Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think it is ironic that the Education Secretary, the man who is in charge of teaching children math, misunderstands the fact that when our budget is over the President's that we are slashing education. I think there is certainly a math deficiency there. Maybe we should have an investigation of that in itself. I know the Clinton administration loves studies. I am sure they would want to fund it. But it would also be a waste of money, so I am being sarcastic. I wanted to point out to my colleagues that the Lockhart quote, the White House spokesman, when he said, yeah, Congress should go ahead and spend the Social Security funds because they have done it for 20 years, well, there are a lot of things that have been going on for 20 years in this town that we are slowly putting a stop to. Now, the three of us wanted to put a stop to it really quickly in 1994 when we became the majority, but we could not. So it is kind of like stopping a runaway train. You just got to go slowly. You just cannot stop these things suddenly. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) has the same quote, basically, from the Democrat leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) saying, just take a little bit out of Social Security.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, what I find ironic is, frankly, these numbers are staggering to me as a conservative, as a Republican. I think that, in many cases, we as a Republican party spend too much money. But I understand we have got to work through the process, we have got to have 218 votes, we have got to have 51 votes in the Senate, we have got to have a bill that the White House will sign. So we, reluctantly sometimes, have to spend more money than our constituencies want us to spend. But when the Democrats vote no on the appropriations bills because we do not spend enough and then say they do not want to take it out of Social Security, we want to say, okay, I give up. This is some kind of game. Clue me in. What is the missing element here? The money that my colleague is talking about spending comes out of Social Security. And yet they say they do not want to spend it. Of course, now the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) says go ahead and spend it. Joe Lockhart, the Al Gore spokesperson and administration spokesperson, says go ahead and spend it. And Al Gore's own budget, which he is tooting around the country talking about, spends lots of Social Security money. I think that is maybe where the hope is that, perhaps because of the presidential year, the Vice President will come to his senses. But the reality is Al Gore is very much in favor of us spending Social Security money. We have got to put a stop to this. I do not know, I guess this is maybe being an alpha male, you raid your grandmother's trust fund so you can go around telling your friends, I wear opaque shirts, or whatever the color is that alpha males are supposed to wear. I do not keep up with these kind of subliminal things outside the Beltway. But the reality is, here is a guy running for President who wants to spend Social Security money and is fighting our budget because our budget does not spend enough money. What we are saying to the Vice President is, hey, look, all we are saying is take a penny out of the dollar. That is all you got to do is take one cent and then you do not have to spend any of the money out of Social Security. Cut out some of the waste. My colleague talked about Secretary Babbitt saying there was no waste in the Department of Interior, and you may have already mentioned this about the $30 million duck-breeding island in Hawaii. The Department of Interior has bought a $30 million island for ducks to breed on in Hawaii. I was a honeymooning duck, I might want to go to Hawaii myself if I could fly over there. But the problem is only 10 ducks took them up on the offer. So now at a cost of $3 million per duck, we have got an island. As the majority leader says, that is a lot of quackery.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will continue to yield, I think it is historic in its own right that we are even having the debate about not spending the money.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, tonight we need to talk about pizza, not just any pizza, but pepperoni pizza. I mean the hot, juicy, fresh-from- the-oven, thick Friday-night, after-the-football-game pepperoni pizza. Because if you are like millions of Americans and you engage in that habit on weekends and other nights, you probably have great comfort in knowing that that pepperoni pizza was inspected by the United States Department of Agriculture to make sure that the pepperonis on that pizza were fresh, clean, and pure. I am glad that they do that, because food inspection is safe. Now, if you have a vegetarian in the family and that person wants just the cheese pizza, USDA cannot inspect that one. That pizza is a special pizza. That pizza is inspected by the Food and Drug Administration. Now, you may be saying to yourself back home, Wait a minute. You mean to tell me if I have pepperoni on my pizza, the Department of Agriculture inspects it but if I have a cheese pizza, the Food and Drug Administration inspects it. Why is that? Is that not inefficient? Is that not a duplication? I would say yes. And if you are asking that question, you are probably in the great majority of people in the United States of America from Miami to Maine to California and back, but there is one great exception and that is this place called Washington, D.C., because inside the Beltway of Washington, D.C., people think differently. They think, ``Pro-government, grow