Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I am happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Florida.

Mr. KINGSTON. The American people. I would also say maybe we can put in some Math-101 classes so when folks say Medicare going from $4,800 to $6,700 is a cut, we can work on that, because maybe they can do that without the beep being triggered. There could just be some misunderstanding on what number is greater. Mr. Speaker, I do want to point out one thing, though. There has been discussion about attaching things to this bill that has put the President in this bad position. In the words of the budget director, the Chief of Staff, and I believe I can quote him without causing any ruckus, the Republicans are now obviously resorting to a form of blackmail in order to push their agenda onto the country. This is unacceptable. This is blackmail. Those were the words of Leon Panetta in the White House press release November 9. Yet, as a Congressman he said, yet this is the only vehicle we have as we close these days before this recess to try to bring the American [[Page H 12323]] public what I think is a very important issue that relates to our ability to control spending and provide a shared sacrifice in terms of our approach. That came from the Congressional Record on June 28, 1984, which then- Congressman Panetta was saying, yes, it is okay to put stuff on these bills. They are a good vehicle. This is the only way we can do it. So, Mr. Speaker, when we talk about the Republican Party overloading some of the budget bills and trying to blackmail the President of the United States, I would say there are true philosophical differences. The Republican Party wants to reduce the size of Government. They want to end the micromanagement out of Washington. They want to give the middle class some tax relief. Yes, we are using legislative vehicles to do that. Members of the minority party do not want that; I understand that. But perhaps if the President would just agree that we want to balance the budget in 7 years, perhaps we could scale back on all this stuff. I think it is important to have the dialogue. I think it is important to have a debate, but, most importantly, let us put the American people first. Let us put their interests first and try to do the right thing.

Mr. KINGSTON. If it is polygraphs, the technology is out there, and that is the point. If we could just do this, I think it would be great.

Mr. KINGSTON

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

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

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am certainly glad to join the gentlemen in welcoming the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Weldon] back. We are glad to have him with us, and Democrats and Republicans during this stressful period of negotiations can certainly agree on that and keep in mind what is the most important thing. Mr. Speaker, as of November 8, 1995, our national debt was $4,984,737,460,958.92. Now that was on the 8th of November. On the 13th, which is today, that figure has risen to $4,985,913,011,032.65. We advance each week in terms of almost $3 billion. Mr. Speaker, this debt is passed on to our children. Now I have a 7-year-old daughter, and the other day, as I was coming off the floor making my daily phone call home, Ann asked me, ``Daddy, what were you voting on?'' And it was, as you will recall, Mr. Speaker, last week right after the vote on increasing the debt ceiling was held, and I had just voted to increase the debt ceiling on my 7-year-old, and I think that just having that happen immediately underscored the importance to me of what we are trying to do when we talk about balancing the budget. It is not academic, it is something that my 7- year-old daughter, her 5-year-old brother, her 10-year-old brother, and her 12-year-old sister will be having to pay. A child born today, Mr. Speaker, owes $187,000 in interest on the national debt during his or her 75-year lifetime, and that doe not even pay the principal down. Mr. Speaker, that is why I think it is so important right now for us to keep in mind why we are working late tonight, why are we working probably through Thanksgiving and maybe through Christmas. But we need to balance the budget for our children's children. Previous speaker tonight was talking about education and education being an investment. I could not agree with that statement more. But I can tell you another investment, and that is keeping America from going broke, and that is why it is so important for us to support this Republican plan to balance the 7-year budget, because you see, Mr. Speaker, in the year 2002 the Republican balanced budget plan has a zero deficit, but the President's plan has a $200 billion deficit in the year 2002. The differences are real. We have a real bill here. We want to balance the budget. We do not want to close government down. But we have got to do this for our children. Mr. Weldon from Florida has joined us, and I would like to yield the floor to him. I see he has a chart and also the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LaHood].

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, we are going to have about 7 minutes left. After the gentleman reads that, I would like everyone to sort of wrap up:

