Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I wanted to tonight touch base on 3 issues very quickly, but first I want to say, representing the Third Infantry Division in Hinesville, Georgia, Fort Stewart-Hunter, I had the opportunity on Friday to go say good-bye to many of the troops who were leaving to go to Kuwait. They were on the tarmac, they had already said good-bye to their families, they had already gotten their paperwork in order. They had guns in hand, canteens loaded, rucksacks on their back, they were sitting in their fuel trucks, in their communication trucks and Jeeps and so forth, getting ready to get on a C-5 and go to Germany or to Spain, then on to Kuwait. The men and women who were about to go in harm's way on behalf of not only the United States of America but the entire world were standing tall. They were confident but not cocky, they were proud but not arrogant and to a person brave and sure of themselves. They are well-trained. I told them that the American people are behind them. I was excited as everybody else was when I read about the potential peace agreement. I hope that it stands. However, I do think that this administration needs to clearly outline to Congress, this week, exactly what that agreement means to our foreign policy in Iraq and the Middle East. What will be the long-term ramifications? Do we have a lasting peace, what will be involved, and can our troops come home? Can we bring down the 25,000 troops that we have? I am very interested to hear from the administration on that. I, like many Members of Congress, again would ask this administration to tell us exactly what is going on. To touch base on a couple of issues, real quickly. Education. This year we need to do everything we can to decentralize education and put it back in the hands of the local people. I was talking to a woman in Brunswick, Georgia whose mother was a teacher in Gray, Georgia, one of the great teachers that introduces all the kids to all the wonderful subjects and has taught most of the kids in the small town of Gray. She said that not long ago, a Harvard federally funded education consultant went down to Gray, Georgia and told this 30-year veteran of teaching that she needed to start pointing to the other side of the chalkboard because kids learn cognitively better on one side of the brain than the other and if the teacher would only start pointing to the other side of the chalkboard, these kids would learn a lot more. That kind of absurd busybodiness out of Washington, we do not need. The second issue, taxes. We need to continue to be mindful that the average American family pays 38 percent in taxes. That means every Monday, you are working for the government and most of Tuesday you are working for the government. We need to reduce our tax burden to the 25 percent range. We need to simplify our Tax Code. If we go to a sales tax or a flat tax, whichever, it is better than the Tax Code that we have now. Then we need to change the attitude of the IRS. They work for us, the American people. We do not work for them. You should be considered innocent until proven guilty. Finally, we need to have a mature dialogue on retirement. We really do not have a zero balanced budget. We have a Social Security surplus that we are applying to the general fund. If we want to protect Social Security and put it first, we have to say absolutely no new spending programs. Madam Speaker, the President has committed to over $100 billion in new spending programs for this year in his budget. That money comes right out of the surplus in Social Security. We need to personalize Social Security, but we need to protect it. The first step is not spending the money. In these things, education, taxes and retirement, I hope that this Congress makes them the top priority.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Today, Mr. Chairman, we are seeing a little bitterness from people who should not be bitter, we are seeing partisanship and pettiness from people who should not exhibit partisanship and pettiness, and we certainly are seeing a lot of silliness and gamesmanship when people say that we are changing this name of the airport from George Washington. I go to the National Airport every single week twice. I have never see any bust or any reference whatsoever to the great George Washington. Let us get away from that silliness. The real matter is partisan politics.

