks raised three boys and my mother did not work. She stayed home. Now, we did not have a lot of the things that people think that they have to have today, I am sure, but we never considered ourselves poor. But there was a big difference back in the fifties. Most of the families raised their kids on one income. And why couldn't they? They got to keep 95 percent of what they earned. The average family today has to raise their kids on less than 60 percent of what they earn. Huge difference.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, I think it ties together with what we are talking about, because when we are advancing what I think is a commonsense agenda, and I think it is commonsense whether you are from North Carolina or Georgia or Minnesota, of putting the Federal Government on a diet, making the Federal Government live within its means in advancing policies, whether it is the Defense of Marriage Act or eliminating or making illegal these diabolical late-term abortions where the baby is literally pulled from the mother's womb, all except the head, the head is left in, scissors are inserted in the back of the baby's brain and literally the baby's brains are sucked out with a suction device, I think everywhere outside this Beltway that is considered extreme. The agenda we have advanced is commonsense. The extremism, if there is any here in Washington, DC, is I think confined to our liberal friends.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is extreme, but every one of them, I feel better. Certainly we have a few people that disagree with us, and that is part of a democracy as well. But there is so much common sense among the American people, and they understand exactly what was just said. They understand that the Washington-based, one-size-fits-all, whether we are talking about education, the environment, whether we are talking about welfare, we can take any issue and they know instinctively that it can probably be run much more efficiently and frankly more compassionately if it is run locally and if we allow people to volunteer and to work together. They know that. It comes up at my town meetings and I suspect it comes up at every town meeting, that the common sense, the decency and the compassion of the American people is overwhelming. But somehow all of that that we talk about here in Washington is called extreme by some of our friends here in the Congress and by some of the folks in the media, and certainly by the people down in the White House. But outside of this beltway there is tremendous good common sense among the American people. They understand this. Frankly, I have said this before, I think they are way out in front of us. The things that we are talking about I think the American people understand instinctively. I know that the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] wants to share some thoughts with us tonight. I wonder if we can kind of wrap up. I do want to talk about some of the other things that we may have heard or learned while we were back in our districts over the Fourth of July break. Does the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] have any? I have a couple of other points I might share. While my colleagues think about it, I will share a couple. I was surprised in my district how often the issue of the FBI files came up. Frankly, again, I think the American people are out in front of us and I think they put their fingers on the correct questions. The first question that they cannot seem to understand and I do not understand is how people could be heard in the White House and not know who hired them.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman would yield, I have had 75 town meetings since I was elected. I did not realize that until we counted.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, we have just returned from some time back in our districts, and I do not know about the rest of my colleagues, but we have had a chance to hear what some people have had to say on the issues of the day. I had, I think, eight different town meetings, I was involved in about nine parades, did one special meeting with seniors in my district, and so I think I got pretty good feedback, and I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about some of the things we heard during the district break. But I know that the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] has some points that he wants to make and so I would like to yield to him for as much time as he may consume, if that would be all right, then we can get more into a discussion.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is a good point. Many of our friends on the other side, who you would consider liberal, joined us in that particular vote, and hopefully this Congress is going to have another opportunity to revisit that issue and we are going to have a chance to override that veto. Because I do not know about you, and we have talked about going home over the Fourth of July, I was at one county fair, and I must tell you that was the number one issue that people wanted to talk to me about, because they had learned the facts about this procedure and they said you have to do everything in your power to override that veto, to make certain that that stops.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. But the story gets twisted. The unfortunate thing is the story gets twisted somehow between what we are trying to do and as it goes through this cycle here and as it gets filtered through sometimes the dominant media culture out there that somehow if we decide to reduce the size of the bureaucracy, the educational bureaucracy, for example, to follow up your point, that if we vote to reduce the size of the educational bureaucracy then we are hurting kids, when in fact there is no real proof that what we are doing right now is helping kids. Test scores have gone down as we have increased the size of the educational bureaucracy here in Washington.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Florida just referred to Gramm-Rudman. I think that is a great example. That is an example of a plan that did not work. The reason it did not work is because Congress did not have the courage to stay with the plan. What this amendment is about and what all the amendments we have offered to all the other appropriations bills is about is keeping faith with the plan we offered last year. The gentleman from California is absolutely right, they have done a good job. We are actually reducing the cost of operating this Congress. But the truth is that we are still increasing the amount we are going to spend on ourselves by 1.9 percent over what we said we were going to spend last year. This amendment is a good faith amendment. It is about keeping faith with the people of this country. It is about keeping faith with our kids. Mr. Chairman, 1.9 percent, as I said earlier, is like getting a haircut of one-eighth of a inch. You would not even notice it. We would not notice it in this bill, frankly. We may have to buy less computers. Many of us are operating our budgets at $100,000 less than we were authorized to earlier. I talked about Prime Minister Netanyahu. I do not always remember who gave this quote. I want to close with this quote. I do not remember who said it. He said, if you want to change the world, you have to first change your neighborhood. If you cannot change your neighborhood, at least you ought to be a good example. This is about setting a good example. If we are serious about balancing the books of the people of the United States of America, if we are serious about saving the future and the American dream for our kids, then we have to be willing to tighten our belts. This is about setting a good example with the Congress itself, with our own legislative appropriation. It is only 1.9 percent, and I believe there is not a Member in this body who does not believe we cannot tighten our belts that small fraction. Mr. Chairman, I would have hoped we would have had bipartisan support on this. I think this is a good example. I hope all Members will join us in supporting this simple and very, very innocuous amendment.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

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

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to my freshman colleague, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Souder].

