Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, on April 3, 1895, one of the great cities of Georgia's First Congressional District and indeed America was born. The following article, written by Mrs. Lois Barefoot Mays talks about this event and the celebration of the Folkston, GA, U.S.A. centennial parade last Saturday on April 1. [From the Charlton County (GA) Herald, Mar. 1, 1995] Just a Piece of Paper (By Lois Barefoot Mays) To see me from afar, you would think I was just an ordinary piece of paper. But I'm very special. Why, I'm one hundred years old and still going strong. I am the charter for Folkston, Georgia, United States of America, North American Continent, God's little blue planet Earth, the Universe. On April 1st, 1995, my little town will be the center of the universe. There will be a joyous homecoming of people who once lived within my borders and who will return for my one hundredth birthday. They'll celebrate together with the residents by dancing, eating tasty food, enjoying a patriotic parade and especially by greeting friends they haven't seen for a while. There'll be lots of smiles, hugs and handshakes. They'll speak of friends that have died and maybe even take time for a thoughtful walk through the well-kept cemetery. Perhaps they'll recall leaders of the Folkston community who made lasting impressions on their lives. People like Dr. McCoy, Mrs. Belle Roddenberry, L.E. Stokes, Miss Mayme and John Harris, William Mizell, Mary Stokes Davis, Scott and Ralph Johnson, Tom Gowen, John Southwell and others. And they will have good stories to tell about those leaders, stories worth remembering, that can be used in Sunday School rooms later when they study what integrity means. I won't be able to hear all that's going on because I will be resting in a file somewhere, but my spirit is alive and well in this southeastern Georgia bit of heaven. I was really born as the Town of Folkston in April, 1895, but before that date the Village of Folkston was here. As the cry of a new-born baby signals a brand new life, the wail of a steam engine on the newly-laid rails of the S.F & W. Railroad brought folks together and when stores and homes were built near the covered platform called ``The Station'', the Village of Folkston was born. That first loud train, scaring people and animals alike, thundered through what is now Folkston on March 30, 1881. Why, that's the same year President James A. Garfield began his term of office and the year the painter Pablo Picasso was born! Fourteen years later the village had a splendid depot, large Masonic Lodge, at least six stores, two hotels, cotton gins, grist mill and homes for the nearby families. It was no longer called ``The Station'' but had been named for Dr. W.B. Folks of Waycross and called at first, ``Folkstown'' and quickly shortened to ``Folkston''. As the men of the village, always eager to argue the merits of their favorite horse, leaned on the fence of the Roddenberry Hotel livery stable in the spring of 1895 and discussed events of the times, the main topic must have been local government and how to have some control over clearly illegal situations. They needed strict rules that would make it unlawful for anyone to indulge in card playing or dancing on the Sabbath; rules that made it against the law to fasten horses or mules to shadetrees or buildings in such a way that folks couldn't walk on the sidewalk or get in the door of a store. And they needed men elected by the majority of the other men of the village to be the ones to enforce these rules. So, on the 26 day of March, 1895 a referendum was held, seeking the will of the people. A decision was to be made: did they really want a charter with printed laws with which to abide, or did they want to continue as just a group of families brought together by the common bond of living close to the railroad tracks. Results of the election were probably predicted beforehand. Thirty-two men voted on that day and those thirty-two men voted a resounding unanimous ``YES, we want to be a real TOWN of Folkston.'' Three of the community's leaders, J.S. Mizell, H.S. Matox and H.A. Renfroe were election superintendents that important day and immediately a short signed, asking the Charlton Superior Court for permission to incorporate. Eight days later, on April 3rd, 1895, probably as the first order of business of Superior Court Judge, J.W. Sweat at the April term of court of Traders Hill. I was born. The order creating me as the Town of Folkston was scratched with quill pen and ink on this yellowed sheet of ruled paper and signed by Judge Sweat. So that's who I am--just a folded paper document--an object that means home and life-long friends to those who once lived within my borders ... but to those fortunate ones who enjoy the privilege of strolling my sidewalks, or talking daily with friends made fifty years or more ago, or the unexcelled pleasure of standing on the depot porch hearing and watching a mile-long train roar through Love, Main and Martin Streets all at once. I'm a sacred piece of paper. ... I'm the best! In fact, right now I'm the center of the universe!

