Gil Gutknecht

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, for the past year a small number of Members of this body have been involved in what can only be described as professional character assassination. It is an example of classic stump water politics. That is where you throw what is handy and you stress what sticks. Well, they have hurled 65 charges at our Speaker and none of them have stuck. The only remaining issue is a technical tax question. At the Speaker's request, we have remained silent concerning the withering assault on the Speaker's character. We will be silent no longer. The stump water politics and the professional character assassination must end. The business of this Nation must proceed.

Mr. GUTKNECHT

Mr. GUTKNECHT. More importantly, I think, as I understand that, that was actually signed into law. So that is not a campaign promise, that is actually a Federal law. Am I correct in that?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if I could reclaim my time, my hour is going to expire quickly and then you guys are going to have at it for another hour. But I just want to say that I think this is important. I said earlier that facts are stubborn things. And I think it was Patrick Henry who said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The American people need to get plugged into this discussion, whether we are talking about Bosnia or the budget, because I think the American people in many respects are going to be the final arbiters of this debate. I thank you so much for sharing with us the history, because the more you learn about that region, the more you learn about this agreement, the more you learn about what is going on over there, the more troubling this whole story becomes. The real trouble is they are going to be our kids, and they are just kids for [[Page H 14156]] the most part. You see them out here exercising with the various honor guards and color guards and so forth, and you cannot help but feel proud of them. But many of those kids are going to get hurt, they are going to get killed, they are going to get wounded. The American people need to tune into this debate because facts are stubborn things, and the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The American people, I hope, will be tuned into your discussion as you go on for the next hour.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. The gentleman from the Air Force, flew F-100's at one time and perhaps maybe he still does, but I would yield first to Congressman Cunningham.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. It is about the difference between government responsibility and Federal responsibility and getting back more personal responsibility. Let the people make their own decisions, let them spend their own money, because we think they can spend it more efficiently than this Federal Government. As I say, I think the American people, once they know the facts, will again conclude that our budget spends more than enough to meet the legitimate needs of this Federal Government and that the target numbers we are working with, they are fair, they are reasonable, they are responsible, and, as I say, they are long overdue. I want to yield some time to you and talk about the other major issue that is confronting this Congress, and this Government, this country, and this world, and that is about Bosnia, and it has been particularly frustrating for me as a freshman Member because things happen pretty fast around here, but I would suspect that most of America, I know all of our colleagues know, that you were one of the most decorated Navy pilots in the Vietnam war, and I think when you talk about military issues and particularly about brushfire wars, and political wars, of civil wars around the world, you speak with a special degree of expertise, and so I want to yield some time to you, and so I welcome one of the other world experts on foreign policy and military affairs.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Why? The duck comes down and you win 50 bucks? But he talked about how may buyers, and it is like 106,000 buyers in the Department of Defense. We have 1,646 buyers for every F-16 we buy, and we buy 1 or 2 a week, something like that, and it is replete throughout the Federal Government. We all know that, the people that we serve know that, and the interesting thing, and we talked a little bit earlier about the megapoll that we did; it just confirms, I think, the common sense we all have, and that is once the American people understand what we are doing, once they see how much we are actually going to be spending, if anything the criticism is that we are still spending too much. Our budget calls for almost $12.1 trillion worth of spending over the next 7 years, and if you divide that up, it works out to over $46,500 in Federal spending for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Let me say that again. Over the next 7 years, Mr. Speaker, our budget plan, which the President vetoed today as cutting too much, will spend $46,500 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. Now what we are saying, I think in very simple language, we believe the $12.2 trillion is more than enough to fund the legitimate needs of this Federal Government and to take care of those people who depend on the Federal Government for various services; $12.1 trillion is more than enough. $13 trillion will bust the bank, and it will bust the taxpayers. In fact I think, if we can get the American people to look more at the facts of our budget, I think they will come to the same conclusion that we have come to, and that is that our budget is fair, it is reasonable, it is responsible, and it is long overdue. And so I think the budget that we are talking about is one that is good for the American people. As you said, long term it is going to bring interest rates down even more so Americans will have more of their own money to spend. They will not have to spend so much in interest. It will make student loans more available and more affordable. In fact the average family, according to Alan Greenspan, if we can stay on this balanced-budget plan over the next 7 years, the average family with a $100,000 mortgage--in fact the average mortgage in the State of Minnesota is $93,600--they will save almost $3,000 a year in interest as opposed to what they would have spent or will spend if we do not really get serious about----

