Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, our Contract With America states the following: On the first day of Congress, a Republican House will require Congress to live under the same laws as everyone else; cut committee staffs by one-third; and cut the congressional budget. We have done this. It goes on to state that in the first 100 days, we will vote on the following items: A balanced budget amendment--we have done this; unfunded mandates legislation--we have done this; line-item veto--we have done this; a new crime package to stop violent criminals--we are doing this now; welfare reform to encourage work, not dependence; family reinforcement to crack down on deadbeat dads and protect our children; tax cuts for families to lift Government's burden from middle-income Americans; national security restoration to protect our freedoms; senior citizens' equity act to allow our seniors to work without Government penalty; government regulatory reform; commonsense legal reform to end frivolous--lawsuits; and congressional term limits to make Congress a citizen legislature. This is our Contract With America.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, we hear a lot about the Contract With America, often from Republicans, but often from the other side of the aisle as well and most of it is criticism. I do not see a solid alternative from them at this point now that we are in our third month almost of being in session. The contract actually asks for very specific things and attempts to address neglected parts of our society and our Government which have not been running well in the past 15, 20, or 40 years, however you want to count. Part of the contract was to pass a balanced budget amendment and line-item veto. This has been done. Another part of it was to stop the unfunded mandate practice of the Federal Government to require local cities and county governments to do certain things but not have us pay for it, and they in turn have to turn around and tax their own constituents, which is basically a tax increase that we are giving people through the back door. The other thing we have been trying to and we have had a debate on it last week and this week was to put the criminal justice system, to focus on the criminal and protect the victim and protect society and not treat the criminal like one more special interest group. It seems in the course of the debate that many people have been saying, oh, you've got to do this for the criminal and you have to look out for him and her and their best interests and so forth. We have had that. That is what we have got now. It is time to lock people up who commit crimes. It is time to give them swift punishment. It is time for them to serve an adequate amount of their sentence, preferably 100 percent of the time but maybe 80 or 90 percent. Currently the average criminal serves 35 percent of his or her sentence. As a consequence, our police officers are arresting people not for the second or third time but for the ninth, 10th, and 11th time. I would hate to be a police officer going out on the streets that they are supposed to protect and times. But that is the situation we are in. This program also cuts out a lot of Federal bureaucratic jobs. There again that is a constituency that some people want to protect but I think most people in America want to see a reduction in the bureaucracy. The way it does this is give block grants back to the States. We hear so much about the 100,000 police officers that the President's program allegedly handles. But, in fact, for most it only pays for 25 percent. After that, the municipality is stuck with the cost for these additional police officers. What our program says is, ``Look. You may want to put money into the police officers but you may need new communications equipment, you may need new police cars, and if you do, we want to give you that option, because we here in Washington don't have the answer for every 39,000 of the cities across America.'' We feel that people on the local level know better. We have passed that today. It will go to the Senate, it will have further debate, they will amend the bill, it will come back to us, as will some of the other bills in the Contract With America, but we are working to fulfill our commitment with the American people. We are going to start next on welfare reform and national security prohibiting American soldiers from being under U.N. command. Refining our military so that it is not too expensive, not wasting money but effective and able to meet the challenges of the world. There are a lot of things in our Contract With America, things like legal reform, helping senior citizens by letting them stay in the workplace longer and not having to penalize them on their Social Security. There is also family reinforcement, $500 per child tax credit. These things will help make America great again. But in addition to this, Mr. Speaker, we are not stopping with the contract. We are going into the appropriations process. The President's recently introduced budget adds another $1 trillion to a $4.8 trillion debt. We cannot afford that. Already the third largest expenditure on the national budget is the interest on the national debt. It is about $20 billion each and every month, and that is money that is gone forever. We need to reduce the deficit so that we do not year after year continue to add to the size of the debt. I will say quickly it is a Democrat and a Republican problem. It got there that way. And I will say that many of the items in the contract, as I hope our budget ideas will be worthy of bipartisan support, because we need to do this together as Democrats and Republicans so that we can represent the best interests of America.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. There is another angle to this, too. In my area, for example, Bulloch County, GA, Statesboro, GA, Georgia Southern University has a lot of growth. There are a lot of ladies who are widows now but they live on a family farm which is in a growth area. The city is sprawling, and they want to sell that property. They have owned it for 30 years. They may have bought it for $10,000. Now it is worth a half-a-million dollars. But they are in their seventies or eighties. They cannot farm it. They have trouble getting somebody to lease it out. They want to sell it. Their fixed income on Social Security and whatever benefits may be $12,000 or $15,000, but if they sell that farm, then all of a sudden they are in the highest tax bracket.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I think one of the problems is that the American people just get so frustrated when we cannot get control of everything, and it seems that time after time, we are forgetting the victim, we are forgetting what is in the best interests of society, and we are going to the extreme to protect or defend some thug, and we are beating the law in his favor. As a result, we are not getting the convictions we need. These people are getting out. It is all a case of who can find the best technicality, and it does not really change the fact that this person may have committed murder, may have raped somebody, may have kicked the door in and beat some people up. That seems to be secondary to finding the technicality to getting them off. I am glad we are correcting this.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is right. He sends it back, submits it to us. And incidentally, he can say, look, I do like the New York Yankees, and I am going to give them a little bit of sweetener for the shipyard down in Florida, and there is a relationship. So instead of giving them $50 million, he decides to give them $25 million. He does not even have to zap it out. He can just reduce it. Then we get it back within 10 days. We have 20 days to vote on it. If we decide not to vote on it, it is law. One other thing that is important to know, this is on spending, but if we pass a sweetheart tax deal and it only benefits less than 100 people or 100 or less specific corporations, just a clear conflict, because some powerful committee chairman says, look, I want you to take care of my little buddies over here, the President can also veto those out. People complain all the time about tax loopholes. This gives the President and, in this case, the Democrat President the chance to stand up to those.