government, grow your agency, grow your department and then along the way if you create a little waste, don't worry about it.'' Well, we have got an interesting phenomenon that the Congress is faced with tonight, Mr. Speaker, because we are in what I hope is the home stretch of the budget negotiations. In these budget negotiations, you have two schools of thought, that school that wants to spend more money and that school that wants to spend less money. Now, both schools of thought, I am sure, are good people. They both want a better world for our children. They both want security for our seniors. They want the uninsured to be insured and the unemployed to be employed and they want to make sure the uneducated get educated and those who have need, they want those needs answered. So I would say both sides are good people. But one side wants to spend more money. Now, the question is, where does that money come from? Well, we are in a situation, Mr. Speaker, where the only place to get new money in this town is Social Security. We on the Republican side of the aisle have said to our colleagues, ``We don't want to spend Social Security money on non-Social Security surpluses. And it is time for Washington to stop that habit.'' There is plenty of waste in our budget, such as the pizza program that we could get some additional savings out, so that the kids who need public services can get those services and the seniors can get them and the children can get their education. We can do this, but we are going to have to squeeze a few pennies out of the dollar. In fact I say few, only one penny. Let me show my colleagues a chart, Mr. Speaker. This chart, Mr. Speaker, shows what we are trying to do. We are saying in $1 to the United States Government, we want you to save one cent. That is not hard to do. I know it is not hard to do because I have lived on budget. I have got four children, two teenagers, then two children who still love me, and if you are the parent of a teenager, you know what I am talking about. My teen kids are very expensive and my little kids are very expensive, too, and I am not talking about buying clothes for them, I am talking about fixing the drier, getting a new refrigerator, getting new tires for the car because driving the car pools back and forth. That is real expensive. So it is not unusual at all at the end of a month or the beginning of the next one for my wife Libby and I to sit down at the table and say, ``Okay, we've got to save some money.'' Where are we going to come up with some money? Usually on $5, we have got to come up with 2 or $3 worth of savings and we have to forgo nice things. My daughter, Mr. Speaker, is 16 years old. She thinks I am the worst dresser in the world. I might be except my dad is still alive and I still dress better than he does. But I say to my daughter, ``Hey, look, I used to dress well, until I had children, and I cannot afford to anymore. But you ain't looking too bad. I see the nice clothes you're wearing to school.'' But we have got to sit around the table, Mr. Speaker, and find money in our savings, in our expenses. All we are asking the Federal Government to do is the same thing, get $5 and find a nickel out of it. Is there anybody in the sound of my voice who could not do that if you had to? If you had $5 and you had to come up with a nickel savings, could you not do that? We do it every day. Do you want the large drink or the medium-sized drink when you go through the McDonald's fast food line? ``I don't know. I'm not sure what the money looks like.'' Do you want the large French fries or the small French fries? Do you want lettuce and tomato on your sandwich? ``I don't know. Is it extra?'' Should we pump the gas here at $1.07 a gallon or move down the street where it might be $1.05 a gallon? This is what the American public does every single day all over the country, except in Washington, D.C., where asked if you can come up with a penny out of a dollar, it becomes impossible. Let me show you proof of this. The President of the United States has a Cabinet. Those are his key advisers. One of the Cabinet members who has been asked to try to come up with a penny on the dollar is Secretary of Interior Mr. Babbitt. He was in a discourse with a reporter the other day, I say the other day, I am talking about October 27, so it was last week. The reporter said, ``Is there no more waste in government in your departments?'' A simple question. ``Mr. Secretary, you're telling us there's no waste in your department.'' Secretary Babbitt, and I quote, right here on the chart: ``Well, it would take a magician to say there was no waste in government and we are constantly ferreting it out but the answer,'' remember, the question is, is there no more waste, ``but the answer otherwise is yes, you've got it exactly right.'' Ladies and gentlemen, I just want to ask you this: If you believe that there is not waste in the Department of Interior, I would like you to e-mail me and tell me your story, because I have never gone to a government business or even a private business where I could not find a way to save some money. I mean, it might be as unimaginative as turning off the lights a little earlier at night. It might be as unimaginative as putting on a valve on some of the water faucets. It might be as unimaginative as having to do a swing shift instead of paying the overtime all the time. I am not sure what the best solution is for the Department of Interior, but I know this: As somebody who sits on the Committee on Appropriations overseeing it, they have a lot of needs, and I can promise you, they have a lot of good projects, and they do not waste lots and lots of money, but I would still say to that very