Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my dad is 82 years old. He is legally blind. He has diabetes. His Social Security is very important to him. But the other thing is he has saved all his life. Now, it is popular now with the environmentalists to say, when one is brushing one's teeth, turn off the water. Well, we did that on Plum Nelly Road in Athens, Georgia, because my dad thought it was a waste of water for one to run it one more drop than necessary. If one ever left the room and the light was on, one was in trouble. My dad never bought a car that had a radio in it. When one had to buy the radio, he sure never had an FM, it was only an AM radio. He never had white wall tires on the car and never had power steering. He fought, as did so many in that World War II generation, to save their money to get ready for a rainy day. He instilled that in us. My allowance starting out very young was a nickel a week. Then it got to be a dime a week. When I got to high school, it was $3.25 a week because he put me on a clothing allowance. From age 12 on up, we had to buy our own clothes, which accounts for why I still look like I need an upgrade in my wardrobe. Even then, $3.25 a week was not enough to buy one's clothes. But the point is that generation knew what a rainy day fund was about. That is all we are saying on Social Security is save it for its intended purpose of retirement. Do not squander it on politically popular programs designed to get Members of Congress reelected for that 1 year. It might make one a hero back home in one's own little district, and it gets one back up here one more term; but it is not in the interest of the United States Government. It is not in the interest of the American people if everybody is fishing his own line and no one is worrying about keeping the boat afloat.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, what bothers me as a member of the Committee on Appropriations, we get a budget blueprint from you, and the House passes our appropriation budgets based on those blueprints, and we keep the spending in line so that it is balanced, important programs, education, Social Security, prescription drugs, they are out there, they are taken care of. Then we get into a conference committee with the White House or the Senate, and it seems like all that common sense is thrown out the window, and we break the budget year after year. Is the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) optimistic that we are going to be able to protect Social Security the way the Republicans on the Committee on the Budget have tried to make it possible for us to protect it?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, this lockbox concept, as I understand it, is simply common sense. What we are saying is we do not mix our pension plan for retirement with our operating expenses that we use for roads and bridges and education and other congressional expenses. So what we are saying is we take the surplus of Social Security, of grandmother's retirement, and we put it in a lockbox so that it does not get mixed and mingled with other funds; and it is safe there so that her security, her retirement is safe. Now, what I do not understand, and my question to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) is, why is it that Vice President Gore has led the opposition to this? Why is it that Tom Daschle and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) and the Democrats have lined up against this?

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the gentleman was talking earlier about debt reduction, and I think it is so important. I am a supporter of lower taxes. I think it is just fundamentally wrong for the government to hold more than it needs. What are we, serfs? Is this the medieval time? Are we back in collectivist Soviet Union that we have to work to keep Washington bureaucrats happy? If we go into Wal-Mart and we buy a hammer that costs $11, and we give the cashier $20, we expect $9 back. We do not expect to be given with the extra $9 some nails and some wood and maybe some other tool. The fact is we should get our refund. I understand that in Washington money is power and the more money that the government confiscates from people the more power that it has. And I know there are those in the administration who want that power so that they can micromanage our lives. But that being the case, we were unable to get such common sense tax reductions through as marriage tax relief or ending the tax on Social Security or ending the taxes on small businesses and individuals who want to have a full deduction to make health care more affordable and more accessible. So we have kind of gotten a deadlock on lowering the tax burden on hard-working Americans. That being the case, though, are we going to go out and squander the surplus or should we apply it and invest it in the future; invest it in our children by paying down the debt? The gentleman has pointed out that we spend about $230 billion to $240 billion on interest payments on the national debt. That is just about the size of our entire national defense. Now it is a little bit higher, but that is about equal to what we spend on our military, $240 billion. Is that not four times what we spend on education here? I know it is about four times what we spend on agriculture and nutrition programs, such as food stamps and the WIC program for children. And if we look at all the money, this goes to nothing. It just goes to the bond holders of the national debt. It does not create jobs, it does not buy equity, it does not protect the environment or educate children, it does not give prescription drugs to seniors. It just goes out the door. So if we can pay down the debt, and I believe the budget we are operating on pays it down by the year 2013, if we can do that, then we can invest the money in areas where we are going to get something out of it and, most importantly, a better society, which we are not getting right now when we are just paying bond holders.