Mr. KINGSTON. We rejected that. This package, what is so different about it, he sends it back to us. We have 20 days to say yes or no or to modify it or pass part of it or not, but if we do not take action, it is automatically in effect. So the ball is in our court. It is not this, oh, well, we just kind of look the other way and pretend it does not count. The clock starts and we have got 20 days.

Mr. KINGSTON. That says that when the President does this, then it comes back to the Congress and we sit on it. And what he actually vetoed out does not take place, but we do not ever have to vote on it again. It is just the same old----

Mr. KINGSTON. One of the many votes on this was rejection of what I would call the light-item veto, l-i-g-h-t.

Mr. KINGSTON. The people who opposed it generally used this philosophical argument that it tipped the balance of power. But what they were really saying is I want my pork. And I think we saw, for example, getting back to the earthquake, on the earthquake we sneaked into the budget or had sneaked in $1.3 million for the Hawaiian sugar cane mills. We have $1.5 million to convert a nuclear power commercial ship into a museum, or $10 million for a new train station in New York.

Mr. KINGSTON. Forty-three Governors have it. We have it in our State of Georgia. It has worked effectively. The Governor does not overuse it. But what it does is it puts him back in the process.

Mr. KINGSTON. Of course, the great American you are speaking of is Ronald Reagan, and he was a man even before he was elected President who talked about the concept of the line-item veto. And the analogy that I have given my voters is just imagine if you are in a grocery store and you are buying your meat and potatoes, your fruit and your vegetables, and you are in the checkout line and the cashier says buy some caviar for me. You say I don't owe you any caviar. I don't eat caviar, it is too expensive. He says if you want your meat and potatoes, you have got to buy my caviar. That sounds bizarre, but that is how the Congress has treated the American people, and the American presidents, for all these years. That anytime the President would go into an area like a flood disaster or something like that, we would always go in there and tack on our latest social program, our new little warm and fuzzy midnight basketball of the month or whatever it was. We say OK, we know you want to take care of the California earthquake victims, but in addition to this I want a little research money for the university back my way. This gives the President the actual ability to take a pen and line item that out, that pork out of there, and say we do not need it anymore.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I think, though, what is really important is as we talk to our two freshmen that are with us, is that this spirit of change really was affected by your election. It would not have happened. We would be continuing at the status quo of year after year everybody signs the balanced budget amendment, year after year everybody signs the line item veto, and a couple of these other hero bills, and you go back home and tell your Rotary Club, ``I sponsored a bill, but doggone it, those rascals in Washington will not get it to the floor.'' The time for that kind of talk is over with, because of the huge new freshman class, and a freshman class who as candidates went out on a limb, most I think signed the Contract, but they said, ``This is my agenda. If you elect me, this is what I am going to go for.'' And instead of throwing away that brochure on a election night, they are coming back day after day and reminding the voters what they said, instead of waiting for the voters to invite them. With that, I think we owe them a lot of this credit, just to get the chance to vote. You may want to comment on, you know, what it is like. Because Mr. Hoke and I served under a previous regime, and it was not as fun and certainly it was not as vigorous as what we are doing now.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let us just say it is an education bill, health care, welfare reform, and we stick in there, as are actual cases in years past, $58 million for the American Shipbuilding Co. in Tampa, FL, $11 million for a powerplant modernization for a naval shipyard that is about to be closed in Philadelphia. And we stick in another $1 million for plant stress studies in Texas. The President gets the health care bill. He says, wait, these three items, I do not like them. And so he circles them so to speak sends them back to Congress. He has got to do that within 10 days. He cannot just sit on it.

