Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, could you tell us how much time we have left?

Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman from Texas wants to speak a little bit about the issue you mentioned about the lobbying groups in town who are out fighting for their little chunk of the pie, because I think his approach to fiscal restraint in the form of tax reform makes some sense. I wanted to make sure the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess) has an opportunity to speak.

Mr. KINGSTON. Total?

Mr. KINGSTON. Seven-and-a-half per side. Why do we not go into debt a little bit and borrow some from the next group? Just a joke, guys. We need to figure out our strategy for our 7 minutes to close.

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me respond on a few points that the previous speaker made. And I wanted to say that, as the gentleman knows, the passage of laws is not always perfect, and it is not always neat, particularly when we are in the majority and have to make some decisions and keep the train moving. My preference on the budget, incidentally, was the one introduced by the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Toomey), H. Con. Res. 95, which actually balanced the budget in 4 years and reduced spending far more than the Republican budget that passed and far more than the Blue Dog budget that passed. And I would point out to my colleague that if we are bringing up past votes, there was not one Democrat who voted for that budget, which was the model in fiscal restraint. So rather than stand here and just point fingers, I want to talk about some of the realities that we are faced with. I note the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) is here from the Committee on Appropriations. I think there are six things that help get spending out of control in the House that hurts all of us. One of it is that we do not go to zero-based budgeting. Every year appropriations starts out where they left off last year. This has been the case for many years in the Congress no matter which party is in charge, and I would love to see us go back to zero base when these agencies come in to justify their budgets and ask do they really need it? One of the examples is the western forest fires. When they have a forest fire disaster, and we fund firefighting at a certain level, the next year if we reduce that because we have handled the fire, we get called for cutting forestry money. And the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Boyd) and I have to battle that all the time. The other thing that I want to mention, the second issue that helps drive up the cost is the matter of mandatory spending, and I would think that is a little bit ironic because we are the U.S. Congress, and things do not have to be mandatory when someone is the one setting the rules. But mandatory is basically the automatic spending, and here is the budget breakdown for the year 1980, and the part in green is the mandatory spending, the Medicaid, Social Security and so forth. And the discretionary, the red part, which is almost 50 percent of the pie, that is the amount that we actually can vote on and squeeze and twist and do different things, whereas this is all kind of on automatic pilot. As the years have gone by, and that was again 20 years ago, this is fiscal year 2002, and the mandatory portion has gotten bigger and bigger. The discretionary portion, which is the part we can control far greater, it has gotten smaller. And what that means is the part where there is honest debate we control a lot better. The part where everybody is afraid to touch Social Security, except for the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm). I want to commend him on the work that he and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) have done over the years. Veterans spending, Medicare spending and so forth, these are all issues that we tend to shy away from in terms of honest debate, but look at these charts just to show the impact of these. Here is the veterans spending since 1995. And I am not making a judgment on if the spending is worthwhile or not. I am just saying this is the reality of that big portion of the chart. Veterans. Here is Medicaid. That is the healthcare for the poor, straight up during the period since 1995. Here is Medicare, the healthcare for the seniors. It has gone straight up. And I would say one of our big problems is if we are really going to get a serious handle on spending, we have got to quit using veterans and senior citizens and the poor as our partisan wedge shield that is going to scare the other party into not touching it, because if we are really serious about this stuff, we have got to get into that. I have three other points that I wanted to make, but I wanted to introduce the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Kennedy). Does the gentleman want to react to the previous speaker, because I kind of have a track here myself.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, actually I am glad the gentleman mentioned this, because we are the majority party, we take responsibility for governing. There is no question about that. We get the credit if it is good. We get the blame if it is bad. But let us also admit that often the forces that cause more spending and cause us to get away from the budget, which has always driven me up the wall where we passed a budget in March, but we actually passed the final spending bills in the fall of the year, and by then March is ancient history. No one is really worrying about the budget. They just want to go home and cut a deal, and often it is the other body or the White House that causes large increases. On the topic that the gentleman is talking about, the Republican spending, let me say what the Democrat record is in claiming that nearly every single appropriation bill that we have is not enough money, and I have a copy of some of the amendments that I will get into that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) offers every single time on appropriation bills, and the gentleman knows how this business is. The gentleman wants to say we are the majority to help with the Democrats, but it is not just a matter of numbers. The gentleman has split philosophies in his party. The gentleman has some extremely liberal folks; we have some extremely conservative people. And every time they pick up a group here, they lose some votes here. So as they are trying to pass a bill, they get a net 3, but they swap around 9 or 10 votes, and that is one of the things that drives up spending that I want to talk about that.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Appropriations have until midnight, July 3, 2003, to file a privileged report, making appropriations for the Legislative Branch for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2004, and for other purposes.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, today we are going to be working on the intelligence bill, probably voting on it later this week; and we are going to be hearing a lot from the left in this Chamber that we have not located weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and somehow the President is at fault. I just wanted to remind my colleagues what some of their Democrat Members in the other body said. Here is a Member from Indiana, October 3, 2002: ``Saddam Hussein possesses chemical, biological weapons and, if events are allowed to run their own course, will some day possess nuclear weapons.'' Here is another Senator from California, a woman. My colleagues get the choice which of the two: ``I believe that Saddam Hussein rules by terror and has squirreled away stores of biological and chemical weapons.'' That was October 10, 2002. Here is a Senator from West Virginia, one with a very common name: ``The people of the United States and the rest of the world are at risk as long as Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction,'' March 18, 2003. And here is another one from a Senator from Maryland: ``Over the last 12 years he's ignored U.N. resolutions and embargoes and has illegal chemical and biological weapons . . .'' That was March 18, 2003. Many, many leading Democrat liberals were in support of our going into Iraq in the name of weapons of mass destruction. I just want our colleagues to keep that in mind as we debate this bill today.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. May I use the name of a Senator, a sitting Senator in attributing a quote to him or her?

