Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me start off by saying I have got great news for Ethel in San Rafael, California and Vern in California also. The Republican plan increases their Medicare from $190 billion to $304 billion. Good news.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, as I travel around the first district of Georgia I meet a lot of people--in Savannah, Brunswick, Statesboro and also in the smaller towns like Odum, Reidsville, Glennville--and basically wherever I am having town meetings, they are always asking the same questions; Why are so many families across America struggling to keep their heads above water? Why are Americans working harder and harder and having less to show for it? Why is it that many people, many families, have to have two jobs just to make ends meet? I think we can summarize everything in two words: the tax trap. It is simple to explain. It is simply this: the harder you work, the more taxes Washington makes you pay. The more taxes you pay, the longer and harder you have to work. You end up working harder and longer, and Washington ends up with more but you end up with less. It is like the old doodle bugs we used to catch when we were kids, Mr. Speaker. The doodle bug builds a cylindrical trap. Ants come walking by and they fall into the cylindrical trap, and then they try to dig themselves out. The harder the ant digs, the more dirt falls on the ant. Then that doodle bug is just sitting there with his pinchers ready and his mouth wide open, and when that ant is exhausted, the doodle bug comes up, grabs him, and sucks him on down. That is what is happening to middle-class America right now. We are just working harder and harder, trying to get out of this big trap set by the Washington bureaucracy, and Washington, just like the doodle bug, is winning. When I was a child, Mr. Speaker, the biggest investment a family made was the family home, but today it is taxes. We send more money to the tax collector than we spend on food, clothing, and shelter combined. My parents grew up in an America that promised that if they worked hard and saved and did the right thing, you too could enjoy the American dream. But today children in my generation and the many generations coming after me are afraid they are not going to be able to share in that American dream. The Washington bureaucracy, though, has enjoyed it. They have enjoyed this fruits of our labor. Today the bureaucracy in Washington has grown to an all-time high. Our Government alone costs us $1.6 trillion a year, Mr. Speaker. It is way out of control. It has 160 different Federal job training programs, 240 different Federal education programs, 300 economic development programs, and 500 urban aid programs. How much is enough, Mr. Speaker? The fact is all these programs are probably well-intended, but they take money off the table of middle-class America. Look at the President of the United States. He ran under a promise of a middle-class tax cut and instead passed the largest tax increase in the history of the country. Today, because of President Clinton's policy, the typical family pays $2,600 more in taxes than they did on election day 1992--and think about the insecurity the middle-class Americans have. I think about Karen Goddard. Karen and I worked together for about 10 years. Karen and Ian had 2 incomes and they had 4 kids. Despite the fact that they worked hard, it was very difficult to get those kids' college education paid for. even though they had done everything right, Mr. Speaker, it still did not matter. I think about people like Charles Sieler and Tracy Smith, who are going to be getting married in July. Once they get married, Mr. Speaker, their tax burden will become higher than it is individually because of their horrible marriage tax penalty where we actually tax people more once they are married than they were as single people before them. I think about people of my dad's generation and--now I am getting up there, I am 41 years old; my dad and his friends, my old teachers, my Sunday school teacher, the people who used to drive me to Little League, and the people who used to drive me to the Dairy Queen on hot Sunday afternoons--elder senior Americans that I have known all my life. Now it is their turn to retire and enjoy the fruits of their labor, but they are not sure that Medicare is going to be there tomorrow and all of them are on Medicare, Mr. Speaker. We have got to have fundamental changes in Washington, because our policies affect real people with real problems. This tax trap, Mr. Speaker, is really sucking us all in. We have got to break free of it. I believe we have to have fundamental reform in Washington. We have to change our education system, to put more local autonomy in the program. We need to have legal reform. We need to change the Washington bureaucracy. We need to have a health care plan that is more affordable and more accessible. Mr. Speaker, these are the policies this Congress is moving toward. We need to continue these reforms. I am proud to work on them.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me get back on the balanced budget. There are three reasons we need to keep focus on the balanced budget. No. 1, the Federal Reserve says if you have a balanced budget, interest rates will fall. If they fall as much as 2 percent, it would make a significant savings in your monthly home mortgage and your automobile bill, if you own your car. No. 2, it will create jobs. Because small businesses can borrow money at lower interest rates, they will expand more opportunities which will be out there for everybody. No. 3, your taxes will go down, because you will not have that huge crunch from the Federal Government that is draining the pocketbooks of American workers right now. That is one reason why this Congress fought so hard for the $500-per-child tax credit. The gentleman earlier talked about single women at home. Raising children is the most frustrating, the most difficult, the most expensive thing that I think I have ever tried to do, or anybody else can do. And a $500-per-child tax credit will help the American working men and woman afford their family. It will help the middle class like no other measure that we could pass in Congress.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield on that, about the big bureaucracy, it is interesting that as we are debating budgets, the Democrat budget versus the Republican budget, that the Clinton Democrat budget adds 3,000 more Federal employees to the payroll and adds 14 new bureaucracies and agencies, and you know that is not what the message was. The message from the American people, which was accurately mirrored by the President, was the era of big government was over.