Mr. KINGSTON. I will be glad to yield on the gentleman's time. We can talk about the Reagan record, reducing inflation. We can talk about unemployment going down, the creation of 18 million new jobs, economic turnaround, interest rates falling, the demise of the Soviet Union, the rise of the American military and international prestige. We can talk about the Reagan spending programs, the fact that seven out of eight of his budgets that he submitted to the Democratic- controlled Congress were actually increased, that if we had kept as a Congress with the Reagan budgets, he would have left office with over $100 billion in surplus. Now, we can talk about his strong economic legacy. But I want to speak to you, Mr. Chairman, about Reagan the man. I am a baby-boomer. I was raised during the Watergate era and then Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and the Iran hostage situation. And do you know what? Speaking as a young American, we did not have that much to look up to, particularly out of Washington. But when Ronald Reagan came to the scene, I can tell my colleagues that, as a youngster, younger than I am now, in my late 20s, we had somebody to look up to. My wife said, ``Isn't he wonderful? He is like a king, somebody you can really respect and follow.'' Then I said to her one day, I said, ``Libby, you know what, you like Ronald Reagan'' she kept on going on and on and on, ``You like Ronald Reagan better than you like me.'' And she said, ``Yes. But I like you better than I like George Bush.'' So I had to take it any way I could get it. The man, as president, brought dignity, honor, respect and optimism to the White House and to the streets of America. He wrote my wife's grandfather, Basil Morris, while in his 80s, a birthday letter. And Mr. Morris wrote him back and said, ``You have restored the prestige of what it means to be the president of the United States.'' And I think that those words, coming from an octogenarian, means so much and speaks so loudly. I will close with this line. There were a lot of difficulties. Was Reagan the perfect president? No, he was not the perfect president. Is Bill Clinton? No. Was George Bush? No. Jimmy Carter? No. Was George Washington? No. I do not know that we will ever have the perfect president. But one thing that Ronald Reagan taught us is that we can all be optimistic and look forward without fear of tomorrow because, and I quote, ``After all, we are Americans.''

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago on the lectern to my right behind me, the President stood up and said the era of big government is over. Hence, enter into, I guess, the era of the smaller government. And then this week, as he announced his new $100 billion increase- spending budget, he said we are at the end of an era. So I guess what the President was saying is that the era of big government being over only lasted 2 years, or about 23 months if we are counting. What else does he say in this new era? Nationalize health care; nationalize Federal day care programs; expansion of the sinking Medicare program, causing more problems for our Nation's seniors; and, of course, paying millions and millions of dollars to that favorite U.N. organization. We in the Republican party hate to see the era of smaller government being over with. We think that it should continue. We support smaller government and lower taxes; stronger families, not a stronger Washington bureaucracy. We support a stronger military, not a stronger Saddam Hussein. We support stronger local governments and less influence outside of Washington.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I overheard the beginning of your speech, and I thought it was very important that you pointed out that 2 years ago the President said that the era of big government is over. And yet the other day, yesterday, he said, we are now at the end of an era. So apparently the era of big government being over was only a 2-year period of time, a 24-month little spurt in United States history. What the President is now saying is that the era is over, and here is how I want to spend the surplus. Now, I do not know how the good folks in your district are, but I know the good folks in coastal Georgia, if they have a credit card debt and they go 1 month without using the credit card, that does not mean that the bank calls them up and says, hey, last month your credit card balance was zero, go out and buy some new clothes and a new stereo, and go on a nice vacation and take your family out to eat. What they say is, hey, I am glad you finally quit spending on the damn credit card. Now start paying down your credit card debt. The position we are in as a country, just because for the first time in 30 years we are going to have no deficit, it does not mean that we have paid down our $5.1 trillion debt. And what we need to do is have a sensible approach that you have outlined in terms of paying down the debt and having not increased government and not gone out and spent on a lot of new programs and so forth. I really appreciate your class taking the leadership on this and common sense tax reforms, targeting to put values back in the system and reward people who are out there working and not the folks who want to take advantage of it.