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Duncan Hunter.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Congressman Duncan Hunter.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Hunter.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. The examples you have given, Congressman Cunningham, are so good, and frankly I think the American people instinctively understand just what you have talked about tonight. They understand that what we really need to do is localize, and privatize, and downsize this Federal Government, and that is what we are trying to do, and when they talk about cuts in education, we are talking about moving more of that educational decisionmaking back to the States, local units, and to families where they can make their own decisions about what they are going to do with their kids and the schools that they have, and frankly I think every American family understands this. They care much more about their kids' education than some bureaucrat in Washington. You know we can all talk about caring, and everybody talks about compassion, but real caring and real compassion happens around the kitchen table. It is families that care most about their kids' education, and that is what we want to get back to, and the waste and mismanagement here in this city, as I say, is just awesome, and I know you are going to talk a little bit about Bosnia, and I want to hear a little more, and I see Congressman Dornan is here tonight as well to talk a little bit about military affairs, and I believe in a strong defense, but just look at the Defense Department and the amount of waste, and duplication, and mismanagement that we see, and I know that your other colleague from San Diego once told me, Congressman Hunter, about how many buyers they have at the Pentagon.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is a pretty poor return on the investment.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is so important because I think there is sort of this argument that if we do not do the spending, if we do not do the regulating, if we do not do not the controlling, it will not get done. This is not a debate about how much money is going to be spent on education, how much money is going to be spent on nutrition or how much is going to be spent on health care. This is really a fundamental debate about who going to do the spending and who can do it more efficiently. Wht we are really talking about, as you say, you said it so well, is returning more of that decisionmaking back to the States and, more importantly, wherever possible and with the $500 per child tax credit, giving it back to the families because families are much more efficient than local governments, and local governments are much more efficient than State governments, and State governments are far more efficient than Federal Governments. That is why we are talking about welfare reform. We need to talk a little more about that because, again, I think the American people are so far out in front of us it is not even funny. I think they know the welfare system that has been created, controlled, directed, and regulated by the Federal Government has been an abysmal failure. They do not have to go very far in any direction, particularly if they come to this city, to see the results of 30 years of the social welfare state. As a matter of fact, here in Washington, DC, if we go 10 blocks literally in any direction from this Capitol, you will see the results of 30 years of the social welfare state, and the results are devastating and not just in terms of the total costs. We all know we have spent over $5 trillion over the last 30 years, but the real cost is in the human cost because we have replaced self-reliance and families with debt, dependency and despair, and that is what the American people want changed. They know the real way is to send it back to the States through block grants to allow local communities and local individuals to help those who need the help.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. He is not a freshman, but we will allow him in on this debate, the gentleman from San Diego, CA [Mr. Cunningham].

Mr. GUTKNECHT. The American people, I think, understand this. In fact, when you talk about health care reform, if you look at what has happened in the private sector over the last number of years, we have literally seen the reforms with the various kinds of managed care and much more sophisticated kinds of managed care which are doing an incredibly good job of controlling the growth in health care costs. As a matter of fact, in the State of Minnesota, where we have probably more managed care than virtually any other State in the Union, we have seen health care costs over the last 18 months increasing at only about 1.1 percent. If you look at the private or at the public sector side, if you look at Medicare or Medicaid, we have had health care inflation at a rate of 10.5 percent. So the truth of the matter is we absolutely know that managed care will work. It will help control costs. But more important than that, in the State of Minnesota, we had a study that was done where they interviewed over 17,000 recipients of health care and asked them about how satisfied they were with their health care, and the interesting thing was among seniors who were already in some kind of managed care, their satisfaction with the plan that they have is 3 times greater than those who were in the standard Medicare fee-for-service plan. So it is not just about saving costs. It is not just about squeezing out some of the waste and mismanagement which we know is there. I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] has done more to study the whole issue of waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system than anybody. I think if you create these managed care systems and create competition out there, we are going to attack that waste, fraud and abuse so we have more health care for fewer dollars.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. They would not stand for it.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I believe that is correct. The point is they have no interest in telling us anything than the truth. What they said was, unless the Congress gets serious about reforming the Medicare system, it is going to go bankrupt in 7 years. It will not be able to make the payments. I think everyone now acknowledges there is a serious problem. Again, we have advanced a plan which uses market-based reforms, which I think the American people can understand. [[Page H 14152]] Essentially, one of the reasons they did not like the Clinton health care reform plans that came out a year and a half ago was they did not really believe the Federal Government could do a much more efficient job of running the health delivery system than the private sector. What we did was sort of change the whole notion. Let us see if we can use the things working so well in the private sector to help control costs in Medicare. I am absolutely confident our reform plans are going to work. More important than that, I am convinced seniors who decide to participate in some of these new Medicare-plus programs that we are putting together and allowing to operate, I think, in the end of just a few years, many of them are going to say, ``Yes, I like this plan much better than what we had before,'' because they are going to have options, they are going to have choices, they are going to be treated like human beings, just like everybody else out there.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. On a per capita basis, per recipient spending actually increases from $4,800 a year this year to $7,000 a year. The interesting thing is when you tell the American people that, in one poll we did a few weeks ago, 63 percent, after they learned that information, after they heard the facts, they said you are increasing spending too much on Medicare. So I think once we get our side of the story told, what this chart basically demonstrates is, while the administration has been demagoging to a certain degree, our Medicare part B premiums plan, the truth of the matter is, if you extend it out to the seventh year, we are really only talking about a difference between our plan and the President's plan of $4.80 a year. Now, that is almost nothing.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think it is important and instructive, and one of my favorite quotes is from John Adams, one of the Founders of this great country, and he said that facts are stubborn things, and that sort of is what we have been talking about is let us get the facts out there. Interestingly enough, we just got back a rather in-depth poll. I do not think you should make public policy based upon polls. I think it does confirm instinctively what all of us believe; that is, if the American people are given facts, they overwhelmingly support what we are doing. As a matter of fact, the interesting thing is there was a separate poll we did a couple of weeks ago when they asked the American people essentially some of the questions that are being posed by some of the other national polling media outlets; for example, do you think the Republicans are cutting Medicare too much? Not surprising, a majority of Americans said ``yes.'' But when we explain to them in our poll what the numbers really were and that we were actually increasing total Medicare spending from something like $189 billion a year to $278 billion a year over only 7 years per year and----