Mr. KINGSTON. We had a neighbor of mine, unfortunately he passed away also, named Julian Bono, and he did the same sort of thing is Savannah, GA, networking with other people who had cancer, passing on information, passing on treatments about doctors, and they had a list of physicians all over the country. Actually, he found a cure or a potential cure in Greece and helped some of the people go over there, and it is all we are saying to the liberal Washington establishment is let the American people do what they are best at: be sharp, smart shoppers.

Mr. KINGSTON. It is $2,500, $2,000, $4,000 deductible. So anything that you do not spend goes into your pocket. There is a woman in Tampa, FL, who had breast cancer. She could not get the information she needed through the traditional health care provider network. So what she did, she got on the Net. How many of you out there have breast cancer? And she formed a network and was able to find a support group and a physician who had a new specialty and a new drug, and as a result she has been able to deal with her illness a lot better. Now, there is a doctor in Fort Worth who recommends a system whereby we can use our own television to actually one day get on some of those blank channels after channel 40 that, you know, we have on every TV, and they are all blank, get in there and say, ``Back injury. How much? What? Lower back? Upper back,'' and keep pushing your remote and concentrate on where your back problems is, and then it would tell you the nature of it, which physicians in your area serve it, how much it costs to prevent, to spend on it. And think about how, if you tie in medical savings accounts in with the information highway, how great it will be for the American consumers.

Mr. KINGSTON. It is basically a high-deductible plan where any money that you do not spend you can use for long-term health care or you can use for a college education.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is exactly right. Let me give you another example of how medical savings accounts can make a difference and more consumer information. I read an article----

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the irony is two things, how this can serve, is that when American consumers go into an appliance store, they know how much a dishwasher costs, a new refrigerator, a stereo, an automobile, even a house, and yet if you get a broken arm, we do not have any idea. Is it $200, is it $900? How many bills am I going to get? You know, what about setting a broken leg? I have no idea. I mean American consumers need to know. An amniocentesis, if a woman gets an amniocentesis, she gets bills from every lab in America for 6 months. Should not the women in America be able to know when they go in how much it is going to cost them? What a medical savings account will do will put her back in charge, and then she will know, hey, this is supposed to be a $300 deal, this is not going to be a $600 deal, Dr. Jones down the street only charges $275.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let us talk about this because I think it is very important, as we explore welfare reform for the third time, and hopefully, maybe because it is an election year, the President will vote for it this time, but as we get into the health care benefit and the portion of welfare and State grants and so forth, I think it is important to know we have worked on health care reform for American middle-class families. We have tried to make it more affordable and more accessible through the portability clauses and eliminate the preexisting-illness conditions of the policies so that middle-class Americans can take their health care with them and not be held hostage to the insurance company or have a job loss. The other thing, which I know the two of you have supported, is medical savings accounts. Today I presented to the Speaker and to Denny Hastert and the health care conferees a letter signed by 162 Members, bipartisan Members, of this Chamber asking that conferees keep the medical savings accounts in the health care reform; medical savings accounts, basically a high-deductible plan that allows consumers to pay for their own first-dollar health care expenses like stitches, x rays, routine checkups, and so forth, but they get to save the money, they get to pocket what they have saved from the deductible, use it for long-term health care or use it for a college education account or, you know, use it for Christmas money or whatever they want. The money is tax free, though, if it is spent on medical expenses. And that is what middle-class America needs, is health care----

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask you something else.

Mr. KINGSTON. Just save us from your jokes.

Mr. KINGSTON. All one needs to get people to vote is drive down the street and say, hop in my van, let me take you to the polls because you are now registered to vote, because you are on welfare or you have a driver's license or you have other forms of public assistance.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman is finished, I will continue. The legal aid society sued the State of California for not giving illegal aliens a driver's license, even though they were in the country illegally.