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I guess it should come as no surprise to the American people that the administration that attacks the Boy Scouts is now attacking the institution of marriage, and they are doing it from an insidious higher taxes on the couples who dare do the right thing and walk down the aisle. Take the situation, a true story in Savannah, Georgia, woman's name is Ann and the husband's name is Steve. They were making $25,000 each; they got married last December. Now their combined family income is $50,000. Guess what? They went from 15 percent tax brackets to now 20 percent tax brackets. They are paying more simply because they got married. Nothing else changed. This administration is going to look them in the eye and say no, you are wealthy, you do not deserve the tax, because guess what, some even wealthier person and, of course, that is evil in the minds of Al Gore, somebody might benefit from this, so we are not going to let you have your own money. Mr. Speaker, I hope that a few brave Democrats will for once put their constituents first and vote to override this horrible veto and pass marriage tax penalty relief.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I stand in strong support of H.R. 4678. Let me just tell my colleagues my perspective. Our welfare reform policy has been built on two things: the single mother and her needs, which is rightfully so, and then the principle of work, work if you are able to work. But the third leg of the stool, if you will, that we have totally ignored is marriage. Because we have had for years a welfare reform system that says to the father, you are an economic disadvantage. You are irrelevant to the well-being of your children. We have even gone so far as to say you are somewhat of an alley cat. You get a girl pregnant and she is 16 years old, hit the road and we will deal with her. It is a ridiculous policy. What H.R. 4678 does is bring the dad back in the formula. I have met with the Georgia fatherhood program. We have one of their chapters in Savannah, which I represent. In one of their meetings, I met with four of these dads. Here is their personal kind of general story. When I was 18 years old, I became a father. But I was not ready to live up to that responsibility and the Government backed that decision. The Government said I do not have to. If I do hang around, we lose housing, we lose health care, we lose day care, we lose transportation benefits. So it was easy for me to hit the road. And so I left, and a lot of my friends in this situation left. But nobody ever told me what it was like to have the arms of a little 5-year-old girl hug my neck and call me Daddy. Now I have learned that and I want to come back. But I do not want the mama of this little girl, I do not want my little girl to be penalized because I want to come back and be the dad now and do right. Yet that is what our system has been telling him. But through this bill, we are saying not only are you going to come back but we are going to give you job training because we want you to have stability in your life so that you can have stability in your marriage and your child's life. We are going to give you some education skills, job training skills, and parenthood skills. You are going to feel good. Mr. Speaker, I have looked into the eyes of four of these dads and their testimony is very, very powerful. We owe this to them. We owe it to the institution of marriage. We owe it to welfare and social reform; but more than anything else, we owe it to millions and millions of kids who our economic policy has said, you are going to go through life without a dad. This way we can change that. This gives us an opportunity. I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2919, the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. As we all know and as has been discussed previously, this is a way to preserve and link the underground railroad sites nationwide for the first time within the National Park Service. I am a member of the Subcommittee on Interior of the Committee on Appropriations, and this is something that we do have concern about. This bill is designed to protect and preserve the stories and the tales and the reality of the endangered sites of the underground railroad for future generations, and we believe that it is a story that should be told for future generations. Last week, I joined Mr. Davis and Mr. Lewis and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) to make an announcement about a resolution that we have urging the Speaker of the House to name a study committee to make recommendations on how this House can commemorate the fact that the United States Capitol was partially built with slave labor, 400 slaves to be exact. As we in this country get together to reconcile racial differences, I believe an important component is to talk about our mutual history. It does seem like we have carefully, for many years, many decades, side stepped the issue of slavery in the construction of this great country. In Georgia, for example, where I am from, Savannah, Georgia, 1733, when it was founded, slavery was against the law, but as time progressed, economic pressure brought in slavery. Yet, as I look back to the history of my great State and the other States, certainly along the East Coast and then many as we expanded West, slaves were there helping build our country, all the way. So I do not think we should be afraid to discuss this. I do not think it should be side stepped. I think we owe it to Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian, Hispanic, white and black together to discuss this. I think it is something that we owe to our society. So I am a supporter of this legislation, because it is long since that we are saying let us go back and honor the social and humanitarian movement to resist slavery in the United States prior to the Civil War and this, of course, was not something that just happened for a short period of time but went on for many years from about the 1830's to 1865. It spanned more than 22 States and crossed all the way into the Mexican and Canadian borders. Mr. Speaker, I believe that if we have a National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, it will help educate the public about the human struggle to abolish slavery and secure the freedom of all people. So I am a supporter of it and I urge Members of the House to vote for it.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my colleagues in the Georgia delegation, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Norwood, Mr. Isakson, Ms. McKinney, Mr. Linder, Mr. Bishop, Mr. Barr, Mr. Chambliss, Mr. Deal and Mr. Collins, I move the previous question on the resolution. The previous question was ordered. The resolution was agree to. A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Wamp).