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me ask the freshmen, can you imagine coming to a body where they are saying something is going broke and you are supposed to waive it and you are saying, they always say it is going broke. We just have to get through the next 2 years. That is my concern. Would any of you be able to go home and run on that platform that you saw that report and ignored it?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, on this last-minute PR solution, more than anything, it was just to say we are in it, too. It calls for a commission to study Medicare. Here we have a group of professional trustees who study Medicare and they have said it is going broke. So what did the other party want to do? They wanted to study it even more.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, I am wondering, since you are from Cincinnati, there was a cartoon in one of the Cincinnati papers which showed a man and woman sitting around the kitchen tables paying their bills. They had a calculator and a big stack of envelopes going out to the companies that they owed money to, and the woman turns to her husband and says, ``Honey, I think we need to increase our debt ceiling.'' What that shows is that this is real. This means something to your daughter in Kentucky, and your family back in Ohio with that 30-year mortgage. This is real money that we are talking about. I was very disappointed last week, four of you folks are freshmen, the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Lewis, and I were here last year. But it was a shock to all of us when the President actually went golfing. The House passed a debt ceiling increase and continuing resolution to try to balance the budget, and the President held a press conference saying that he was going to veto it and then goes to play golf, the rich man's sport. While the Federal employees in 1 hour and 45 minutes will be furloughed, their President who claims to be their champion left to play golf. I hope it was a good round. I do not play. I do not know how to play. I have never been a member of the country club like the President. But a lot of Federal workers in my area do not play golf. And tomorrow when they wake up and do not have a job, they are not going to be playing golf. The President was playing golf.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, one thing to keep in mind is that under the 7-year balanced budget plan, we are increasing overall spending by $3 trillion instead of $4 trillion. Four trillion dollars would keep us on the road to bankruptcy, but we are increasing it $3 trillion, and in the same time, during the same period of time, balancing the budget; Medicare spending, as you know, goes from $178 billion to $286 billion. Let me repeat, and I see the gentleman from Kentucky wants to make a point on this, we are going from $178 billion to $286 billion during that 7-year time. That is an increase in Medicare, even if you have a Democrat deficit disorder.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let us just close with this, do we, members of the Republican freshman class, the sophomore class of the Republicans, do we want to shut down Government? Do we want Federal employees to be out of work tomorrow morning? Do we want the Republican Party to ruin this negotiation? Do we want one side to blink first? The answer to all of that is no. What we want is a balanced budget.What we want is Medicaid restructured. What we want is welfare reform. What we want is tax relief for the middle class. And above all we want to save, protect and preserve Medicare. We believe that there is plenty of room for a bipartisan agreement. Democrats and Republicans can come together for the children and the future of America. We are proud to participate in that process. We hold our hands open for our Democrat colleagues who want to join us and we hope and pray that the President of the Untied States will work with the leaders of House and Senate to do what is best, not for either party, not for reelection, but for the American public. I thank the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. LaHood], for being with me, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon], the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Chabot], the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth], a night-time regular, and the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Lewis], for this special order.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Please, would you? If the gentleman would yield to me, I would request that our colleagues speak under unanimous-consent agreement. I would greatly appreciate that because this is our hour, and we would like to make a few discussions. But I would certainly yield for unanimous-consent agreement.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I believe, getting back to the focus of balancing the budget, one of the things we hear over and over again is the Republicans are balancing the budget on the backs of, fill in the blank, frankly, children, elderly, national parks, the Democrat Party, any victim of the day that the Democrats can conjure up. But I had an interesting conversation. I called home and had an interesting conversation with my 7-year-old daughter, and I try to keep my children interested in the legislation process. I always heard people say stories like this. I say I am about to throw up. I find myself telling the story and feeling this. She said, ``Daddy, What were you voting on?'' I said, ``Raising the debt ceiling.'' I try to give an accurate answer. She said, ``What does that mean?'' She is 7 years old. I was thinking to myself, how do I phrase it, how do I phrase my generation is going to stick it to your generation? That is what it means. It means we cannot control ourselves so my little 7-year-old Anne and all her little schoolmates and all the schoolmates that come after her are going to pay for it, because we as a Congress have found it is more important to stay elected than it is to say no. I do not like telling these sappy, syrupy stories, but to talk to her immediately after the vote, knowing who is going to be saddled with that debt, and yet as I tried to explain to here what debt was, I also found a lot of, I guess, you know, felt better about it when I said. ``However, we are stopping this deficit spending more money than we bring in.'' I tried to explain to her, ``It is like you have an allowance and spending more than you are getting.'' She could not believe that. I lost her on that one. How could I spend more than 25 cents if you only give me 25 cents? But, you know, the fact is that I could end the conversation with my 7-year-old optimistic about the future rather than pessimistic, that if we can balance this budget and the interest rates come down, as Greenspan had indicated they would, and the American family can look for lower interest rates on home mortgages, on car loans, on credit cards, if we do not spend $200 billion each year on interest. Of course, we are going to continue to do that for a long, long time, but if we can at the end of 7 years see the light at the end of the tunnel, then it is worth working through this weekend, it is worth working through Saturday, Sunday, Monday night, and even worth working through Thanksgiving and Christmas as well, if that is what we need to do so that little boys and girls like my 7-year-old and your children can look forward to having a balanced budget one day, and that is not how they are going to look at it. But they should not be saddled with our debt.