Mr. KINGSTON. I think that the gentleman has raised a good point that taxes are an indication of the size of your government. One of the things that when we talk about a balanced budget, if we had government the size that we do today, if we had the same size government or budget years and years ago, we would have always had a surplus. The fact is our budget is overgrown. We are like the 300- or 400- pound fat boy who has finally quit gaining weight. And we are saying, oh, yes, now you are in great shape because you are not gaining weight anymore. The fact is we have a huge, massive government, as the President has proposed it, $1.7 trillion government. That is a whole heck of a lot of bureaucrats, a whole heck of a lot of rules, regulations and Washington busybodies who have nothing to do in this world but to stick their nose into your family, your household, your bedroom, your kitchen table, your refrigerator. They are going to give us rules for this and that, labeling laws, restrictions and so forth. If you go out and talk to businesses, I do not see how they stay in business anymore, small or large or mid-sized businesses, just too much bureaucracy. One of my favorite stories, and it is not hard to get one on OSHA, is a plumbing contractor in my district was installing a P-trap in a kitchen or bathroom sink. The P-trap is a little pipe that goes like that. Most of these days one uses PVC pipe. This is just like your bathroom cabinet and probably 80 percent of the houses in America, your typical middle-class ranch house. The plumbing contractor was using glue, PVC pipe underneath this sink in a bathroom. And OSHA fined him for using a hazardous substance in a confined space without a gas mask. And that is the kind of government that we have, when we have a $1.7 trillion dollar debt. They are not really worried about worker safety as much as they are concerned about bureaucratic job security, and they are going to come in and tell us how to run our lives or our offices because they have to justify their own existence. But I think that what the gentleman is talking about with his targeted tax reductions does start the very important process of rolling back the size of government and the government regulations and interference with our lives and commerce.

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

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Thank you, Madam Speaker. I wanted to talk a little bit about an article that I read called U.S. Victory in the Crime War, written by Timothy Maier, and it was from ``The World and I'' magazine. It is a great article, and it just puts a perspective on some of the crime policy that we talk about. I live in an area that has a lot of crimes, a lot of sad stories. I was talking to the DA, Steve Kelly, the other day about a case that he had where a 68-year-old woman was raped while her husband was held at gun point by some teenage thugs. And Mr. Kelly is a very aggressive, very competent DA, and he was able to get a prosecution on that, but it was just a heartbreaking story. I remember another story in Savannah, Georgia, of a woman who was bathing her 2-year-old in the bathtub and somebody knocked on the door. And she looked out and decided not to answer it, and so the perpetrator went from the front door to the back door, kicked it in and raped this woman while she was bathing her 2-year-old. And those kinds of heartbreaking stories we all hear, and we all hear too often, but in the crime debate we often forget the victim. What I wanted to talk about is some of the things Mr. Maier had pointed out. The good news is that over the last 4 years violent crime, which includes aggravated assault, rape and murder, dropped 7 percent. Homicides fell 11 percent, about 7 people per 100,000 in population. Robberies were down 8 percent. Aggravated assaults dropped 6 percent. And rapes dropped 3 percent. Property crime, such as burglary and auto theft, also dropped. So there is a lot of good news. Now, the interesting part is who is claiming credit for this. And, of course, in Washington we want to point to our tough crime policy and the President wants to point to some of his policies, but Mr. Maier said that the real success lies in the State governments, since that is where so many of the violent crimes end up in court. He pointed out that the States that have truth in sentencing laws, such as Virginia, are leading the way in the reductions of crime. He pointed out that in Virginia that they have had a truth in sentencing law and their simple policy is we want to get the bad guys off the streets. Think about this, Madam Speaker. The hard working taxpayers in your district in New York should not be afraid to walk down the street at night. They paid for the street. They should not have to look over their shoulders. But the thugs who beat up old people and grab girls off the streets, they should be in jail. They should be afraid to walk down the streets, because we want to catch them and we want to lock them up and segregate them from decent society. And so what Mr. Maier has pointed out is States that have the truth in sentencing laws and building new prisons, and they are purging these people off the streets, getting rid of the bad apples, they are leading the way. So truth in sentencing was part of it. Now, another thing he looked at, another factor, was the COPS