good department that runs our National Park Service and our Fish and Wildlife, ``You can still find a penny on a dollar. I know you can. You're good people, you've got that ability, so let's don't fool ourselves. But if you don't, where is the money going to come from?'' And the money is going to come from Social Security. Now, imagine, if you will, that we are in a room that is the size maybe of a triangle, and I am kind of thinking out loud on this, Mr. Speaker, but on one side of the triangle, you have a position staked out and that position is no tax increase. Then on the other side of the room you have a position that says you cannot take the money from Social Security. The other point in the room inevitably says you have got to cut your spending in order to balance the equation. Now, there are those in this body who still think Social Security is a cash cow for purposes that do not have anything to do with Social Security. In fact, the President of the United States in January in his State of the Union address stood right behind me in the well of the House, Mr. Speaker, right in front of you, and says, ``There's going to be a surplus in Social Security. Let's protect 62 percent of it.'' Well, why not 100 percent? And most Members of Congress opposed the President on spending the other 38 percent of Social Security and said, ``We're not going to do that. We're going to preserve 100 percent of it.'' And the President did not like that idea, but we pushed and now we have not spent one nickel of Social Security. The President tried a tax increase. The tax increase fell on the floor of the House by a vote of 419-0, Democrats and Republicans saying ``no'' to a tax increase. So now you have got to go back to cutting the penny out of the dollar. That is a savings. I had mentioned the pizza thing, but it does not stop there. Ben & Jerry's ice cream gets this program, government program where they can spend $800,000 exporting their ice cream and advertising overseas. I think it is great for people overseas to have the opportunity to munch down on good old Ben & Jerry's, but I do not think that the taxpayers need to be paying for a private business to do that. Another example, the President went to Africa last year. I am glad he is traveling and I think it is important to keep our international relations up, but who were the 1,300 Federal employees he took with him to Africa at a cost of $42.8 million? This was not a military exercise. This was good will. One thousand three hundred people to Africa at a cost of $42.8 million. It is absurd. Under our radical plan, all he would have to say to the 1,300 is cut it out, cut it down 1 percent, 13 of you will have to stay at home. I know the gentleman from Colorado has joined me and he is not going to like what I have to say probably, but the mayor of Denver went on the African trip. I want to know, what is Colorado to our Africa policy? Not to pick on your lovely State where my sister and my mother live, but I can tell you one thing, that if the good people of Colorado were interested, then they ought to pay for their own Denver mayor to go to Africa. I feel the same way about the President's trip to China. He took 500 people to China at a cost of $18.8 million. Who were the 500 people? Why did they need to go? I know the First Lady took a lot of members of her family and friends, but why not say, okay, some of you have to stay at home next trip, and that is not a radical idea. But if they do that, you can save Social Security. Let me yield to my friend from Colorado.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me clarify and make sure people understand, you are not saying to shut down the government. You are saying just reduce.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me read you another quote that is interesting. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, when asked if the administration's position is we should not reduce the size of the Federal budget, he responded, ``That would certainly be the view of the administration.'' That was a quote from last Tuesday, October 26. You know, we are just saying get the waste out of here. I have got a quote right here from Dick Gephardt that was from October 24, 1999, and when asked about spending Social Security funds, he says, ``I understand there is a feeling now that since we have a surplus, and since we got to get ready for the baby-boomers, that we really ought to try to spend as little of it as possible, and none, if possible.'' Well, you know, that is leaving the door cracked. And, you know, again our budget says cut out the waste and you can do it. A couple of other examples. I do not know if you are aware of this, but approximately 26,000 dead people receive food stamps to the tune of $8.5 million. That would feed a lot of live people. Maybe we should concentrate on those who are not dead and maybe more people would do better. That would be a little healthier. Supplemental Security Income fraud, and this is a special, basically, payment to people, fraud that exceeds $1 billion a year, including a convicted murderer who has been on death row for 14 years and received $75,000 a year in SSI benefits. Another example: the Government lost over $3.3 billion on students who never paid back their student loans. Then here is a story of a defense contractor who charged the Government $714 for an electric bell that was worth only $46. All we are saying is let us go after this before we go after Grandma's Social Security. I see we have been joined by the gentleman from Minnesota, the heart of Hormel and Spam country.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, is the White House or the executive branch's salary included?