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is time to revise and reform Medicare. It is time to move us away from a government oriented, a Soviet model of socialism approach to health care for our senior citizens. We need a program that is light, a program that is solid, a program that is efficient, not one that is heavy with burdensome bureaucratic red tape. We need to have a prescription drug benefit. We need to have one that does not just blanket us all with a brand new entitlement, one that does not necessarily worry about Ross Perots or some retiree from General Motors who already is getting it anyhow. But we need to help the widow out there who is choosing between tamoxifen for her breast cancer and rent for her home. We want to help people stay independent. In 1965, when Medicare was conceived, the miracle drugs that are available to our seniors were not out there. They were not foreseen. Now we have drugs that enhance our life-style, that make us live longer and healthier and in less pain, and Medicare needs to adjust to this. That is what this bill is about that we will be voting on this week. I am confident that we can take the best ideas of Democrat Party, the Republican Party, the Independents and move it out of this body, combine it with those in the other body and come up with a plan that is best for our seniors.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I want to say, first of all, this door is wide open on the Republican side of the House. If the Democrats want to join us in holding the line on appropriations spending, we welcome you. If you want to join us in cracking down on waste, fraud, and abuse in government, we welcome you. If you want to join us in eliminating some duplication in government programs, we welcome you. And I hope that the Blue Dogs will work with us and anybody else over there who will. On this issue, which is one of expanding welfare, we are trying to work with you. You know you voted against welfare reform, and you know it worked. There were 14 million people on welfare when we passed welfare reform. President Clinton signed it. So we can claim bipartisanship, even though the majority of the House Democrats voted against it. Welfare reform has been a success. Nine million people are not on welfare that used to be on welfare. Now we still have 5 million; that is too many people. It may be your way of giving them an additional benefit, and maybe this is a good idea. It is not a tax rebate because you do not get a rebate on a tax that you do not pay. I know a lot of my colleagues will say, well, they do pay sales tax and so forth; that is true, but that is disingenuous on your part. As my colleagues know, we are talking about income taxes, and those folks do not pay income taxes. Now, that being the case, and I will yield to my friend from Texas; that being the case, let me say this. There is a guy out there, as the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Weller) said, he is a policeman, his wife is a teacher. He shops at Wal-Mart for Christmas. He goes to Home Depot on Saturdays to pick up a hammer and some two-by-fours to do a little home repair. When his car needs tires, he goes out and gets three different quotes for them. He owes on his house. He owes on one of his cars. The other car is paid for because it is 8 years old. He scrimps, he saves to get his kids into college. His son goes off to war. They are the first in standing up for the country. It is very difficult for that guy to get any tax credit because he falls through the cracks in this country. The combined income is $125,000. This gives him eligibility for that $1,000 tax credit. And I am a believer that the more money we put in his pocket, the more money he is going to spend on the economy. When he spends, small businesses expand. When they expand, more jobs are created, more jobs are created, and less people are on public assistance, more people go to work, more people are paying into the system rather than taking out of it. I believe that tax reductions actually increase revenues. They are good for jobs; they are good for the economy. That is why I am going to support this.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if I have time remaining for my friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Stenholm), I yield.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, is it not true that the Democrats did not pass a budget last year, and during the period of time after 9/11 when we were trying to fund the troops and the war on terrorism, homeland and internationally, that the Democrats on the Committee on Appropriations, bill after bill, insisted on more spending, and in fact offered amendments on every appropriations subcommittee to increase spending; and now they are coming out here as fiscal conservatives. It seems there is a little tap dance going on that is difficult to follow.