program. The President has said that because we have 100,000 new cops on the street it has made a new difference. But the reality is that there are not 100,000 new cops on the streets. And depending on who you are talking to, that number is actually as low as 20,000 and sometimes up to 57,000 people. One thing he did show, he said there are more than 17,000--he talked about Washington, DC. He said in Washington, D.C. there are more than 17,000 police officers, including Federal police in Washington, but the city still averages 60,000 violent crimes a year. Here we are in the Nation's capital and one person out of eight is going to be a victim of a violent crime. So does the Cops on the Street program work? I would say we really do not know for sure, but I can say this: The communities that have been flexible with the money seem to have been the most successful. In Statesboro, Georgia, they have actually put a police satellite station in one of the housing projects that was in an area where there was high drug high crime, lots of problems. And right smack in the middle of it the police in Statesboro put in a satellite station. I went to visit it and they said immediately they ran out the bad apples. The children come up to the police officers now. Instead of being afraid of them, they come up and hug them. They tell them when somebody from out of the housing area is in the area that should not be. And the turnaround in that area has been tremendous. The commercial businesses, which had been closing down, are coming back and reopening. Church groups come to this area. It has been a great community success story in Statesboro, Georgia, and now they have done this in another housing project. So when the COPS grant money is used in the way that the local community needs it to be used, I think that it does have an impact. The third factor which Mr. Maier examined in terms of reducing crime was what about gun control. The President was quick to say, well, it is the Brady bill. The Brady bill is something that requires a background check on people before they can buy a gun. But Mr. Maier points out that in the time that it has existed, which I believe is 4 years now, that under the law there have only been seven prosecutions and of those seven, only three were sent to prison for illegally trying to obtain a handgun. So we have to say that really is not the main factor. Now, he does point out something else. What portion of violent crimes actually involve the handgun. The answer is about 10 percent. And this statistic suggests that controlling handguns is not the final factor. In fact, Mr. Maier pointed out from 1980 to 1992 the number of firearms increased by 18 percent. But during the same period of time, the portion of violent crimes committed without a firearm dropped 4 percent. So the bottom line, according to Mr. Maier, is more guns on the street does not necessarily increase gun crime. And he shows a lot of examples. One thing that is very interesting also is that he points out that in terms of guns, or where a gun has been fired or displayed, which actually comes to about 2\1/2\ million times a year in self-defense, the number of police arrests for violent crimes has fallen. So that there has been a positive impact for those folks who own guns and who use it to defend themselves. The next factor that Mr. Maier looks at is juvenile crime. And one of the things that we are all concerned about is how much violent crime can be traced to young children. And young children can be anywhere from 13, 14 years old, in their mid-teens to their young 20s. But it is depressing to look at the stats on that. The FBI statistics show that while violent crime is declining, juvenile crime continues to increase. The number of juveniles charged with murder increased 104 percent nationwide from 1970 to 1992. Since 1980, juvenile gang killings have increased 371 percent, and the rate of recidivism for juveniles runs as high as 75 percent. In fact, the FBI shows that before someone goes to jail as a juvenile, he usually commits 15 different offenses that have gone by unpunished. One of the big problems is that the age group of the drug pushers who are in their mid-20s go out and recruit the very, very young kids for the most dangerous, the most risky part of their business, and they consider these kids both expendable and impressionable. You can get them to do things that older and smarter folks would not want to do. So when there is a turf war, usually the casualties are your 16 and 17- year-olds. The next question, the final thing I want to touch base on, Mr. Maier says are we actually winning the drug war. And a lot of people will point out the fact that we are grabbing more marijuana and drugs as they come into our country. Although it would depend on what statistic you look at, we are probably grabbing as little as 15 percent of what is actually coming into our country from south of the border. And one of the things that has happened, because there has been a de-escalation in terms of prosecutions, that the drug dealers are actually more set in, and their territories are somewhat established because they are not gunning it out any more. This is a real interesting article on crime. I think that what Mr. Maier does is raise some things that we in public policy need to consider. I believe that this Congress should continue to go in