Mr. KINGSTON. I would ask the gentleman, has the President made the offer?

Mr. KINGSTON. So the position on the social security money, do not cut spending?

Mr. KINGSTON. Republicans, we have been guilty, and Democrats, they have been guilty, have spent this money in the past. But this Congress has not done it, and so the fact that we are having this dialogue is great. Here is a chart from the Congressional Budget Office that certifies that we are not spending social security money. This is a number that came from the Congressional Budget Office or our congressional bean counters on October 27, last week. It said, projected on-budget surplus, $1 billion, under the congressional scoring system. This is from a neutral third party saying that we have not spent social security money. But again, this is historic that we have this opportunity. I kind of get a little bit charged up, and we do have some finger-pointing, some good bipartisan finger-pointing, in the morning, in the 1-minutes, where Members are saying, they are spending the money, they are not spending the money. Well, it is good that at least we consider this debatable, because it has not been. Again, both parties have been guilty of it, but this Congress is different. It is such a great position to be in now. But we have to continue with the waste and abuse or we are not going to be able to have these bragging rights come adjournment next week or next month. We have been joined by our good friend, the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune). I know he has been a leader in cutting out fraud and waste in government, and also one who has insisted on not spending the social security money. I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. KINGSTON. Actually, $18 billion comes right out of the Clinton White House budget. It is interesting that when the White House does it, it is sound accounting procedures, but when Republicans do it, it is a gimmick.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo).

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we have about 3 or 4 minutes left, so I wanted to give everybody a chance to close. But one of the things I want to point out is that there are many Members on the Democratic side of the aisle who say it is hard to argue against 1 percent reduction. We think we can do it. We, too, do not want to spend Social Security. So it is really a matter of let us work through it with the White House and get this thing done because I think that so often we look at this as Republican/Democrat, but there is this Congress, legislative branch versus the executive branch. But the vision is clear. Do not spend Social Security money. Do not increase taxes. But balance the budget through spending less. There is a lot of bipartisan agreement on it. What we need to do is finish the agreement up and leave town. I think the people in America feel a lot better when Congress is out of session rather than when we are in session.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).

Mr. KINGSTON. I think the gentleman has raised a good point. I believe you could cut 1 percent and most people would not know the difference. It is interesting that here is a quote I wanted to bring up, when asked why Democrats will not support finding a penny out of every Federal dollar in waste, fraud and abuse, even when the defense budget is $1.8 billion higher than the President requested, the House Democrat leader, Dick Gephardt, responded, ``They don't want 50,000 to 70,000 people to be let go at the Department of Defense.'' Well, here is the President, his own budget was $1.8 billion less, and now we are asking them to find 1 cent on the dollar, and the Democrats are claiming it is going to lay off 50,000 people. What was their budget going to do? It is just absurd. Only in this town can you have these kind of conversations. Out there in common sense America, you know, this would have been resolved in August, and we would be home by now.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me thank the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune) and the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Tancredo) and the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) for playing a part in this vital negotiation and this great debate that we are having, and it is worthwhile. We are trying to save Social Security. We are trying not to increase taxes. We are trying to ferret out waste in government. Who are we doing it for? We are doing for that family that drives an extra block to buy gas for $1.05 a gallon instead of for $1.07. We are doing it for that family who pushes to order medium Cokes instead of large Cokes at restaurants, chicken instead of steak. We are doing it for that family who gets three quotes a year on their automobile insurance. We are doing it for a family that does not buy a new suit unless the clothes are on sale. Finally, we are doing it for that family who will never buy cereal unless they have a 20-cents-off coupon that they clipped out of the newspaper. That is what this is about, 1 cent on the dollar. It is not hard. American families do it every single day. Congress can certainly do its part here in Washington, D.C.

