Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. For Mother's Day you can tell her that the Republican proposal for Medicare increases her benefits from $5,000 to $7,000 and saves the fund from going broke by giving her more options. Those options, as we all know, put more competition in there, give your mother a little bit more to choose from than a Blue Cross, Blue Shield policy.

Mr. KINGSTON. We are going from about $5,000 per individual. I notice that the gentlewoman from California has a beautiful picture of her mother there.

Mr. KINGSTON. On our truth meter here tonight I have three lies real quickly. Two we have dealt with. One is misconstruing the Speaker's quote, which was an outright deliberate misrepresentation, a lie, as we would say back home. No. 2, saying that a fund that is losing money does not have financial problems. Then No. 3, saying that the new Republican budget cuts Medicare, when the Republican budget that has just been introduced this year actually increases Medicare spending from, and I have the exact number with me, it goes up to $305 billion from $190 billion. So here the Republican budget increases Medicare spending from 190 to 305 billion and we have heard people as recently as 20 minutes ago saying this is a cut.

Mr. KINGSTON. let us look at this, because here we have a trust fund that has lost $4.2 billion a year to date on Medicare. Here we have the Clinton appointed Medicare trustees last April saying that it would be broke in 6 years. Then what do we have? We have the minority Democrat leader, Dick Gephardt, saying, the Republicans are saying this because the report will have solvency problems that there is a great emergency, this is a hoax. That was said on Meet the Press, July 30, 1995. Another one, great Dick Gephardt again: It is a big lie to say that Medicare is in trouble. These are people who are paid $134,000 a year. They ought to know what the truth is. Mr. Speaker, on the time, I did not get that courtesy from our Democrats who just spoke, but I offered them some of our time to defend this statement. Let me tell Members that this trust fund is not broke. Well, let me tell the gentleman who just spoke, here is the chart. I do not know what you call it when you have more money going out than you do coming in. But back home on Main Street America, when that happens to American families, that is called going broke.

Mr. KINGSTON. I have two other sources that confirm the same thing. Here is the Washington Post, that great conservative newspaper which has endorsed every Democrat who has run for office for the President since the paper's existence, but it says here, Medicare is nearer to the red, that the Clinton trustee, who last April 3 predicted it was going to go bankrupt in 2 years, miscalculated. And then this other chart shows what the actual trust funds are for the fiscal year 1996, right now losing over $4 billion, $4.2 billion, year to date. This chart is actually as of April 23, 1996, this comes from the New York Times, which, again, is not any kind of a conservative propaganda sheet by anybody's stretch. But this is fact. And what is so amazing is we still have the Democrat party and leadership in absolute denial.

Mr. KINGSTON. I thought that day was back in April. April 15. Why are we in May?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to my friend from Ohio over here that if the Washington Post is a conservative newspaper, then the Grateful Dead is a country and western band. I also, in fact, before he leaves, I was going to ask Mr. Pallone about one of these quotes that I had because I thought this was interesting, April 24, ``well, let me tell you, Members, that this trust fund is not broke.'' I cannot believe that a Member of the House would say that, contrary to all the evidence. But it is interesting. I want to make this point because I asked our Democrat colleagues three times if they would yield, three times was denied, and one reason that I think my good friends would not yield any time is they wanted to have free rein of one of their most specious mistruths that I hear them say. That is the quote that the Speaker said that Medicare was going to wither on the vine, when they know, because we have pointed out to them that that was in reference to HCFA, the Health Care Financing Administration in Washington, and that the Democrat Party has notoriously and maliciously misconstrued that quote. The reason why they would not yield time is because it is easy to run your mouth about something or talk about something when there is no one there to challenge you. If either one of them wanted to come to the floor right now and debate this, I control the time, I will be happy to yield to them so that they can talk about it. But otherwise, Democrats can continue to throw softballs back and forth to each other. Then Republicans can come down here and throw softballs back and forth to each other. And do you know who loses? The American people. I think it is much better to have a truthful and honest dialogue than just this one-sided aren't we great, let's polish off our halos, let's convince the C-SPAN audience. As long as you are here, I will yield time to my friend, Mrs. Seastrand from California, and the gentleman from Maryland, Mr. Ehrlich. We are going to talk about this. Let me yield to the gentlewoman from California [Mrs. Seastrand].

Mr. KINGSTON. I think it is also important to note that just about everybody in working America buys gasoline and we have a President who has bragged about, ``I feel your pain.'' I believe he feels people's gas pain, too, because he caused it, with an additional 4 cents per gallon gas tax. Every time you fill up with 10 gallons, you pay 40 cents more because of the 1993 Bill Clinton gas tax. I represent a rural area. Folks have to drive a long way to get places. It hurts them disproportionately. I know out west people are hurt disproportionately. Working people, the people with lower incomes, have a higher percentage hit. This is a 30 percent gas tax increase. The average gas tax right now per gallon is 38 cents. That is the combination of Federal and State. Are we saying now that only wealthy people buy gas?

Mr. KINGSTON. It is a complex problem, buying gas. I could see why Mr. Stephanopoulos could not follow it. ``You mean people actually fill up the gas tank and drive to work?'' That would be revolutionary over there on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Mr. KINGSTON. Another great example of this is the minimum wage. It sounds great. ``Let's give people 90 cents an hour more. It won't hurt them.'' Yet if you look at what an increase in the minimum wage has done over the last increases, it decreases the number of jobs that are out there. This will cost Americans over 250,000 jobs. There are some interesting statistics on the minimum wage when we look at it. Only 2 percent of the people get minimum wage over 30 years old on an average. Thirty-nine percent of the people making minimum wage are teenagers. Sixty-six percent of the people making minimum wage are part-time workers. And on an average, an employee who starts at minimum wage today, in one year has a salary of $6.05 an hour. When you look at this and think that if you increase the minimum wage, you eliminate the number of jobs, you are going to increase the cost of groceries or services, goods and whatever it is that the retail stores sell, it is not a winner for the taxpayer, it is not good for the job seeker, it is not good for the teenager, it is not good for the employees, and it is not good for middle class America. Even though it is politically expedient to say, ``Yeah, let's give them a raise.'' But the thing is, we have offered a gas tax cut, $500 per child tax credit, lower taxes on income taxes and things like this. You can put more real dollars in the pockets of American workers without expanding the size of government and government mandates.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I will be happy to yield back to you.