Mr. KINGSTON

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

Mr. KINGSTON. I was just hoping that in your list of winners you would include 87.5 percent of the American people who will benefit from this $500 per child tax credit. It is a pretty significant group in the population of the country that will benefit from the Contract With America, and I would hope my friend from Ohio would mention this large group of our citizens.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to comment, just a few comments on my friend who spoke previously in front of me. I think that it is important that as we debate and talk about the situation in America today that we try and leave class envy and prejudice out of it. I know it just sounds so appealing to say everybody's billionaires and millionaires. I guess because you are successful you become guilty of overachievement; therefore, you should be overtaxed equally. Maybe that is the Democrat mantra; but, as I was pointing out earlier, the distribution of the $500 per child tax credit--and you know what, Mr. Speaker, I am going to go ahead and move down to the easel because I was not intending to show this, but let us go ahead and make sure. All right. You know, I know the Democrats do not like our charts, and there is reason they do not like our charts. They do not like the truth. When you are pushing propaganda, you do not like to have people stand up and say, well, here is a source that is a neutral source that comes from the Tax Foundation. It is not the Republican party. It is not Newt Gingrich's office. But that 87.5 percent of the people who benefit from this middle-class tax cut are people under $75,000 in income. That is pretty much middle class. You know, it is a very mainstream tax credit. Now, here is on the capital gains tax. Most of the people who will be benefiting, this larger column, make under $50,000 a year. I hope that when we reconvene in May that we can get away from this class envy and this if you do well we are going to attack you because you have done something wrong along the way. I like to believe that people who are successful have done so usually by helping others, by selling a quality good or delivering a service that is needed in America today. Now, let us talk about the Contract With America, which I know the press and a lot of folks on the other side of the aisle do not like. But the Contract With America, if you go back to when it was introduced in October, everyone said, well, this is cute, but it will never get passed, nobody is really interested in it, and the Republicans are the minority party and will not make a difference. Well, that was in October. November, what happened? It was passed. And then for the first time in history the media started calling it Contract With America instead of Contract for America. That was a big step within the national liberal media. Then, by December, what had happened? Instead of people saying, hey, the November elections are over with, ho hum, let's go home, they said this is really different, we are going to have some changes, we are going to have some fundamental changes in Washington, DC. These folks have a campaign promise that they are telling people put on your refrigerator door, call us, follow up, make sure that we follow through on our promise to you that we made on the campaign trail. And now all the new freshmen, all the sophomore class, all the senior Republicans delivered. But, more importantly, Mr. Speaker, 70 percent of the items on the Contract With America passed with bipartisan support. Democrats joined in. Why? Not because they are in love with Newt Gingrich but because their constituents wanted these items. This is what 60 to 70 to 80 percent of Americans want: smaller government, fewer regulations, more personal freedom, get the government off my back, lower my taxes. And that is what the Contract With America is all about. the budget. Now, the third largest item on the budget, the third largest expenditure, is interest on the national debt, interest paid to bondholders of our debt. In 2 years that interest alone will be more than our military or defense spending, which means you are paying more interest in the year 1997 on the national debt than you will for the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the National Guard, the Air Force, and all of them combined. We have got to do something about it, and it is a bipartisan problem. We got here by bipartisan action, and we have got to get out of it that way. When we pay so much interest on the national debt, your taxes go up, you have less money to put into education or health care, the interest rates go up. Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, says it makes as much as a 2 percent increase in the interest rate on your home mortgage, on your automobile mortgage, and it is inflationary. We have got to address this problem. It is not going to be easy, but it has got to be done across the board, it has got to be done in a fair manner, and I hope, Mr. Speaker, we can do it in a bipartisan manner. Just to give you an idea, farm programs in the year 1986 had a spending level of $26 billion. Today, they are $10.6 billion. And yet agriculture is better than ever. We have a lot of food today, Mr. Speaker. If we can do that with agriculture, we can do it with the rest of our Nation's budget. I look forward to being a part of that process.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, of course, the Democrats and the White House are concerned about the circus coming to town. They hate having the competition. Besides, they might get stomped on by a charging elephant. They already had that experience in November. But have they no shame? For the past 40 years, while controlling the House, the Democrats had deficit spending, and now suddenly they are deficit hawks concerned about a tax cut that might hurt the economy or the deficit, according to them. Of course, we know that Democrats love taxes, so they do not want to give up on any tax revenue. But I would say to my friends on that side of the aisle, if they would look at history, economic history, they would see that tax cuts actually increase revenues. From 1956 to 1969, taxes were down, and GDP increased. From 1970 to 1982, taxes were up and GDP went down, revenue from taxes went down. From 1983 to 1988, revenue from taxes went up and taxes were down. But then after the 1989-90 tax bill, taxes went up and revenues went down. Mr. Speaker, this is economic history. It is not partisan politics. I would be happy to share it with any of the Members.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, but you have been not been yielding to us, and I hope you will yield back when you have the time.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the gentlewoman, and learned, and one of the more intelligent Members on the Democrat side, surely you know the wisdom of the chart shown here earlier, saying the bulk of the tax returns go to people who make under $75,000 a year. What could be better for the middle class? It was your President who promised the middle-class tax cut. We are just the party who happens to be keeping its feet to the fire on it. Welfare reform, let's end welfare reform as we know it. The President forgot about that, but we are going to help him out with it. The balanced budget amendment, we are going to help him out. The line-item veto, no mention of it for 2 years, but we are going to help him out.

Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, I will be glad to yield when we get back on your time schedule.

Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas

Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I guess one of the big differences in Democrats and Republicans is we are not afraid of achievement. You know, if somebody pulls themselves up and they start out of school, and maybe they go to college and maybe they don't, maybe they serve in the military, maybe they don't, but they get a job, and the man and woman hang together and become a family, and they move up into an income bracket, well, I don't think it is right to suddenly say ``Ha, your child is now not worth any money anymore.'' I say ``Go for it. We want that achievement.'' I know a lot of government bureaucracies which are affinity groups to the Democrat party want more dependents. They tend to fight success. We want to nurture success. We want to say ``Go all the way to the top.'' That is why we want to return, and not even return, just don't take it away to begin with, people's tax dollars from them. Let me give some very important statistics which I really wish you all would, and I will promise you, any of your Democrats or any of your constituents that would call my office, I will give you a copy of these charts, and I will explain it to you. Let me tell you what these numbers show. When taxes are high, growth goes down. When growth goes down, the deficit increases. If growth and revenue increase, the deficit is lowered. This is not just Jack Kingston and the gentleman from Georgia, Newt Gingrich, and the Republican Party, this comes from the Joint Economic Committee, which as you know, is Senate and House Members chaired by, I believe, the Committee on Ways and Means Members, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Gibbons on this side, and Mr. Moynihan on the Senate side. They say ``As these increases in productivity, brought about by lower taxes and economic growth, accumulate over time, a gradual expansion of taxable income base generates additional tax revenues.'' This is straight from here.

Mr. KINGSTON. I'm going to yield quickly. Don't make a speech on my time.

Mr. KINGSTON. Certainly.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if we could sum up what we have been hearing for the last hour on the floor of the House, I think you could just say Democrats love taxes. Republicans hate taxes. Democrats love big government. Republicans hate big government. Democrats love the public sector. Republicans like the private sector. I won't venture to say that maybe Democrats seem to love poor children and hate rich children, but there does seem to be, in the Democrat mindset, a distinction between a rich child and a poor child, as opposed to loving all children equally. Let us get back to the tax issues. I think the reason why the Democrats are gripping this tax so hard is because they love taxes. We are taking taxes away from them. You don't mess with their toys. They don't like that. So what do we have?

Mr. KINGSTON

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

Mr. KINGSTON. I was on the board of directors of a corporation before I came here. I know from talking to other business people that generally you decide how much profit you are going to make. Everything else is overhead, your payroll, taxes, everything else. I think you can successfully argue that corporations are not going to pay taxes regardless of what the rate is because it is a pass-through cost, just as the gentleman from New Jersey and you have said. It all goes back to the consumer so we are just playing games when we say it is corporations.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. That is exactly right. That is the point I was trying to make.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is important for us to realize that lower taxes, specifically lower capital gains taxes, increase revenue, and that does not come from the Republican Party, it comes from the Congressional Budget Office. A young fellow named Steve Robinson and I spent the whole day tracking this. This chart is busy, and it is very difficult to see it, but generally what it shows is, remember back in high school sines and cosines and that go like this: Basically when the tax revenue is high, the capital gains tax is high, and let's say the capital gains tax is low, it goes like a wave, then the tax revenues are the same thing. At a high tax rate, the revenues are low. At a low tax rate, the revenues are high. It goes like that. There is an absolute relationship between the two. It is not voodoo economics. This actually goes back to----

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Was that John F. Kennedy? I see that this goes back to 1960.

Mr. KINGSTON. A lower tax rate increases revenue to the Federal budget.

Mr. KINGSTON. We will time it. I have a chart here. I do not know if you have seen it, but what this one shows clearly is that a lower tax rate actually increases revenue to the Federal budget and also that the economic----

Mr. KINGSTON. I will give you a minute of my time when it is my turn.

Mr. KINGSTON. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. What is also ironic, while he is out saying the Republican welfare reform is mean or inadequate or whatever, not only has he not offered an alternative but then he goes on to talk about our program and how good it is. But he did not use the word Republican. He says, this is what we need: work programs and programs that will end the cycle and get the dad into the picture and identified and so forth. I think it is disappointing, but you were talking about senior citizens and to increase the Social Security tax as your first year in office and then to fight trying to repeal that tax increase does have a degree of hypocrisy to it.

Mr. KINGSTON. Well if the gentleman will yield, there is another key element, and that is the welfare reform. The President did say he would end welfare as we know it, yet never submitted a welfare bill. And so that would mean 5 planks in the 10-plank Republican Contract With America the President actually ran on as candidate Clinton in 1992.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield further, I think that, essentially, when you consider what happened to the balanced budget amendment in the other body, three Democrat Senators voted against the balanced budget amendment. If the President did not fight the balanced budget amendment I think it is very possible, given the fact that he is a great salesman, that he could twist some arms and pick up the one, two, three or four votes that are needed to get the thing over the top.