Mr. GUTKNECHT. So all of these tax cuts that we are hearing demagogued every day on the House floor represents only 2 percent of all the Federal spending over the next 7 years?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. So if you spent $1 million a day 365 days a year from the time of Christ until now.

Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is basically what has happened in the last 30 or 40 years, is the Federal Government has grown in its influence over our daily lives and the family has actually diminished. What we are trying to do is reinforce families, because we know that the cornerstone of the western civilization is strong families. So this is something that I feel--and you hate to always speak for the freshman class, I know you are a member of the class and the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is a member of the freshman class--but I think this is something we feel very, very strongly about. We are willing to negotiate in good faith with the President and the administration. But in terms of ever giving up on the $500-per-child tax credit, I think it is one thing that I hope that our class and members of this side of the aisle will fight to the bitter end, because I think this is something the American people can understand. It is going to mean cash in their pockets. It is going to mean money that they get to spend rather than sending it to Washington, and I think that is really what the American people want. I think they want us to downsize the Federal Government. They know it is inefficient, and frankly they are correct. The more I have been here, the more I have realized just how incredibly inefficient this Federal Government is, and the most efficient spender of resources in this country is the American family. Why should we not allow them to keep more of their money and spend it themselves?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Sienna. Did you tell her about the debt she inherited when she was born? [[Page H 14151]]

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Have you named her yet?

Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just explain what this chart says. This is according to the Heritage Foundation, and they got the information from us. The truth of the matter is that 89 percent of the benefit will go to families earning less than $75,000 a year. Let me repeat that. Eighty- nine percent of the benefit, of the $500-per-child tax credit, will go to families with incomes of less than $75,000 a year. If you look at it, only 4 percent will go to families earning more than $100,000 a year, and only 7 percent will to families earning between $75,000 and $100,000. The truth of the matter is when you talk about this per-child family tax credit of $500, the overwhelming bulk of the benefit goes to average middle-class families, and that is the people we believe deserve the relief. As a matter of fact, you may have heard us talk about it before, that in 1950 the average family was sending about 3 percent of their gross income to the Federal Government. Today that number is up to 24.5 percent of their gross revenues are going to the Federal Government. Families are the ones who need the tax relief the most. So what we are proposing is saying we believe, and I think the American people understand this better than the people here in Washington do, but we happen to believe that families can spend that money much more efficiently than the Federal Government. Let us allow them to keep more of their revenue, let them keep more of their income and spend it themselves, because they are the ones who know how to spend it the most efficiently. As this chart underscores, even more important than anything I have seen is that the overwhelming amount of the benefit is going to go to middle and lower middle income families. We believe that is a good thing and, more importantly, the American people can understand this chart even better than the experts here in Washington. I would like to welcome the gentleman from Las Vegas, NV [Mr. Ensign], the former Speaker of the House, to join us in this debate.