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, there is certainly a philosophical question that these should probably not be things that the Federal Government is involved in. But more importantly than that, we have got people who have health care emergencies because of the earthquake, business emergencies, lives literally at stake. We need to get the money out to help the earthquake victims. We do not need to be sending it for train stations. The list goes on and on. But remember, it is every single appropriation bill has this little Christmas tree, what is in it for me, and if you want something in Ohio, then you are going to take care of me in Georgia. That is one reason why we have a national debt approaching $5 trillion right now.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is right. Also what we are doing is we are making her dependent, because she may want to sell that farm so she can go into a long-term care home. We are saying you cannot do that. She wants to be independent. That is why she held onto the property, and now we are denying her that option.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the distinguished fighter pilot and American hero will yield, what we feel so good about, I think being sophomores, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] and I am, to be on the team with the freshmen, but really to follow in the footsteps of people like you who have been out fighting the battle, yet we seem to add more and more who are concerned about the future of America. You know, none of us are really career politicians. We are going to try to do this. We are going to try to get the contract passed. We are going to try to change America, but we can also go back home if somebody better can do it, if somebody can do a better job, and you know, we are not up here so that we are going to be here for 30 or 40 years and build our own little empires, and Representatives like you who have helped us along the way have made it possible, I think, for the changes that are taking place to occur.

Mr. KINGSTON. I say this, Mr. Hoke and Mr. Cunningham, we heard Mr. Bryant and Mrs. Smith talk tonight. As she said many times, they are the team. I would say they are also the fuel and a little more volatile than steam in many respects. The changes are real though. We are not turning back. America is going to change, I hope, because Congress has changed. We have left the foxhole. We are advancing. We are going to take the hill or we are going to get shot, and that is still up to the American people, but we cannot turn back at this point. I will caution this: There is talk, the Senate today. I understand that the balanced budget amendment might not pass. They are against the line-item veto. We are going to be passing a spending cut bill which the Senate has already said they are not going to do. So I would say to people, let's keep this revolution going, the revolution is alive and well in the House. Let's wake up the folks over in the other body by phone calls and letters. But we're going to keep moving, and I'm proud to be with you, and I'm proud to be serving with people like Mr. Bryant and Mrs. Smith.

Mr. KINGSTON. $30,000 to $50,000 per year per prisoner. While some wealthy law firm is going around with endless appeals, not worrying about the victim, not worrying about the detriment to society and just having a good time at it.

Mr. KINGSTON. I will yield the floor then.

Mr. KINGSTON. I would like to register a protest. That is a little unfair. The rest of us started 2 years, and the gentlewoman just 2 months. I am sure she blitzed it.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Bryant], how much are we paying for these guys to stay in jail? I have noticed on my tours, they all have air conditioning, they all have television, they all have weight-lifting rooms and gymnasiums, and they are not required to work, so they get to watch TV. What does that cost?

Mr. KINGSTON. It is not the tax of the income but the 500,000 sales value is treated like income for that year. For that year she might as well be a stockbroker on Wall Street.

Mr. KINGSTON. Tom, she does not mean you have the body.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is right.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, I wanted you to talk about the personnel and so forth in the Army and the Marines staying about level, but the Army going down tremendously. As I understand it, and these numbers are rough, but there were about 2 million troops in the armed services in 1991. And now is that number not about 1.5 million? It has been cut roughly 25 percent in terms of personnel, which that may be appropriate since there is not a conflict going on like Desert Storm, but am I accurate in that?