Mr. KINGSTON. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, a lot of people think that the President has lost touch since he has flip-flopped so many times that maybe it has affected his head and his thinking. But it is not true. Bill Clinton still feels your pain. In fact, Bill Clinton feels your gas pain. He even caused your gas pain, 4 cents a gallon, a 30-percent gas tax increase. That is about the price of a can of beans with every 10 gallons of gas, about a 40- cent difference. So this summer, Mr. Speaker, what I say to middle-class Americans, when you are on vacation filling up your gas tank, spending that extra 40 cents, go ahead, buy the President a can of beans and send it to the White House. That way, not only will Bill Clinton feel your gas pain, but he can share in it as well.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, that last 1-minute was almost ridiculous. Why is your gas going up? Well, yes, it has to do with market, and perhaps there is a little too much coziness between the big oil companies, who have always been putting generous donations into Democratic campaign coffers. But one thing we must never forget is that gas, every single gallon, is 4.3 cents higher because Bill Clinton resides in the White House, and under a Democrat majority Congress they increased your gas prices 4.3 cents per gallon and Americans have been paying that for 2\1/2\ years. I ask my Democrat colleagues who are so concerned about America's working class to join me in asking the President to repeal his excessive 4.3-cents-per-gallon gas tax and let us give Americans a little help this summer.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I was necessarily absent on Tuesday, April 30, 1996. Had I voted on H.R. 3008 and H.R. 1824, I would have voted ``yes'' on both.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me the time. On the subject of the minimum wage, which of course we are talking about here, cutting spending, so the Democrats will do anything to get off a spending cut and start talking about something else. Let us talk about the minimum wage. I know the folks over there are simply economically ignorant. I do not believe they are malicious, but you know, who do you think is going to get jobs when you eliminate the minimum wage? Or when you increase it? It is going to be good-bye teenage employment for the summer. Nobody is going to be able to get jobs. I would challenge the comrades over on the other side of the aisle, go talk to Burger King, go talk to McDonald's, go talk to any small business, go talk to a pet shop or go talk to a construction company. Ask them how many jobs they will have to eliminate when you increase the minimum wage? If you want to show compassion, do not show compassion with 90 cents more an hour. Show compassion with a $500 per child tax credit which you fought. Show compassion to repeal the 4 cents per gallon gas tax which the President increased.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. As the gentleman pointed out, with the veto of the balanced budget and not offering an alternative, what you have done is you said no to lower interest rates because a balanced budget would have lowered interest rates 2 percent. Businesses would have been able to expand. Jobs would have been created. Therefore, you are saying no to lower interest rates, no to new jobs. And also, you are saying no to the $500 per child tax credit, the much-needed tax relief to the middle class in America. That is what we need so desperately.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, as things go, had our bill passed into law instead of been vetoed by the President, your constituent would have in her pocket today $1,500 extra which she could use for clothes, for textbooks, for college education accounts and so forth. Instead, that $1,500 did not go to deficit reduction, it went to welfare expansion, other programs such as the AmeriCorps program which pays ``volunteers'' $26,000 a year, and most of them who end up going through the program end up working for the government, and just countless other bureaucratic, Washington-based command and control programs. You know, I have a lot of faith in the people of Arizona. I have never lived there. I have not visited your fine State as much as I want to.

Mr. KINGSTON. I would like to do that.

Mr. KINGSTON. But I have just as much faith in your folks as I do in mine, and my people would do fine without Washington command and control bureaucrats telling them how they need to run education, telling them how to run the environment, telling them how to run health care, telling them how to run welfare. We have ideas of our own in the First District of Georgia, and we can do fine without Washington bureaucrats. Just think about what we are doing. We send our money to bureaucrats and then they tell us how to spend it. They get their cut and they send part of it back to us to run programs, and we know these people better than they do. We can do a better job on poverty, right down the street, than people in Washington can. I often think about that story, and you have heard it, ``The Star Tosser.'' I do not remember the author, do not even remember the name, but the guy walks up and down the beach picking up starfish and he throws them in the water. Every morning he does that after high tide. He throws these starfish back in the water. Somebody came up to him one day and said, ``What are you doing? You cannot save all these washed ashore starfish. There are thousands of them. On a good day, you maybe get 150 of them back in the ocean. What difference could you possibly make?'' The man picked up a starfish and said, ``I do not know what difference I make, but I am going to make a heck of a difference to this one right here,'' and he threw it in the ocean. Now, the point is, I cannot clear up poverty in Arizona or in California or all over the country. I might not even be able to do it in my own hometown, but I know this: I am going to have a heck of a lot better shot at taking care of poverty in my hometown than I will in your hometown.

Mr. KINGSTON. I hear people laughing through the camera at this point, but I just want to say one think you two could do is eat a little more Vidalia onions.

Mr. KINGSTON. Yes, but I still like rock and roll and do so any chance I get. I just do not want my 13-year-old daughter to know about it.

Mr. KINGSTON. What the bureaucrats in Washington are telling us is they are so smart, they can do it in all of our hometowns.