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Coburn], my freshman colleague. (Mr. COBURN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, earlier today we heard a powerful speech from the new prime minister from Israel, Mr. Netanyahu. In it he said that real democracy allows dissent and honest debate, and we are here today to offer some dissent and honest debate. A few months ago, when we were adopting, in fact about a month ago when we were adopting, the budget resolution, we were rightly criticized by Members and leadership on the other side of the aisle for allowing the deficit to go up, and as one of the freshmen who came here promising to do what we could to balance this budget, to balance the people's budget, I was one who really felt we made a terrible mistake by allowing spending to go up more this year than we had agreed we would do just last year, and so, as a result, I and some of my freshmen colleagues sat down and said, well, what can we do? It is not enough just to vote no. We ought to have a constructive plan to help recover that fumble. By our calculations what really happened is we have allowed ourselves to agree to spending levels that are about $4.1 billion more than we agreed to last year in our 7-year budget plan. What I am offering today is the same amendment that we have offered to virtually every appropriation bill since the adoption of the conference committee report on the budget resolution, and that is to reduce overall spending across the board 1.9 percent. Now, Mr. Chairman, that is less than one notch in a belt. In fact, if I compare that to a haircut, and what we are asking the legislature to do is to reduce its expenditures by 1.9 percent, if we compare to that a haircut, that is a haircut of less than \1/8\ of an inch. Frankly, Mr. Chairman, that is not much of haircut, and I think we should lead by example, and I would hope that we can get this amendment agreed to and that we can all agree to make at least some sacrifice in terms of balancing the people's books. Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, during the last campaign, many of us campaigned on the whole issue of term limits, and it is something that a lot of the American people have asked for. In fact, all the polling information demonstrates that between three-fourths and 85 percent of the American people support some form of term limits. Earlier in this Congress, we had a vote for the first time in the history of this Congress, I think, we had a vote on term limits. Unfortunately, we were unable to get the two-thirds majority necessary to pass that by. We went back to some of our offices, I went back to my office and talked to some of the people on my staff and said: What could we do in terms of if we can't get a term limits bill passed this year, what possibly can we do to take some of the fun out of it? We also had heard a lot in our campaigns and we hear at our town meetings. I, for example, have had 75 town meetings in my district, and another issue that comes up frequently is the whole issue of pension reform. We read about some of our retiring colleagues or some of the former colleagues that have retired from this body, and we hear about six-figure pensions which they will receive for the rest of their lives, adjusted for inflation, and, frankly, I think that is an outrage that a lot of the American people feel. So we came up with a relatively simple bill, it is H.R. 1618, which would change the way that pensions for Members of Congress are accrued. That bill now has, I think, 57 different cosponsors. I am going to be going up to a meeting in the Committee on Rules in just a few minutes to see if perhaps we cannot get a modified version of that adopted or at least made in order for adoption onto the legislative appropriation bill. But I want to talk a little bit tonight about legislative or congressional pensions and what has happened over the last number of years, because I think some of our Members do not quite understand that the whole history of congressional pensions is really not that old of a history. In fact, until January 1942, there was no pension for any Member of Congress. As a matter of fact, in January 1942, the Congress for the first time passed pensions for Congress into law, but it was repealed 2 months later. It was repealed because of the public outcry. Again in 1946, the Congress came back and instituted a pension for Members of Congress, and I would like to read for the benefit of Members what they said in the preamble to that bill. They said that, and I quote, ``It would contribute to the independence of thought and action. It would be an inducement for retirement of those of retiring age or with other infirmities, and it would bring into the legislative service a larger number of younger Members with fresh energy and new viewpoints concerning the economic, social and political problems of the Nation.'' That was in 1946. Frankly, what we see today is an awful lot of Members who are staying long beyond their years and, frankly, we should encourage early retirement. So my bill is relatively simple. It says that if Members stay longer than 12 years, they cannot continue to accrue additional pension benefits. We would limit pension accrual for Members of Congress to only 12 years. Consider some of the annual pensions that some of our colleagues who have retired already are currently receiving, and I want to be bipartisan about this: Former Speaker of the House Tom Foley is currently getting a pension from the taxpayers of $123,804; Dan Rostenkowski, who will soon become a constituent of mine in Rochester, MN, will be receiving a pension of $96,462. But I want to be bipartisan. Former Minority Leader Bob Michel will be receiving a pension of $110,538, and that will be adjusted each year for inflation. As a percentage of their last years' salaries, Mr. Foley will be getting 72 percent of his last year's salary, Mr. Rostenkowski, 73 percent, and Mr. Michel, 74 percent. Now, according to Money magazine, the average private-sector employee gets a retirement of about 27 percent of their last year's income. The National Taxpayers' Union calculates that the lifetime benefits for these retiring Members, for example, two of our Members who are retiring this year, one a congresswoman from Colorado, her lifetime benefit, if you accrue this over the lifetime of what she is assumed to receive, will be $1,182,573. Another of our colleagues, a gentleman from Massachusetts who is retiring this year, the total cost of his accrued benefits amount to $3,461,869. Under the bill that we are introducing, H.R. 1618, and that we have introduced and the bill that we would hope to get offered as an amendment to the legislative appropriation bill, the maximum amount that a new Member of Congress, beginning with the 105th Congress, could receive at today's salary would be $27,254. Now, compared to people in the private sector, that is still a generous benefit, Mr. Speaker. On the other hand, compared to what former Members and current Members of Congress are receiving, that certainly is a step in the right direction. So if we cannot have term limits, I believe that we ought to take some of the fun out of staying here for long periods of time and go back to what the Congress said in 1946 when they introduced the whole notion of pensions for Members of Congress. There is tremendous public support for this basic idea. We have had national polling done by the Luntz Research Cos., and they concluded that 78 percent consider this a good idea or a top priority. Two-thirds would be more likely to reelect a Member who voted for this pension reform. Mr. Speaker, I would like to perhaps take this issue up again tomorrow.