Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I am glad to hear that now. You deserve it. You need that.

Mr. KINGSTON. It is correct. I think, there again, the President was acting from an extreme point. There is nothing extreme about requiring able-bodied people to work. There is nothing extreme about discontinuing permanent benefits for illegal aliens or telling local folks they can get involved in their own poverty program through State grants. But the President decided to go for the status quo, and if the American taxpayers have paid $5 trillion, is it not time that we tried something different because of no results?

Mr. KINGSTON. One of the examples I like to point out in terms of the Federal registration, which is the book of all the Federal regulations, and so forth, it has grown from 41,000 pages 10 years ago to 68,000 pages today, and we have over 130,000 Federal bureaucrats that basically just look over your shoulder to make sure that you are behaving right and telling you how to do things from educating kids, running a poverty program, to health care, to running your business, to your home. Everything. Some of it is good. I certainly want to have a safe and sound government, but I want to have a commonsense government, one that is balanced. And is that not what we are saying? Is it not that we want to give the people back home more decisionmaking power and more personal freedom, and is that an extreme position?

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, I want to make sure we are all on the same page. The question is who hired Mr. Livingston, and he is the political operative who illegally obtained over 900 FBI files on private citizens and invaded their privacy by looking into those files illegally, and has yet to give us an explanation of what he was doing with them, why and who ordered them, and how he is saying he did not even know who hired him.

Mr. KINGSTON. One of the things about welfare, in preparation for Father's Day I was doing some research and found out that police departments unfortunately use as an indicator of crime in the neighborhood, not the drug use and not the location or the geography but how many fathers live at home. Ninety-two percent of the children on welfare do not have a father at home. Those are the kids that do drop out of school, do have teenage pregnancy situations, do have violent crime and so forth. The fact was unbelievable, but it is that breakup of the family unit. Why is the dad not at home? Because we have a stupid, insane government policy that says if he stays at home, they get kicked out of the housing project because their income will make them ineligible. Does that make any sense? Would it not make sense to have a housing project where we have stable mom-and-dad relationships, where we can have some model citizens that other folks who live in the housing project can look up to? Does common sense not dictate that we do that? Instead, we have a Federal Government that says, ``No, dad, you are out of here. If you stay here, she is going to lose her benefits,'' and she cannot go out and find a job and get the benefits and the child care and the health insurance, and she needs that. I do not blame her.

Mr. KINGSTON. All I will say about that Federal judge is he obviously wanted to go to hell and he did not want to wait in line. I think it is real important that we understand that what we are trying to do is just get decisionmaking out of Washington. Think about this. In Minnesota, North Carolina, if your county welfare agency knew that it was in their hands and in their power to end poverty in your home county, what a difference it would make, because really we do not look at poverty as our problem. The thing about Americans is we see a problem, we want to fix it. And so what we have found ourselves subconsciously doing in many cases is ignoring problems because we see something like poverty and we think, well, we cannot fix that. You know why we cannot fix it? Because there are too many rules and regulations. If somebody is on welfare, a 16-year-old with a baby, she needs health care, she has education needs, she has transportation needs, she has child care needs, and under our current welfare bureaucracy different agencies do different things, and so if you wanted to you cannot solve her problem because there are too many bureaucrats who are telling you this is my territory; this is my territory, and I get her here and I get her here and we do not want you just to have one A to Z program to get this young woman independent. So, as a result, we all kind of tend to back away from it. But if you knew in your hometown you could make a difference, then you would make a difference.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is absolutely right. Another statistic I have heard is that the real Independence Day is July 3 instead of July 4th, because from January 1 to July 3, that is when you are working to pay for all the cost of the government at every level plus the cost of regulation at every level, and that is right out of working people's pocket.