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, with the rising national debt, with the Government going out of control, with Washington micromanaging everyone's life, it is right and it is proper and it is time to get our house in order. We must balance this budget. I hear time and time again from this side of the aisle that we are doing it on the backs of children and seniors and so forth and national parks. If my colleagues want to play that kind of scare tactic game, I guess that is the way. As my colleagues know, we cannot convince people not to do that, but the time has come to be responsible. Mr. Speaker, we are increasing payments on Medicare from $4,800 to $6,700 per senior. On AFDC we are going up 39 percent, from $89 to $124 million. Our balanced budget, which the Democrats claim cuts and decimates and destroys, actually increases spending over a period of time about $3 trillion. It is a reduction in the growth, but it balances the budget in a 7-year period of time, and that, Mr. Speaker, is what needs to be done to bring our financial picture in order.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. You will wear it all day. You may want to wear it next season as well.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, today we in the Georgia delegation pick up a new Member. To the young men and women from Magnificent High School, I know this is shocking. But as your own gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke], who for the day, as part of being on the losing side of the World Series, becomes an honorary Georgian. Here is State flag for him, a tomahawk. I am going to give him some of the other Georgia products off the floor, but in the meantime I yield to him, and I want him to show the American people that he is truly an Atlanta Brave for the day, and he is wearing a Braves tie.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I think everything has been said that needs to be said on this issue. The NEA is clearly in violation of their original intended purpose when their tax exemption was granted. It is time for us to be honest about this issue. I do think that there are some other institutions that are in the city of Washington, DC, that we should probably look at in the future, but this is a good start. I do though want to emphasize that Members of our side of the aisle will be eager and ready to work with Members of the other side of the aisle in ferreting out some of these other institutions that have property tax exemptions, and let us get them to start paying property taxes to the city of Washington, DC, because the city needs the revenue and needs the money. So in the meantime, Mr. Chairman, I believe that we should all support this Bonilla amendment.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is interesting to me that the other side of this House is suddenly concerned about micromanaging Washington, DC. Maybe if they had dared to micromanage Washington, DC, for 1 or 2 of the years that they have been in the majority, Washington, DC, would not be a bankrupt city. Mr. Speaker, we are in a position where we have been working with the Financial Control Board, with city officials, with outside experts, all year long trying to turn the Nation's Capital around. It is a great city. They have some good folks involved in the government of Washington. We want them to run their own city. We want them to run the Nation's Capital. Yet, at the same time, we cannot continue year after year writing checks to Washington, DC, and turning the other way and act like the status quo is good enough. Mr. Speaker, the city is in the red. It has been in the red. The audit is just unbelievable, the amount of things that have been found in it. For the other side of this House to be saying that we are micromanaging it is absurd. Mr. Speaker, I have only been a Member of this body for 3 years, but I know that we have debated the abortion issue, the domestic partnership issue, year after year every time the DC bill comes up. That is not something new. That is something that, yes, there is a philosophical difference generally outlined by party differences on those particular issues. But actually bringing it to the floor of the House shows that we are not trying to ram it through in a backroom deal. We are not trying to micromanage. Mr. Speaker, these are things that we believe the American people should debate about. Remember this, the history of Washington, DC, is the Government moving to Washington. When George Washington was the President, the capital was in New York City and it was in Philadelphia. When they came here, it was a swamp. Washington surveyed this land, established the Nation's Capital and the city of Washington. The city of Washington, DC, grew up around Congress; not vice versa. The only city that was here was Georgetown. Washington, DC, actually went through a period of home rule and lost it in the year 1874, because of mismanagement. Congress took over then for 100 years and then in 1974, home rule was started again. We are at a situation now where we had all the evidence needed to pull home rule away, but we are choosing not to. The gentleman from New York [Mr. Walsh] and the committee, in a bipartisan basis with the gentleman from California [Mr. Dixon] has said no. Let us do not. Let us work with the Financial Control Board. Let us work with the city officials and give them the arm's-length support and leadership and partnership that they need to turn this great Nation's Capital around. Mr. Speaker, I am confident that we can do that and I urge Members to support the rule.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to mention to the gentleman from Minnesota that in the Treasury-Post Office conference committee I offered an amendment to the Istook-McIntosh bill that said groups and organizations that spend less than $25,000 a year on lobbying efforts and government outreach and contact would be exempted. That actually exempts 96 percent of these groups that we do need to have input from homeless shelters, museums, art galleries, symphonies and so forth, and that amendment takes away so much of the argument against the Istook bill that people have been giving us, where we need input, and we said okay, we have an amendment that took care of that. You know, I agree with the gentleman that the big, big money involved in this has been abused by people who say well, we are not lobbying. If they are not, why not support the bill?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke], the gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. Graham], the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth], and the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler], this concludes our special order. The bottom line is in reconciliation: What is in it for the American people? Welfare reform, saving, and protecting, and preserving Medicare, Medicaid grants, a middle-class tax cut, medical savings account, but, above all, tackling the balanced budget and going after a budget that will even out after 7 years.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Graham.

Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman from Arizona?