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time. Nancy Coverdell has lost a great husband, as has the Coverdell family lost a great member. The United States of America has lost a great Senator. Georgia has lost a great leader and the Republican party in Georgia has lost the father of our party. Paul Coverdell was the minority leader in the State Senate. He was the State Republican party chairman. He was the official Georgia connection to the Bush White House. He was the director of the Peace Corps. He was the United States Senator, and then also in the great Bush-Coverdell legacy, the official contact for the George W. Bush campaign. He put our party on the map, and the reason I underscore that is, I believe the State and its citizens are better for it. I believe that having two parties gives our voters every day a choice, and I believe I am a better Republican because of Democrat opposition. I hope that our Democrat counterparts, and I am sure they will agree, they would say they are better Democrats because of Republican opposition. The State, indeed, is the winner. Paul Coverdell was a great strategist. I remember in 1974 my mother, who is a great newspaper clipper, sent me an article called the Gospel According to Paul. And it was talking about this young guy running for the State Senate in Atlanta, who was doing strange things, like going door to door and having living room coffees and roadside sign wavings. And he was struggling in an uphill battle in a Democrat-controlled State to win, but he did win. I believe, as the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Linder) has already said, there were only three Republican Members in the Senate at the time. I know by the time I got to the State House, there were a whopping nine Senators. Coverdell was the minority leader. But while he did not have numerical superiority, he did not let that keep him out of the ideas arena. And he was very competitive on ideas. At that time, Governor Joe Frank Harris was introducing a number of DUI laws. The gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Isakson) will remember Coverdell passed and sponsored a bill in the Senate that said, you know, it is not just enough to give somebody a heftier DUI penalty, what we have found through research is a lot of these people are addicted to alcohol. We need to put in a component of mandatory assessment to see if they are addicted, and then we cannot just leave them addicted to alcohol, we need to have mandatory or at least optional treatment. This was a solid idea. Mr. Speaker, I remember being on the Motor Vehicles Committee as he pushed that. Paul Coverdell was an ideas man. He also had a great world view. As director of the Peace Corps, he did not just use this, okay, this is my political plumb for helping President Bush along the campaign trail. He used it to promote farming in Third World countries, economic growth and development, medical help. Indeed, he saw the formula for world prosperity meant world peace, and it was great and important for the United States of America to be there leading the way. Paul Coverdell was a sobby-eyed patriot in many ways. I remember when he was running for the U.S. Senate and I had him in my living room for a coffee, and at that time all of these people came, and they were asking very lofty intellectual questions about the world situation. Paul was hanging in there with the best of them. In the middle of this, my small daughter, Ann, 4 years old at the time, had left the playground where all of these kids were, came running into the living room, crashed through the circle of adults to the middle of where this dignified U.S. senatorial candidate was speaking, and said, Daddy, it was my turn in line to go down the slide and they pushed me down the slide and I fell down and hurt my heinie to which the whole audience starting laughing. Senator Coverdell was there, acknowledged the little girl and her plight and went on with his speech. And I thought it was so cute because he did not lose control, he kept that Coverdell dignity through the whole thing. And, indeed, he carried that dignity and that gentleman manner with him everywhere he went. As the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss) has already said, he was a great organizer and a communicator. I remember in the 1992 campaign during the runoff one day, he was at Georgia Southern University, all kinds of people there, and he had done a TV and a radio interview, and he turned on his watch and he said, Jack, we have to go to this event. I said, Paul, the game has not started. He said, well, we have got a schedule. I said but, Paul, all of these people are here. He said, well, we really need to get to Savannah and keep our schedule. Indeed, we did leave and go to Savannah. I was totally amazed and a little bit irritated by this, and only later did I realize the importance of him in terms of strategy; it meant everything, and that is why he could accomplish all of the things that he did accomplish. In our area, he fought as, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Norwood) said, for the veterans, the active soldiers at Fort Stewart, but the veterans