Mr. KINGSTON. There comes a point when the mule cannot pull the load anymore. Mr. Speaker, let us talk about welfare. The President promised to end welfare as we know it, never introduced a bill when the Democrats held the Senate and the House, and yet when the Republicans did, what were we accused of? And these were quotes, actual quotes that I got out of the Congressional Record that we were accused of by our Democrat colleagues: These people, the Republicans, are practicing genocide with a smile. They are worse than Hitler. And here is another quote: There is a similarity between Newt and Hitler; Hitler started getting rid of the poor and those he said were a drag on society, and Newt is starting out the same way. Here is another quote: But not since the biblical day of King Herod have our children been in such grave danger. But unlike King Herod, who went only at the male child, the Republicans are going after all children. Now, what is it that we were doing that was so extreme, so hard for the Democrats to take, so that they were accusing us of declaring war on the children? Well, the main thing we are trying to do is say able- bodied people who are on welfare who can work are required to work. Is that extreme? Is it fair for a guy who is out there working 40, 50, 60 hours a week paying for somebody to stay at home, is it extreme to say to the guy who is able to get to work and join him to be required to work? I do not think it is. What about illegal immigrations? We said no more permanent benefits for illegal aliens, people who are not American citizens. Is that extreme? I would say it isn't. That was part and that was one of the things the President vetoed.

Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not true this procedure is so gruesome that the extremists who are against the legislation did not want to allow the sponsor to have a postor, a chart that actually showed the procedure, and they tried to vote not to allow it on the floor? Is that not the case?

Mr. KINGSTON. I have heard that, and all I can say is that family will quit working.

Mr. KINGSTON. Yet the President still vetoed it.

Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not true that two of the most liberal Democrat leaders, the gentleman from Missouri, Dick Gephardt, and the gentleman from Michigan, David Bonior, voted to ban these partial birth abortions?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, in 1994 Republicans were elected to the House in great numbers, 73 new Republican freshmen. They came to Washington with lots of reforms in their mind. But since then they have been called extremist, mean-spirited, callous, fanatical and so forth and that has become their label. Yet when we see what their agenda really was, this thing called the Contract With America, what was it designed to do? It was designed to reduce the size of government, to cut wasteful spending, to lower taxes, to balance the budget, to reform welfare, and to increase personal freedom. The folks I talk to back home in the grocery store checkout line, they do not consider these things extremist ideas. They think that they are commonsense ideas and reforms that we need to do. Let us look at this in a little more detail. Do you think it is extreme to try to balance the budget the way you and I have to in our household at the end of each month? Do you think it is a good idea to do something about the $20 billion that we spend each month just in interest on the national debt? Do you think we should pass this legacy on to our children? Or do you think we should do something about it? And do you think, Mr. Speaker, that it is extreme to try to balance this budget in a 7-year period of time, so that you do not pull the rug out from under anybody? Do you think that lowering the rate of spending is extreme, so that one day the revenues that come in, tax dollars, and our spending will be equal? I do not believe that is extreme, Mr. Speaker. What did the Democrats do when they controlled this House? They say what we are trying to do is extreme. They increased domestic spending $300 billion. Years and years of overspending, on tilting the scale toward big bureaucracy, has left us with 163 different Federal job training programs, 26 different Federal food and nutrition programs, and 180 education programs. A lot of duplications in that, Mr. Speaker. I think we can do something about it. Let us talk about taxes. Under the Democrat rule, we had a tax increase of $245 billion, a gas tax increase of 4.3 cents a gallon, a tax on Social Security, and a tax on small businesses and partners. What do the Republicans want to do, these so-called freshman extremists? They want to cut taxes. One of them is a $500 per child tax credit. Do you think that your friends and neighbors and your people that you see in car pool lines deserve a $500 per child tax credit? Do you think that they could use that to buy a few more pairs of tennis shoes, T- shirts and back packs for their children? Do you think the workers of America deserve that? Do you think that they have paid enough and maybe something like that would help them? Let us talk about some of these other taxes that we are accused of giving a tax cut for the wealthy. Do you think that our senior citizens should get the tax relief on their Social Security when the President increased taxes on Social Security in 1993? Do you think it would be fair to take that tax off of our seniors? Do you think that it would be fair to let seniors work longer without being penalized on their Social Security? I do not think that is extremist. What about the capital gains tax? If we pass a capital gains tax, will Ted Turner benefit from it? He will. I do not have a problem with that, Mr. Speaker, because who else will is all the widows in my area, which is a growth area, who have bought their house 30 years ago, it is now paid for, but the house that they bought for $50,000 in the 1960s is now worth $300,000 and they could benefit from a capital gains tax cut. Welfare. Let us talk about welfare. We have been accused of extremism in welfare and all kinds of quotes that almost are hard to recognize. The President, as you know, promised to end welfare. He did not offer a welfare reform bill. When we tried to offer one, we were accused, here is one, of Representative Levin, ``You use a meat ax against the handicapped children and their parents.'' President Clinton said in February 1995, ``What they want to do is declare war on the children in America.'' Here is another quote from a Member of the House of Representatives on the House floor said, ``These people,'' they are talking about these Republican freshmen, ``are practicing genocide with a smile. They are worse than Hitler.'' Here is another one. These are all from House Members. ``There is a similarity between NEWT and Hitler. Hitler started out getting rid of the poor and those he said were a drag on society and NEWT is starting out the same way.'' These words have been said on the floor of the House by Democrats. Now I ask, does that sound a little extreme in terms of rhetoric? Is that based on reality? What is the Republican welfare bill?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I want to mention to you on the subject, I sit on the Appropriations Subcommittee, Treasury, Post Office, White House. We fund the White House and we put in an amendment that said that if you worked for the White House, that unless it involves national security, you are not allow to look at anybody's FBI file, period. That amendment was passed on a bipartisan basis. We had a few Democrats who voted ``no'', but the ranking member supported it and so forth and we passed it. Because exactly what your constituent said, this is not Democrat versus Republican, this is right versus wrong. If you are over at the White House and you need to look at somebody's files for national security purposes, particularly with all the people who are falling out of airplanes and jumping over the White House fence, I want the President to be protected. I want him to grow to be an old man. I want him to enjoy his last few months of being President peacefully. But the fact is that we do not want people over there on an extracurricular basis invading the privacy of normal citizens.