Mr. KINGSTON. Which is more money than we spent to win World War II. And at the time that most of these programs started under the big Government expansion programs of Lyndon Johnson, the poverty level was 14 percent. Today it is about 14 percent. So for all that we have done, we have only created great jobs for bureaucrats. But here in the backdrop of all this debt, the Atlanta Legal Aid Society sued the State of Georgia to try to force it to use Medicaid funds, which is welfare insurance, to pay for a sex change operation. The case was called Rush versus Parham. Fortunately, it was dismissed. But that is the kind of ridiculous thinking that we have got out there. Now, the gentleman from California will find this interesting. The legal services also sued the State of California because although one immigrant did not have, excuse me, very big distinction, these were illegal aliens.

Mr. KINGSTON. Remember the backdrop here. We are a country that is $5 trillion in debt. We are a country that has a welfare program that is totally out of control. We have spent about $4 trillion on it.

Mr. KINGSTON. I am glad the gentleman mentioned that. We are also increasing student loans from approximately $27 to $36 billion. Yet the President of the United States has called that a cut. I do not know what school system he went to, but, again, going from $27 to $36 billion is not a cut. On Medicaid, we are doing the same thing, going from approximately $90 to $140 billion. Yet the same status quo Washington liberal bureaucracy is calling these things a cut. The fact is, we have got to get these programs under control. I have an article here where the Atlanta Legal Aid Society tried to sue the State of Georgia because Medicaid did not pay for a sex change operation.

Mr. KINGSTON. It may be, if not, certainly a friend. I also wanted to apologize to the people from New Jersey. The other night the gentleman from New Jersey was talking about Medicare cuts. I pointed out to him that Medicare was going from $196 to $304 billion and if he thought that was a cut, that was a reflection of the education system in New Jersey. I have a letter here from a Mr. Ron Jones in New Jersey, and he says he is offended by that. He agrees with me that the Congressman from New Jersey may have missed the point, but when you increase Medicare spending from $196 to $304 billion, that is not a cut.

Mr. KINGSTON. Now, if the gentlemen would like to stick with me, I want to switch gears and talk about a few things. First, I do think that it is absolutely appalling that people in St. Mary's, GA; Jacksonville, FL; Brunswick, GA are not protected from a missile attack to the nuclear submarine in St. Mary's. I am glad that the two of you are working on this. I am proud to cosponsor the bill. I hope that we can protect, shore up our security so that parents around the land do not have to worry about this. I do want to switch gears. I have a letter from Mr. George Renshaw who ironically lives in St. Mary's. I want to quote him. He said, I never felt so strongly about Congress as I do now. All of you have amazed me. I see you many times on the House floor. Keep up the good work. By the way, I am an ex-Democrat. I thought that was just a little good, positive feedback.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, today the Democrats say goodbye to 500,000 jobs, according to the Federal Reserve, which is what the impact of increasing the minimum wage will be. That is no problem, though, because most of those folks will get on public benefits, which is exactly where the Democrats want them, right under the thumb of the Government so they can create dependency on the Government. Do my colleagues know who is on minimum wage? Sixty-six percent of the people are part-time workers. Thirty-nine percent of them are teenagers. Two percent are over 30 years old. And those who start with a minimum wage are making $6.05 an hour within 1 year. It is an entry- level wage. I started at minimum wage when I was 16 years old. I have worked minimum wage in the restaurant and the construction business. I learned skills, and as I learned them, I was paid more. That is how the private sector, the capitalistic free enterprise system, works. I am sorry there are so many people who lean with socialistic tendencies to government solutions to every possible problem that is out there. I say let the private sector get out there and compete. Let us save the jobs and cut out the talk about increasing the wage.