in our area. Agriculture, we all know in south Georgia good old ``Senator Cloverdale.'' That is what the farmers would always call him. Well, let us just go ask Cloverdale. And they loved Mr. Cloverdale. Education, if I go to talk to the teachers about educational savings acts, they like that idea. If I talk to seniors about Social Security and lockbox ideas, they like that idea. Paul Coverdell had the uncanny ability, not just to have an opinion on every issue, but have a thought on every issue and a consequential action. He was a man of action. His civility, as the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Bishop) knows, he worked with him very closely on passing the C.B. King Courthouse in Albany, Georgia. I remember, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis) knows, he was friends of Mr. Bond. When Mr. Bond left the State Senate to run for the congressional seat, which the gentleman was successful in obtaining, Paul Coverdell was one of the men in the Georgia Senate who stood up and gave a great farewell speech for Julian Bond. I remember watching that and saying here is a liberal Democrat and the conservative Republican leader of the State. What is he doing? I said there is a lesson here. Bipartisanship and civility is important, and you should never let politics rule over policy. A week ago, he called me at my home on Sunday. We had an issue in our area with the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, and we kind of got off path. He said, Jack, I think we are a little out of sync here. I just want to make sure that you and I are okay on this. It was typical of Coverdell, because I think so many of us, including me, and especially me, would have said, all right, you are way off base, I am right and you are wrong; not Paul, he made it so that it was just so easy to get along. He also told me a couple of weeks ago in a private conversation about committing to the team, when you are a Member of Congress, when you are a Member of an issue and you are associated with that issue, commit to your team and be proud to be on that team, even if the vote is an uncomfortable one. He talked to me about Nancy. He said, you know, we are doing a little bit with real estate. I have to tell you Nancy is better at real estate than I am. She is real good at it. I will tell you what, you men know. It is a rare man who really privately one on one takes time to brag about his wife to another man, and that is a sign of a great marriage and a great husband and true love. Paul Coverdell was a good Republican, a great strategist, a great ideas man, had a world view, had civility and integrity, a great organizer. He was energetic. He was a great communicator and a loyalist. In short, Paul Coverdell was a statesman. Years ago, there was another Paul on this earth, and he tells us in a scripture that it is better to wear out than rust out. I would not submit to you that Paul Coverdell wore out, but I would also say he certainly did not wear out, and maybe in this institution which he loves so dearly we could say, and he would agree, the gentleman's time expired. But while the gentleman's time has expired, I also think we could evoke the words of St. Paul, one more time and say, well done, that good and faithful servant.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Goss), the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I do want to say this. We lost a great United States Senator this week. It is tragic for all parties. In discussing him, I learned a lot from Senator Paul Coverdell. One thing I learned, although he was a Republican and was a great, key member of the Republican team, he always showed us by instruction, never put politics over policy. What we are about here is good policy. Our hands are open to the White House, to the Senate, to the Democrats, to Republicans of different philosophies, to let us all put our policies first for the good of America.

Mr. KINGSTON. I think the gentleman is right. That is also one reason that we are investing in fighting the drug war, because our children need to be safe from drug pushers at their school, and we need to pass this legacy on to the next generation. It is odd, as much money as a company like Nike or Coca-Cola spend advertising, that with drug dealers, there is no advertising plan, no business cards, you cannot tell everybody who you work for, no pension plan, no corporate logo. Yet as I go to the school districts in the 18 First District of Georgia counties and I ask in schools, private or public, rural or city, ``How many of you kids can get drugs in the high schools by the end of the day if you wanted to,'' in just about every school, 50 percent of the hands go up. That is too many. We have got to stop it. I would like to ask that question one day and see zero hands go up. But that is one reason why we are pushing for drug interdiction, keeping the stuff from even coming to our counties; drug enforcement, that if you are caught selling this deadly poison to our children, you are going to go to jail; and drug treatment. To that kid, that user, who says, I made a mistake, now I am addicted, I need some help, we want to give them a lifeline.