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. The Steal American Technologies Act

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, as I went back through the Congressional Record and looked at what the Democrats had to say about this bill last year, it was just absolutely ridiculous, offbase political rhetoric, just like we are hearing this year: war on children, mindless, mean- spirited package. It is the same old thing. The Democrats want to smoke but they do not want to inhale. They want to cut the budget but not here, not this bill, not now, not this group. The fact is, my Democrat friends, that money is not always the solution. Just one particular case, one small example: Since 1970 per- student spending in America has increased from $4,000 to $7,000 per student. Yet during that same period of time SAT scores have fallen from 937 points in 1972 to 902 points in 1994. Money, money, money is not always the answer. So let us try to put our investments in programs that work, cut out the Washington bureaucracy, empower the people back home, and pass this bill.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, what we are talking about is use of Government telephones, copying machines, fax machines, E-mail, internal mail distribution systems, electronic bulletins and so forth, all funded with taxpayer dollars and yet being used not for their intended purposes of cleaning up the environment. I am very concerned about this. At a time when EPA is saying they do not have enough money to clean up toxic waste and so forth, they should not be engaged in extracurricular activity such as political activities and social agendas. But realizing that the scope of EPA's involvement in nonenvironmental activities is so extensive, I do not know that my amendment adequately addresses it. It is a very big problem, Mr. Chairman. I think that this Congress should revisit it and do it extensively, but at this time I think that I am going to withdraw my amendment and maybe take another route at another date.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to withdraw the amendment.

Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I am going to go very quickly. What this amendment does is it limits EPA employees and funds going to EPA for business purposes only, EPA purposes. It has come to my attention that EPA is involved with a lot of activities that are not related to protecting the environment, a lot of extracurricular activities. Some are social in nature, many are political in nature. What I am trying to do with my amendment is limit EPA to its mission statement, and that is cleaning the environment and not getting involved in all other causes and problems of the world.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Speaker, when I first came here in 1993, I, like most Members of Congress, was somewhat intimidated by everything and everybody, and I needed a friend, just as we all need friends during that period of time, and certainly as we continue our career. Bill Emerson was one of those guys that I found to be open and friendly to new Members, and always helpful. I could go to Bill for advice on agriculture. I served on the Committee on Agriculture with him. All those agriculture issues, as we know, are very complicated; understanding the milk program, the peanut program, the wheat program. They are just endless. I do not think anybody knew as much about those programs on the committee, who had the time to sit there and share with you, and so forth. I would go to Bill and I would say, okay, what is going on on this? He would explain the intricate USDA policy on that. One could also go to Bill and ask him, about the political side, and he could tell us which groups and which committees and which people here, Members of the House, how they stood and what would probably happen. He could predict what was going to be the outcome of legislation many weeks before it ever got on the floor. If you only knew Bill in that political sense, as a guy who could give advice on agriculture issues and politics, you were missing something entirely more important to him. That was Bill Emerson, the person. Because as a man, he was one who was philosophical. He could sit there and with a sense of humor sort of say, well, this is where we Republicans are going to line up on this, but those old Democrats, they have a good point here, and here is where I agree with them, and here is where we disagree. He could just rise above the rough edges of this institution and deliver somewhat of a balm, an ointment to the Members, so we could all feel a little bit better, not just about ourselves but about the legislation and about service in Washington. That is the kind of guy Bill Emerson was. I, Mr. Speaker, am going to miss Bill Emerson. He always would stand back there and kind of peer over the banister, and I believe in many respects he will continue to peer down on us, just as he sat back there. You could always reach him. I think now we can look high up in the heaven and Bill Emerson is in good company with all of the other angels of the Lord.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, now on this subject of what is reality I have one that I want to share with you. It is a little bit off the military path, but is true. Last night I attended a Georgia Farm Bureau dinner in Washington, and the speaker was Clinton appointee Richard Rominger. Now he was speaking on accomplishments of the Clinton administration. Well, as did everyone else in the audience, I thought it was going to be a real short evening with that being the topic, but as it turns out he was claiming everything with the conviction of the rooster taking credit for the rising sun, and so it was rather lengthy. But one of the things that he said was the Clinton administration is claiming that the national debt has fallen $15,000 per family of four. Now our colleague, Mac Collins, a Ways and Means member and number cruncher, says how is that possible? The national debt has risen for the last 3 years the Clinton folks have had the White House; how could it be falling? And without blinking a shameless Clinton appointee said: Oh, it is easy. The annual deficit had been going up at a certain rate, and since it is no longer going up at that rate, then the savings that we calculate, the $15,000 per family, is in the anticipation. And I said, OK, wait a minute, let me follow this, let me put it in laymen's terms. I weight 170 pounds. Now I have never weighed 190 pounds. But if I add up all the days that I passed up ice cream sundaes and other fattening desserts, I probably would weigh 190 pounds. But according to Clintonomics I have lost 20 pounds, and so I am going to pat myself on the back. And, Mr. Hayworth, I know that you are dieting. I just want you to feel better about yourself.

Mr. KINGSTON. A Clinton appointee, yes----

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, today I submit the latest ``Say what, Mr. President?'' and the credit goes to Clinton appointee Richard Rominger who last night proclaimed to the Georgia Farm Bureau that, and I quote, ``During this administration, the national debt has fallen $15,000 per family of four.'' ``How so?'' asks our numbers-crunching colleague, Mac Collins, because the national debt has risen steadily during this administration. ``Well,'' answered a shameless Rominger, ``the annual deficit had been rising and since it is not rising as much, the $15,000 represents the additional amount saved had it kept rising.'' Let me put that in English. I weigh 170 pounds. I have never weighed 190 pounds. But according to Clintonomics, I lost 20 pounds if I add up all the sundaes and desserts that I have said ``no'' to. Ladies and gentlemen, that is Clintonomics. It is like an Oliver Stone movie--it is exciting, it is entertaining, but it is not based on reality.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to yield some time to Mr. Dornan of California because he was reading a letter of a widow of a great American and he was not through with it.