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

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate our friend, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), for advancing the cause of fiscal restraint, something that we do need to do in this House. And it is interesting, particularly since the Democrats are right now promoting an expansion of welfare in an unfunded way, and proposing to increase spending on welfare $3.5 billion, and that is to give a tax rebate to people who have not paid taxes. It is an idea that is ironic since 197 of them voted against it originally in May 2001, but they all seem to want to spend more regardless of what our budgets are doing. I have just come from an appropriations meeting. And what is interesting about that is that on the appropriations bills, we have 13 of them, I believe, Mr. Speaker, every bill, it is particularly interesting since every one of our 13 appropriations bills, no matter what we propose in the Republican Party, the Democrats make a counterproposal to spend more. And I realize that my friend, the gentleman of Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), is in the minority of the Democratic Party where they do wake up in the morning and worry about spending. And I am glad that he does because I share his concerns about it. But I just point out that the majority of his party, when it comes to spending bills, wants to spend more. And no matter what it is, we are not spending enough for this cause; we are not spending enough for that cause. I want to also point out, sometimes it is easy when you are in the minority and you do not have to necessarily make the vote for war, but we are in a situation after 9-11 where America was under attack. Americans were hurt, injured, and killed in their workplace. And while some on the left sat around and said what did we do wrong or why do they hate us, others in the greater majority, not just the Republican Party but in America as a whole, said, look, we are going to defend our borders. We are going to defend our domestic areas. We are going to just defend our homeland. And to do that, unfortunately, you do have to spend money because it costs money to go to Afghanistan, to send helicopters and tanks over there. It costs money to send troops to the Middle East. And that does add up to some deficit spending. It is something we do want to get under control. But I would certainly hope that the gentleman and others were not suggesting that the war for the liberation of Iraq was wrong, the war to find bin Laden was wrong, the war to liberate Afghanistan from Taliban rule was wrong. Because I believe most Americans support those actions and most Americans are glad that we are taking these steps. When people say to you things like, how can you look the children in the eye, well, to me how could you not look the children in the eye and say, you know what, we are going to defend our homeland and we are going to secure our borders. There is an international war on terrorism and America seems to be leading the way. America has also been the victim of it, but we are going to win that battle. And if the gentleman and others would look at the budget, they can see that that is where the majority of our spending went and it is going to continue to go. But we want to work with the Democrats to get spending under control. My concern of it is not in just dollars and cents, but my concern is the encroachment of the government on the private sector. Every dollar we put in the government, that is more freedom we lose, particularly in the private sector. So I hope as we begin the appropriations process this year that we can have a lot of amendments from our Democrat friends that actually reduce spending so that when we run the legislative branch bill out here, when we run military construction out here, when we run the education bill out here, if they have ideas for saving money, I want to do everything I can to make those amendments offered by my friend, the gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Taylor), or anybody else over there, the so-called Blue Dog Caucus, I want their amendments to be in order so we can work together in a bipartisan fashion and reduce spending. Because I think that the best of our party and the best of their party should do what is right for the best of America.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is right. He is using the pages in an incorrect manner.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman cannot use pages as props for his speech. They can be of assistance in holding the sign, but they cannot be referred to as props in the manner in which my friend, the gentleman from Mississippi, has just done.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, let me say this. Our objective is to get people working, and that was the real goal of this to get folks working. Let me say this to my friend from Tennessee: if the gentleman wants to join us in making the child tax credit permanent; the marriage tax penalty, eliminate it permanently; the 10 percent tax credit, make that permanent, he and I need to get together because I think we can move the ball down the road, and that is all we want to do. I am just saying that the planned, orchestrated campaign of the Democrat Party to denounce something that they all voted against in the year 2002, I just wish the speakers would say I voted against this in 2001, but it is a great idea and now I am mad that the Republicans are not doing it this way; I want it done even though I did not share any of the burden by being responsible and voting for it. I want to end with this. There are a lot of differences between the Democrat and the Republican parties. They seem to be the group of frivolous lawsuits and starving trial lawyers. We are the party of tort reform, ending frivolous medical liabilities, making health care affordable and accessible. They seem to like unemployment checks and government handouts. We like paychecks, jobs and opportunities. They like welfare and low expectations. We like welfare reform, jobs.

Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, I will yield further to you in just one second. I am very pleased that you all are listening. Let me do this, because I am being generous here, but my ranking member of the Committee on Rules says that maybe we should do this a little bit more on your time. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. McGovern).

Mr. KINGSTON. I am glad that not only does the gentleman listen to fine speeches like mine, but he also reads the paper, which is very good. I suspect it is probably The New York Times or The Washington Post. Let me just say this, does that article point out that my colleagues voted against phasing in the tax cut, the refundability, in 2001? That is all I want to say. What I would love to hear from our Democrat colleagues, Mr. Speaker, who are saying I voted against this tax cut and a tax cut which was a jobs bill, took 3 million working families off the tax roll, 3 million, and I understand they wanted them on. We thought it would be helpful for the working families of America to get off the tax roll. The reality is they voted against it. They wanted to keep them on. I understand that. I just wish they would acknowledge in the year 2001 that they voted against the child tax refundability clause, and I have the vote in my hand; and I can submit it for the Record, Mr. Speaker, and do that. If my colleagues want to be helpful, what they ought to do on some of these tax bills that are aimed at creating jobs is say, hey, we want to amend the bill and we will do this. We will do this in a spirit of a democratic, small D, democratic House and process. We are going to vote for the bill if we put in some of their ideas, because this is the way it really should work, the best of their party and the best of our party combined together to put out just the best thoughts and do what is right for working families. Let me point out that a family of four making $11,000 a year pays no income tax, pays about $842 in payroll taxes and receives $4,140 under the earned income tax credit. We think that is good. We think it also would be helpful, though, if my colleagues could join us in making these child tax credits permanent because their idea that they are concerned about now might have some merits. Why do they not join us in saying we are going to make these child tax credits permanent? We are not going to do a bait and switch, when in the year 2011 they are gone. While we are at it, because we all know that a family of mom and dad have great potential for stability, why do we not end the marriage tax penalty together? Again, I throw out an olive branch to my colleagues, could they join us in making the marriage tax penalty permanent? That would be very helpful for the working poor. There are so many things that we could do together. Another idea is the 10 percent tax bracket, the 10 percent rate. Could my colleagues join us in making that permanent? These are all things that could help the working poor. We are not going to say we have the franchise on helping the working poor just because we voted to take 3 million off the payrolls and my colleagues voted against it. We are saying maybe they can join us on the next job creation package and come up with something that is in the best interest of all of us. I would love to yield to the gentleman from Tennessee, but we are getting to the point we have got a lot of Members who want to go ahead and have a vote, and I am a little concerned about that.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, here is the situation with welfare reform, Mr. Speaker. We passed welfare reform at a time when there were 14 million people on welfare. At that time, we were called all kinds of names, and they were saying it was heartless and we were mean-spirited and everything else and that these folks were unable to help themselves. What is interesting is in 1996 when we passed welfare reform, we had 14 million people on welfare. Today, that number is down to 5 million people, too high; but we need to continue working on that. The 9 million people are now tax paying, working, enjoying the opportunity, sharing in the American Dream. They are glad that we passed welfare reform. There is a component in this that the Democrats are proposing which is simply welfare, and I think there may be some merit in that. I have no trouble at all in a healthy discussion on tinkering with welfare reform. This is good for everybody, but what our tax package was about was creating jobs, and we are going to continue to be the party of welfare reform, jobs and opportunity. Committee on Ways and Means child credit refundability fact sheet What was the child credit prior to 2001? Prior to 2001, the child credit was $500 per eligible child. The credit was not refundable for most families. However, for families with 3 or more eligible children, the credit was refundable to the extent the family had payroll tax liability that was not offset by the Earned Income Credit (EIC). How was the child credit expanded in 2001? The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 significantly expanded the child credit in two important ways. (1) The law gradually increased the credit from $500 to $1,000. The credit was $600 for 2003 and was scheduled to reach $1,000 in 2010. (2) The law made the child credit partially refundable for all families with children--not just those with 3 or more children. The credit is now refundable by an amount equal to 10 percent of the family's earned income in excess of $10,000. The $10,000 threshold is indexed annually for inflation (it is $10,500 for 2003), and the 10 percent refundability rate will increase to 15 percent in 2005. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

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