Mr. KINGSTON. Another part of that is not only passing the money on in our Nation from one generation to the next generation, but from family to family. The death taxes that rob so many of our families, our farmers, is a factor. I live in a growth area, and it is not unusual for me at all to see a widow who has bought the family property on Whitmarsh Island on the Intercoastal Waterway, bought it in the 1960s for $30,000, and after 20 years paid it off. Her husband is dead, she is on a fixed income, and now that property is worth $700,000, $800,000, maybe $1 million, but she is still on a fixed income and does not want to sell, does not want to move, and does not want to develop. Yet, our property taxes are pushing her out, and then our estate taxes are. If she wants to pass that on to the next generation, the next generation is going to incur a big tax on it. Here is a woman who is really independent, not on public assistance, who has money in the bank or an asset that if she needs emergency long- term care, if she has a catastrophe in her family, she has something. We are saying to her, you have to sell that cushion, because if you die your children are going to have to pay a whopping tax on it. We run off family farms because of that, and we make it impossible for small businesses to go from generation to generation. One of the things that is real important now is women own small businesses in unprecedented numbers. As they find out, hey, I have worked for the last 20 years to build up this company and it is worth a little money now, $1 million, $2 million net worth of a business, and I want to pass it on to my daughter, but guess what, Uncle Sam is saying they cannot do it. We have passed the end of that death tax penalty. There again, we have passed a version, the Republicans have, but we are willing to work with the President on it. If the President does not want to have too many wealthy people, I think wealth is something that in Arkansas, at least his school taught him that that was evil, that people who have been successful are not the people who have enjoyed the American dream but people who seem to be destroying the American dream. There seems to be this constant class warfare. The idea that you work hard all your life, you build up an estate, you build up wealth, you want to pass it on to your kids, I think is part of being an American. So we have passed estate tax relief. Again, we are willing to compromise with the President. We want to do what is best for America.

Mr. KINGSTON. About the marriage tax penalty, I have found in my district that the Democrats and Republicans are united on that. There are 25 million people paying absurd taxes. People are in favor of it. Another tax decrease this House has passed is the Spanish American War tax. It is interesting, because I say with great pride, General Wheeler, who led our troops over there, and the Rough Riders with Theodore Roosevelt, actually one of his descendents lives in Savannah, Spencer Wheeler. General Wheeler was a Member of Congress, and the President actually called him out of Congress to lead our troops in Cuba. What is interesting, I have talked to Spencer Wheeler, a doctor in Savannah, about it. I said, there is a tax that is still around that helped finance the Spanish American War, and it is a little tax on our telephone bills; not a huge tax, but it was earmarked or it was implemented for a certain purpose, it was earmarked for that purpose. But according to my history, we have been finished with the Spanish American War a long time. Yet, only in Washington do these things live on and on forever. We have passed that bill. I think the Senate is going to pass it. I hope the President will sign it. Again, it is common sense, kill the Spanish American War tax. We are finished with it.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, did the gentleman know that the Tax Code contains 5.7 million words. Now, that is eight times as many words as the Bible. One thing they do have in common is the Tax Code gives lots of instructions, but the Tax Code gives very little inspiration and zero forgiveness. In terms of the IRS laws, there is 101,200 pages of IRS laws and regulations. Just to comply with this Tax Code, our American taxpayers spend about $250 billion each year paying the H&R Blocks, paying the accountant down the street, the local folks, paying the lawyers or whatever, businesses, $250 million. To give my colleagues an idea, for our Commerce, State and Justice bill that has a lot of our drug enforcement money, we spend about $35 billion on that. So we have $250 billion to comply with taxes, not to pay taxes, but to comply, and yet to fight drugs, $35 billion. It is absurd. Mr. Speaker, in terms of the amount that we take, Americans today spend about 9 percent of their income on food, about 4 percent on clothing, unless one has teenagers, then it spikes well into about 20 percent. My daughter told me, she said, ``You are a horrible dresser.'' I said, ``You are right, but I was not this way until you were born and particularly since you turned 13.'' I tell her, I said, ``You know, I still dress better than my dad does.'' She does not give me any credit for that, but he is recovering from raising four kids himself. Now, on housing, we spend about 16 percent, on transportation, about 7 percent, and yet, on taxes, the two-income family, 39 percent of our income goes to taxes. We struck a blow for that here in the last couple of weeks, another example of the ``No good deed goes unpunished.'' Most people were unaware until just a few years ago that literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of American couples, paid extra taxes, in fact, pay extra taxes, simply because they are married. In my congressional district alone, we have a study that says that there are 70,000 couples that pay extra taxes just because they are married. There is the marriage penalty. It works out, the amazing thing is, it works out to something like $1,400 per couple