Mr. KINGSTON. Let me claim back my time for a minute just to underscore your point. The Pentagon had to report as missing two $4 million aircraft engines, two $850,000 tugboats, and one $1 million missile launcher. Anybody seen the missile launcher? We are looking for one missile launcher, $1 million worth. And the tugboats, the missile launcher blew up the tugboats when they put the aircraft engine in it, apparently. It is absurd. Erroneous Medicare payments waste over $20 billion annually. It is ridiculous. One example that I think is absurd, in Washington, D.C., which is largely funded by the Federal Government, they appointed a group to find jobs for people who are on welfare. This group had no employment placement experience at all. They got a contract, this is Federal dollars we are talking about, $6.6 million, to place 1,500 people. One year later they had spent $1 million and placed 30 people. I think the folks in Colorado would run you out on a rail if you said you could not find waste in government, as I know the people in Georgia would do to me, and most Members of Congress.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, it is very interesting to hear all these Democrats who voted no on the appropriation bills because we were not spending enough now saying that we are taking money out of Social Security. Hello. Where does the extra money come from? I will yield the floor to any Democrat who can tell me. If they do not want to get it out of Social Security, where are they getting the money from? Hello. Hello. Silence, what I thought. Just what I thought. Here is the words of the President's advisor: ``The key goal of the Republicans is not to spend Social Security surplus.'' That is from their own Democrat advisor. Now, what is our alternative? To get 1 cent out of each dollar. I am a father of four. Do my colleagues know what, we have to cut our budget weekly. We have to come up with more money. Usually when we are looking at a dollar, we have to get a quarter or 35 cents out of it. If I had to cut a penny out, it would be easy. But that is what we are doing. All the Democrats now are crying and screaming there is no waste in government. What about when the President went to Africa and spent $42.8 million and took 1,300 of his closest friends? I think there is a lot of waste in government. If we can get the Democrats to help us, we can save Social Security and quit spending it.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, we are at a real interesting time. We are in the home run stretch of the legislative session. We are in a position on the budget that we are negotiating with the President because of three different reasons. Number one, we had the 1997 budget agreement. That agreement was a bipartisan agreement, over 300 Democrats and Republicans alike joined forces to say, let us put some fiscal order, some discipline in this place. The President signed off on it. Now even though it is a bipartisan agreement, it seems like only one party is responsible for carrying out that agreement. That party is the Republican Party. Number two, we do not want to spend Social Security money. Now, do not take my word for it as a Republican. This is John Podesta, the Chief of Staff at the White House. He works for Bill Clinton. Here is his exact statement: ``The Republicans' key goal is to not spend the Social Security surplus.'' I am glad, suddenly the White House is saying things right and we are very glad about that. Indeed, if you look at this smaller chart, that is exactly what we have been able to do. In the past, the Democrat controlled Congress and under Republican control, Social Security money has been taken for general purposes. But this year, zero. A historic moment. We have not raided Social Security. Very important. The third reason we are in this position is that the President had promoted a tax increase as a way to fund a lot of new programs. On a bipartisan basis, this House, 419-0 voted against increasing taxes. So right now we are in a situation where the only way to continue the 1997 budget agreement and not raid Social Security is by reducing spending a mere one cent on a dollar. I am a father of four, Mr. Speaker. I have two teenagers and two smaller children. We have to every month sit around and decide are we going to fix the washing machine, are we going to buy new tires. I guess we will have to postpone that vacation or that trip to Atlanta one more time in the fancy hotel, but we are used to doing that. But when Libby and I sit around the table and cut our budget, out of $5, we have got to look for 2 or $3. All we are saying to the Federal Government is cut out a nickel out of $5 or one cent out of $1. We have heard from Democrats tonight, that cannot be done. Let me give my colleagues a few suggestions. The FDA has a pizza inspection program. If you buy cheese pizza, the FDA inspects it. But if you buy pepperoni pizza, the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspects it. I do not know, but in the private sector we would say, let us combine that. Or how about this. The President went to Africa with 1300 of his closer Federal employee friends, spent $42.8 million. Or how about when he went to China, he spent $18.8 million and took 500 of his closer friends. Cutting out 1 percent would mean 50 of them would have to stay at home the next time he goes to China. The next time he goes to Africa, 13 would have to stay at home. That does not sound so bad to me. But we keep hearing how harsh this is. How about the program in Washington, D.C. where the Federal Government spent $6.6 million on a staffing company to help the government get people from welfare to work, $6.6 million and they were supposed to place 1500 people. One year later and $1 million later, they had only placed 30 people out of 1500. They spent $1 million to do