Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say, also, I am going to find out if our leaders balked at any meetings. I know in a negotiation dance there are a lot of nuances and people do sometimes do a little head fake this way and that way. It takes place in all negotiations. I do not know all of it, what has not gone on; but I know this, that we were here all last week, including Friday, including Saturday, including Sunday. We were not in session Monday, although I will say my mind is a little bit foggy right now if we were here Monday. I know we were here Tuesday. We were here Thursday.

Mr. KINGSTON. I will be glad to yield in a minute. Let me finish. The point is, we are here. The President is in California. If he wants to get an agreement, you got to be there. And he is not here. It distresses me. We had a Member here who ironically represents the town where Mrs. Clinton has bought a house, and they had something in the Treasury-Post Office bill that was vetoed by this President, then he left town. I do not know if that is part of the New York strategy or what. To me he needs to be here.

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, maybe the President ought to delegate the rest of the job on over to somebody else if he does not want to do it. I do not know one person in the United States of America who voted for Jack Lew.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the President was in the Middle East or in North Korea avoiding war or in someplace like that.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will remember, keeping a little courtesy here, I have the floor. I will try to answer your question.

Mr. KINGSTON. Here is the point. The President of the United States does not come to these meetings. I came from the private sector.

Mr. KINGSTON. I may be naive because I come from the private sector and I do not understand all of Washington and I do not know all the nuances of Washington, but it would appear to me that in the 11th hour of the closing sessions of the United States Congress that the President would lower himself to show up to the meetings and not send some unelected Jack Lew guy. Mr. Lew might be brilliant. In fact, maybe he should be President and maybe that would have been a better choice of a nominee. But the reality is the President was not there.

Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, there again if the President is so proud about giving citizenship to 4 million illegal aliens, why does he not come here and defend his position instead of having somebody do it for him?

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me claim some time here and say these are some of the things in the President's budget: 2,300 new jobs at the Department of Agriculture; 2,800 at the IRS, like we all want that; almost 3,400 at the Department of Veterans Affairs, that might be a good idea there, after years of this administration cutting it; 1,300 at the Department of Interior; 1,000 at the Department of Commerce; 2,700 at the Department of Transportation. Some examples of the President new spending proposals, $15 million to increase food stamp spending for migrant children; $85 million for the Clean Air Partnership Act; $30 million for information immigration initiative; $4.25 million for the international environmental monitoring program; $15 million for money laundering strategy; $100 million for nongame wildlife grants to States; $30 million for the Delta Regional Authority; $100 million for the long-term Russian initiative. I do not know if that was alluding to a document of Mr. Chernomyrdin; but $10 million for the fishery vessel buyout; $5.5 million for the Global Disaster Information Network; $4.5 million for the Indian Country Tourism Development; $10 million for gun destruction. These were all in the President's budget proposal, which was dead on arrival. I do not think any of the Democrats even voted for it. What concerns me in these back rooms when you have somebody negotiating from the White House is how many of these are sneaked back into the budget? That is where I get concerned. The gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. KINGSTON. Actually, I am a Republican. I do not know that much about money laundering, particularly foreign money.

Mr. KINGSTON. There must have been some students of Nixon who are alive and well today in Washington.

Mr. KINGSTON. Here is not what I am suggesting. Here is what I am saying. The President's budget was full of all kinds of new spending initiatives and new fee proposals. Some of those may be very good. But I know this, that his budget was voted down on a bipartisan basis by this House of Representatives.

Mr. KINGSTON. What my concern is, is some of this back on the table. The gentleman, with his knowledge knows, how in conferences things do pop back on the table; some very good, some with lots of merit, but there are also things that do not have that much merit and need to be vetted a little, and that is my point.

Mr. KINGSTON. Yes, and then let me yield to the other gentleman.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say this.

Mr. KINGSTON. I appreciate the gentleman standing up for the Republican House Members in those conferences. The gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me reclaim the time here. One of the problems that we are having here is that it does appear often that when questions are answered they go on into speeches, and if we could just answer the questions it would probably be a lot faster. The gentleman from Minnesota.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, can the gentleman tell me what the number was?

Mr. KINGSTON. Okay. Plus, then it would be $108. But then what we are arguing about are the riders that the President wants to put on there.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield.

Mr. KINGSTON. It is a rider, and the President is wanting to put the rider on the bill.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Texas has been standing here politely, and I yield to him.

Mr KINGSTON

Mr KINGSTON. The gentleman from Minnesota and then the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I am going to yield time. I do want to remind my friends that as somebody who does special orders, never have Republicans received so much time during the Democrat hour, just to say that for a little advertising. And in the spirit of Hershey, let me yield to the distinguished gentleman.