that they pay in extra taxes. That is just not bad tax policy, that is bad family policy, and if we think about it, it is fundamentally immoral. A couple of years ago at one of my town hall meetings I had an older couple come up to me after the meeting. They said, you have to do something about this marriage penalty thing. I said, really? Tell me about that. They said, we are thinking about getting married, but we have figured it out with our accountants and we would be penalized to the tune of over $1,300 a year just because we were married. After they explained that to me, I said to myself, the Federal government should not discourage marriage. We all know that marriage and strong families are the glue that holds this society together. Yet, we have a system right now where hundreds of thousands of couples around the United States that are married pay extra taxes simply because they have a wedding certificate. That is simply wrong. This Congress is sending a very clear message to the administration and to the American people that we intend to change that.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to say this. My wife has one of the most important jobs in America. She is raising John, Betsy, Ann and Jim Kingston, who are all at home and we are glad to have them there, but she clips those coupons every Sunday and she goes through the two for ones and the 30 cents off and the good until next month, and she reminds me every now and then, last month I saved $13.33 in coupons, or this month I am up to $27. She asks me if she needs to report that every now and then jokingly, and I am afraid that if Uncle Sam knows that if we are so thrifty, that he will require it. Simplifying the Tax Code That is another reason why, in this Republican Congress, we have passed a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, so that if the IRS comes to your door, you are no longer guilty until you prove yourself innocent through your lawyers and your accountants and 7 years of records; you are presumed innocent. A question that I ask people in coastal Georgia on occasion is all right, now, look, you leave here today and let us say you leave the Rotary Club today and you walk out and you remember for some reason you pulled your wallet out of the car and you put it on the hood, or your purses, and you meant to pick it up, but in the flurry of locking the car and picking up your papers, your briefcase and all that and getting to your meeting on time, you forgot. You walk out and you realize, I left my wallet on the car and it is gone. All your credit cards, all your cash, everything else. That is choice number one, losing the wallet. Choice number two is you do not lose your wallet at all, you just come home and you are going through your mail at the end of the day and under that letter from Aunt Gladys and from the Visa to pay your bill is a little friendly calling card from the IRS that says, we have chosen you randomly to be audited. Now, you are a hard-working, tax-paying American. What do you want, to lose your wallet with all of your credit cards or to be audited by the IRS? Most people, regardless of how conscientious they have been paying their taxes, filling out the forms, getting an accountant to do it, maybe, they would rather lose their wallet than be audited.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman saying that. The other thing along this line in terms of a safe retirement is Social Security. The gentleman mentioned it earlier, but to think that this House, for 40 years, routinely would take any surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund and spend it on roads and bridges is just outrageous to think about. In 1999, in January, during the President's State of the Union address, standing right behind the podium where I am right now, he made the statement, let us save 60 percent of the Social Security surplus; i.e., let us spend 40 percent. And we on this side of the aisle said, no, Mr. President, we are not going to do it. We are going to protect and preserve 100 percent of grandmother's pension plan, because there is no business in the world that can mix operating expenses and a pension plan. At the time, everybody said yes, you all are talking a good game, but you are not going to do it. Well, we did do it. Not only did we do it for 1999, but we did it for the year 2000, and we will do it for the year 2001. The reason why that is important is once we have set the precedent, we have that firewall. In addition to that, I believe we could go another step and say, let us put it in a lockbox. Just putting the money aside is not good enough, let us put a lock on it so that in order to break that sacred implied promise, that sacred practice, let us say we have to vote. That would make it really impossible for people to frivolously spend this hard-fought-for Social Security surplus. Now, one reason why we know we need to do all of these things is because Americans are working their tails off. They are working harder than ever, and we need to protect their money and spend it like we spend our own money. Mr. Speaker, back in Savannah, Georgia and Glennville, Georgia and Hinesville, Georgia and Brunswick, Georgia, what my constituents do is, if gas is $1.47 at one pump and it is $1.42 down the street, they will drive that extra block to get the $1.42 and pump it themselves, even if they are wearing a coat and tie. If they need a new suit, they wait for the sales when suits are marked down, and if we need to wait until the fall to buy the spring outfit or the spring to buy the winter outfit, that is what they are going to do. If they are buying a pair of jogging shoes, they will wait until they are on sale with a discontinued brand. If they buy some Kellogs Cornflakes, they wait until they have the 50 cents off coupon. That is how American consumers spend their money, and that is how we should spend their money. We should follow that example in everything we do.