that. That is waste. And, you know what? I would like to pop the bubble of the Democrats and the big spenders up here. The Federal Government does not have any money. Let me repeat it: The Federal Government does not have money. It is the people's money. We hard working taxpayers send our money to Washington. It is not the Federal Government's money, it is sent to them by hard working taxpayers. So I believe that we in Washington have to be very careful on how we spend that. Now I want to say one thing that is just kind of interesting. Here is a statement by Secretary Babbitt when a reporter said is there no more waste in government in your department? Secretary Babbitt, who is Mr. Clinton's appointee for the Department of Interior, the guy in charge of the National Parks, he said, ``Well, it would take a magician to say there was no waste in government.'' Amen to that. ``We are constantly ferreting it out. But the answer is otherwise, yes, you have got it exactly right.'' From the President's own folks, yes, there is waste in government, and we can cut it out and save Social Security.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding time. Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say why are we here. I would say probably for three real reasons. Number one, in response to the American people in 1997 to get our fiscal house in order, we passed a bipartisan budget agreement. I did not support it. I know the gentleman from Wisconsin and many others did not but over 300 Democrats and Republicans joined with the White House to pass this agreement to give us a road for budget restraint in the next couple of years. That is number one. Number two, we have said as recently as last week, no new taxes. On a vote of 419-0, Democrats and Republicans rejected President Clinton's proposals to increase taxes. And number three, despite the fact that the President said in his State of the Union address that we should only preserve 62 percent of the Social Security trust fund, we on the Republican side have insisted on 100 percent, and now many of the Democrats have said, let us protect 100 percent of the Social Security trust fund. So with these three principles colliding, what we are trying to do is balance the budget by reducing spending by about one cent on the dollar. It is not that hard to do. If you look back at the principles, here is what the White House said about the Republican plan: The key goal is to not spend Social Security surplus. That is right from the mouth of Chief of Staff John Podesta at the White House. This chart, Mr. Speaker, shows that under Democrat control and under Republican control up until this year, we have been spending Social Security surplus. But this year on this chart, we have not. We do not want to back off that commitment. I think it is very important. And the way to not do that is this simple, shown in this chart. We are going to spend out of a dollar 99 cents and we are going to save one cent. Where can you get some of this money? Look at it in practical examples. The President went to Africa last year. One thousand three hundred Federal employees went with him at a price tag of $42.8 million. Under this proposal, 13 of them would have to stay at home. He went to China, $18.8 million, 800 Federal employees. Under this plan, eight of them would have to stay at home. Ben & Jerry's, the delicious and successful ice cream company, gets a Federal subsidy of $800,000 to sell ice cream overseas. Under this proposal, they would get less, and who knows, maybe they would have to do it the old-fashioned way and pay for it themselves. Under this proposal we may want to look at the FDA cheese inspection program because the FDA inspects cheese pizza but the USDA, the Department of Agriculture, inspects pepperoni pizza. I do not know, maybe they could get together. That might be an example of cutting out government waste. Here in Washington, D.C., one of the cronies of the city council was awarded a $6.6 million contract for job placement. One year later after being asked to place 1500 people, 30 people had been placed. Those are just a couple of examples. That is all we are saying. If we can do that, we can keep from raiding Social Security or increasing taxes.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, there are two prevailing issues or schools of thought on what to do about Social Security surpluses. The Republican Party wants to protect and preserve 100 percent of it. But do not take my word for it as a Republican, let me quote to my colleagues what John Podesta, the White House Chief of Staff says. ``The Republicans' key goal is to not spend the Social Security surplus.'' Again, words spoken by the White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, Clinton's right-hand man. Now, the Democrats, on the other hand, led by the President, last January, wanted to spend 38 percent of it. The President stood right behind where I am now and said, ``Let us preserve 62 percent of Social Security but spend the rest on other programs.'' Now, as of late he has come around to say, well, maybe we should not do that. But this is what the Democrat leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), said this Sunday. And I will just put these words here, and again it is a direct quote. That, ``since we have the surplus, we have to get ready for baby boomers, and we should spend as little of it as possible.'' Now, join us, please. I ask the Democrats, protect 100 percent of Social Security, not just most of it. The way to do it is if we cut one penny out of every dollar in the budget, we can protect and preserve Social Security. A penny saved is a retirement earned and secured for our seniors.