Mr. KINGSTON

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think it is very important to realize that as the Democrats focus on minimum wage, they are completely ignoring the job cycle. I am going to read some statistics on that. But it is real interesting to me to listen to some of the comments that have been made from the other side of the aisle tonight that are just totally off-the-wall. One speaker from North Carolina said that we need to increase the minimum wage to $5.25 an hour in order that people can pay for shelter, food, and transportation. That is $10,000 a year. I do not know what it is like in Arizona, where you live, but I know in Georgia you cannot do it on $10,000 a year. The complete representation that there are people making minimum wage and they are the sole breadwinner of the family is totally off base. The statistics are as follows: 66 percent of the people making minimum wage are part time. Thirty-nine percent are teenagers. Only 2 percent are over 30 years old, but those who start working today for a minimum wage on a national average will be making $6.05 an hour a year from now. But that minimum wage is the opportunity wage. It is the salary that you start with when you are unskilled and you move your way up the ladder. I started working for $1.60 an hour at the International House of Pancakes when I was a student. I started making a minimum wage later on at $2.50 an hour working construction. But in both cases, I was the raw product. I needed the training. I asked some teenagers, inner city teenagers in Georgia recently who were up here, I said, I know all of you guys are going to be looking for jobs this summer. Let me ask you a question. You are probably going to work on a construction crew, maybe in a yard maintenance crew, maybe in a restaurant. Let us talk about a restaurant. How many of you know how to work a buffing machine? None. How many of you know how to work a cash register? None. How many of you know how to replace a bag of milk into a milk cap for a restaurant? None. None of you know that. You don't have much experience. They said, no, I guess we don't. I said, I think you have a lot of experience. Here is where your experience is: You know how to say, ``Yes, sir,'' and ``No, ma'am.'' You know how to show up on time. You know how to work hard and stay a little bit later, and put in that extra effort, and maybe when you finish your job, go over and help the other person finish his job. that is your experience, and that is what the employer is looking for. He will teach you to you how to run the cash register and the buffing machine, but he is going to hire a heck of a lot more of you if he can get you for $4.25 and hour versus $5.15 an hour. Here were some high school students who understood that simple economic principle, that they wanted the job. Hey, the salary sounds great, but if you do not make it, it is like yourself, you are an athlete, you had an opportunity to play pro football.

Mr. KINGSTON. It was the team's loss, I am sure. But I know in your situation if you had made pro football, you would have made $200,000 or $300,000 a year. That was a great salary, but you did not get the job. It is just like these students, the $5.15 an hour is great, but if the job does not exist anymore, it does not matter. Here are some statistics that have been put out by the Employment Policies Institute, which is a nonpartisan institute. In your home State of Arizona, increasing the minimum wage is estimated to cost 8,900 jobs that will be gone. In my State of Georgia, 18,000 jobs are at risk; Kentucky, 12,000; California, 63,000; Montana, 2,800; Ohio, 28,000; Texas, 60,000. This is economic data. This says these are the numbers of jobs that will be lost.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker. Again, I am going to say it again, because this is not from the Republican Study Committee, this is from the Employment Policies institute, which is nonpolitical, nonpartisan, the increase in the minimum wage in California will cost 63,100 jobs, 63,100 less jobs in the State of California by increasing the minimum wage. You know what is so interesting, as I hear the champions of increasing the minimum wage talk, under the pretense of compassion for the minimum wage worker, what is the bottom line thing? There is an undercurrent here. You know what it is? it is arrogance. You know what it is really saying? ``You do not have the capability to get a raise yourself. You need me in Congress to increase your salary because you are too incompetent. We know you are going to be trapped at the minimum wage forever because you do not have the ability to move yourself up the economic free enterprise ladder.'' That is what the theme is that we are hearing from the Democrats. They are basically saying this entire section of the population is not passing through the minimum entry wage but that they are stuck there permanently, and there is a high degree of arrogance in this debate that never even gets mentioned.

Mr. KINGSTON. When I was earning the minimum wage and my fellow workers were earning the minimum wage, we never, never once thought about writing our Congressman to get a raise. What we thought about doing was working a little bit harder, staying a little bit longer, getting the job done a little bit faster, and there through the capitalist system, we got paid. It is too bad that our friends on the other side of the aisle seem to hate capitalism and seem to hate and have a true contemptuousness for free enterprise. But let me tell you, now some of them are very shrewd, and here is why. One other component that is missing from this debate is the fact that many States, such as Hawaii, such as New Jersey, have a State minimum wage already that is higher than the existing Federal minimum wage. The Federal minimum wage is $4.15 an hour. Hawaii's minimum wage, State minimum wage, is $5.25, and New Jersey's is $5.05. What is happening, when businesses are looking to move a plant to Hawaii or to New Jersey, they say, ``Well, that entry level salary is a little bit high, I think I can do better moving to another State,'' and then New Jersey is losing them. So what happens is we have got these States saying, ``Yes, we need to increase the minimum wage because we are at a competitive economic disadvantage because of our own State's policies.'' We are not hearing that in here, so this is not altruistic. We need to get the cards face up on the table about that.