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it is common sense, if the gentleman will yield, 86 percent of our seniors take at least one prescription a year, and the average senior consumes about 18 prescriptions each year. The average cost for the drugs is around $1,000 annually, or about $80 a month. Mr. Speaker, 44 percent of those seniors that are having to take or buy their own drugs have an income of less than $10,000 a year. So one of the things that we have done, not just pass the ``Gutknecht Law'' in terms of allowing free commerce between two nations who do have free commerce and are trading back and forth, but we have also passed a prescription drug benefit for Medicare. The important thing is that it reduces the average cost of prescription drugs by about 39 percent, it gives seniors still the option to buy it where they want, it does not endanger Medicare, and it does not come between the doctor-patient relationship, and that is something very important. Mr. Speaker, one difference that we have between the Republican plan and the President's plan is, we are saying this affects about 30 percent of the seniors on Medicare. They do not have prescription drug coverage. The other ones, about two-thirds do, either from their Federal retirement program or from the program that they were in in the private sector. But what we are saying is, because of that, we do not want to pick up Ross Perot's prescription drug charges. That is common sense. Now, the President wants it universal, which has a great ring to it, but when we do that, we buy prescription drugs for people who do not need that benefit. That is not quite the American way to subsidize somebody who does not need subsidizing. So we are trying to work this out with the White House, but I say to my colleague, I want the best plan to prevail. Prescription drugs is not a partisan issue. I want the best of the Democrat ideas in the House, the best Democrat and Republican ideas in the Senate, the best ideas from the White House, and let us put grandmother's prescription drug issue first and not politics.

Mr. KINGSTON. People can go to Canada and buy it if they live in Maine or Michigan; it is ready access. It will not really help us much in Georgia, but the fact they could get it, and they should under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Free trade means free trade for anything that is a legal product, and yet they cannot get it. Now, the legislation of the gentleman which was passed by the Republican Congress 2 weeks ago stops this practice, does it not?

Mr. KINGSTON. Let us look at Prozac. Prozac is $36.13 in America. In Europe, it is $18.50, and I would suppose in Canada maybe it is $25.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me look at Synthroid here. Synthroid, why does the gentleman maybe tell us what it is used for. In America, our American citizens have to pay $13.84. In Canada they can get it for $2.95.

Mr. KINGSTON. Getting back to this in just a second because the bill of the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), which will be passed by this House, it has already been passed and we have another version we are going to consider, I hope, next week; but I have been involved with the Georgia Fatherhood Project with the director named Robert Johnson, and then locally Robby Richardson, whose wife, Annette, works with us, he is the Savannah coordinator of it, they invited me to one of their meetings to talk to the men who are 23, 24 years old who have said when I was 19 years old, I was irresponsible and then the system kept pushing me out and pushing me further out the door. I made a mistake or two, but I could not get back in because society kept shutting the door on me. Now through this fatherhood project I can come back in and get my high school diploma, maybe get some college credits, get some vocational learning, learn a skill, get my job; and it is not necessarily the job I want, but it is the entry level job and then to get to the next level of the ladder. These guys are talking about I went four years without seeing my little girl, and now I am seeing her again, and I am part of her life; I do not have to hide from the Government to do this. Mom is in on it, too. It is win/win for society; win/win for the mom; win/win for the dad. But, more importantly, it is a win/win for that little girl. Senior Citizens Should Be Able To Buy Their Prescription Drugs From Other Countries

Mr. KINGSTON. I think that as we talk about welfare reform, and as the gentleman said it is about people and giving people opportunities, it is not about taxes, it is not about saving dollars but there are really three legs to the stool. One is for those who are able and capable, able-bodied to work. The other one is the single mother with transportation needs, health care needs, day care needs, education needs, housing needs. The third leg, though, is something very important and the gentleman just touched on it when he talked about little Johnny, and that is Dad. Our welfare system for years has been geared under the premise that if Dad is around, then one does not qualify for public housing; they do not qualify for the health care benefits for their children. What we are doing now under the leadership of the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson) is a great Fatherhood Project, saying to the kids, in some sectors of society it is as high as 70 percent of the children who are born without fathers at home, we are saying we want to bring their dad back because if we bring their dad back, the teenage dropout rate will go down; the drug usage rate will go down; the grades at school will go up and the teen pregnancy will go down. I think that is the kind of common sense legislation that we need to do, not just say, okay, we did welfare reform, now we are through; but to go back and say, now look the father has to be in the picture. When 70 percent of the kids are born without dads at home, they end up on welfare. Dad has to be brought back. I think that that is one of the keys.