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, as the White House said it best, John Podesta, the Chief of Staff, said, ``The Republicans' key goal is not to spend the Social Security surplus.'' That comes from the leading liberal Democrat over there. Indeed, that is what we have done. This chart right here shows, particularly on the bottom part, that we have in fact not spent any of the Social Security surplus. It is very important. But now where are the Democrats on this process? Well, here is the minority leader. ``The Democrats will spend a little bit of the money.'' He is saying that we should not try to do it, but we are going to have to do it. That is the difference right now between the Democrats and the Republicans. Republicans are saying, ``No means no. We don't want to spend any Social Security money for balancing the budget.'' The Democrats are saying, ``Let's spend a little bit of it.'' Now, what is our way of getting around it? We say that out of every $10 in spending, ten bucks, we are asking the Federal Government agencies to save 13 cents. That is all it is, save 13 cents. To give an example, the President went to Africa last year and took 1,700 people. Two would have had to stay at home under our plan.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield further, one thing that is so important to Social Security is that the actions of this Congress in the next 4 to 5 days as we try to wrap up the appropriations process, if we agree that there is no more money out there in terms of an operating surplus, except from Social Security, and we all agree we do not want to take that money, then we have to go back to the very hard work. I am a member of the Committee on Appropriations, and I can promise my colleagues there has been a lot of cooperation on both sides of the aisle to try to spend the money wisely. It is extremely difficult to try to fund all the things we mutually agree on, education, health care, senior programs, environmental programs. Then, discouragingly enough, we have this bipartisan agreement signed by both parties, a lot of fanfare in 1997; and yet it cannot be supported on a one-partisan basis. It has got to be bipartisan. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) yielding to me, and I look forward to continuing this dialogue.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to say to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), I think maybe it would be a very beneficial thing, maybe, tomorrow night or the next time that we do actually have interaction in a debate, particularly about the spending situation that we are in. I find it, for example, atrocious that the party of the gentleman from North Dakota last year mischaracterized the statement intentionally of Newt Gingrich about Medicare. I find that absolutely appalling. The distinguished gentleman from North Dakota, to my knowledge, did not do that. I would have talked to him about it if he did. The other day on the House floor, a 1984 statement of ``Candidate Dick Armey'' was paraded out here saying ``Majority Leader Dick Armey,'' which he was not the majority leader in 1984. So on a lot of this rhetorical terrorism, I am with the gentleman from North Dakota and would certainly like to have a one-on-one discussion, a party-to- party discussion. What I am very concerned about is we have the President who vetoed the Commerce-State-Justice bill tonight because he wants to put more money into the U.N. He vetoed foreign aid because he want to increase foreign aid. As I listened to the statements of the gentleman from North Dakota tonight, his group statement, as I understand, we seem to have agreement that there is no more money out there except to reduce spending or spend it smarter. So if we are all in agreement, although I do have a quote here from the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) that I am very concerned about that he said yesterday, not 1984, and not about the health care financing administration or anything like that; but the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) yesterday was making a statement on one of the Sunday talk shows about we should spend a little bit of Social Security. I am concerned about that. But the point really is that we are in this budget debate. If we all agree, and we did agree last week on the House floor, a vote of 419 to 0, that we would not increase taxes. We did agree we were not even going to take it out of Social Security. There is no more surplus out there. Then we all need to say is, okay, where do we take the money out of if we do go along with the President and wanting to spend more money on foreign aid?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Arizona will yield, I agree with that. Some Members who join the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) tonight, for example, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich), was saying he is against investment of the funds. Well, that was the President of the United States, not necessarily the position of the Democrat House Members, but that was the President of the United States who was saying that, and only this weekend backed off on that under the rhetorical category we need to clarify where that was coming from. Another Member, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen), said there has not been a bill introduced. I do not know what he would call the Archer-Shaw bill, which one of the other Members who was here tonight actually brought up himself, that that does address, I think, 75 years of Social Security solvency. Frankly, it is a very intellectual accountant-type approach to this. It is a very complex problem. It is a complex solution. But that might be something that my colleagues choose to talk about, too, that we could throw on the table because I am not necessarily on that bill myself. I do not know that the gentleman from North Carolina signed off on it. But it has a vision, and it has some seriousness to it. It is well worth deciding.