the direction that it has: Full sentencing of 10 years means 10 years. If someone is in jail they need to have a work program. No more sitting around watching TV, lifting weights and playing basketball. It means also the work that they do should be meaningful. It should be skill building, so that when they get out they can utilize that into a paying job. I think also there should be an education program. I believe that a lot of these people who are in jail are intelligent but, somewhere along the line, they dropped out of school. They had a problem. They need to have that second chance while they are in jail, tied in with good behavior or whatever, but give them that opportunity. Finally, I do think there needs to be spiritual rehabilitation, because I think that is the beginning of real rehabilitation for anyone behind bars. I believe that taking these steps, sending out the message that we are serious, that a person cannot just be caught selling drugs and get their hand slapped any more, I think if we continue on this path, that our crime rates will continue the downward trend.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, a year ago the President proclaimed the era of big government is over. And then recently he said, it is now the end of an era, meaning we have a surplus and we had a lot of ways to spend it. So I guess the era that big government was over was only about an 11-month period of history in the United States. Now we are back to the government spending as usual. The President came on like gangbusters, Santa Claus on Christmas morning, with all kinds of high taxes, new spending programs, old Democrat stuff, tried and true methods of buying blocs of voters one at a time. One thing the President forgot in his speech, he said the deficit had 11 zeros. Actually, the debt has more zeros than the deficit. I believe the President confused the debt with the deficit, and he thinks we have paid off the debt. Mr. Speaker, the children of the United States of America, and all others, are faced with over a $5 trillion debt. We have got to pay down the debt. That should be the highest priority with the surplus.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we saw a demonstration on the differences between the Republican and the Democrat parties. We had, last night, the President of the United States as our guest in this Chamber. The President was received warmly by Republicans. They clapped, they were very polite, no snickering when he talked about responsibility and personal stuff like that. We were cordial, and we did not mention anything about ``you know who.'' Now, the same day, the Republicans pushed forward naming the National Airport after Ronald Reagan. He was our leader. We are very proud of him. He was not a perfect president. He did stand tough against the Soviet Union. He created jobs and brought down inflation and did a lot of good things. He won a clean reelection. We are proud of our president. But, Mr. Speaker, every single one of the Democrats on the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, on a simply partisan basis, voted against naming the National Airport after Ronald Reagan. And yet did we turn around last night and show what we felt? No, we were very gentlemanly and did the right thing. I would ask our Democrat counterparts to consider their conduct, because if they want to play partisanship, it is a lot more interesting to talk about this administration than Ronald Reagan's.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, last in the hearts of the New York Times and the Washington Post, first in the hearts of his countrymen, that perhaps is the most fitting description of Ronald Reagan. He came into office after a difficult decade, with humiliation in Iran and economic tough times at home. The Soviet Union was expanding into Afghanistan and into our very own backyard. Inflation was soaring, unemployment was up, and also that irrepressible American confidence was shaken. But not Ronald Reagan's confidence. He had the courage to stand up and speak out for what was right. He had the courage to face the Soviet bear right in the eye and say, back off. Now that the Soviet Union is, as we know it, dead and over with, Ronald Reagan's legacy must stand proud and tall. A fitting monument to him would be naming the National Airport after him so that when people come to our Nation's capital, they can honor one of America's greatest Presidents.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, at first the Democrat leader, Tom Daschle, said he knew of no Americans who were overtaxed, and then the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, said he thought the people of Virginia were selfish for wanting to keep more of their own money rather than send it to expert Washington bureaucrats. But now a top Democrat woman in the Pentagon says that the U.S. Marines are extremists. Now, think about this. Monday was the Marine Corps birthday, a great, proud, fighting outfit that has been in the battles and the wars fought for our freedom throughout the history of America, and yet here is what Democrat Sara Lister says: ``The Marines are extremists. Whenever you have extremists, you have some risk that a total disconnection with society will take place, and that is very dangerous.'' Well, I will say this to Ms. Lister. Although I do not know you and I was not a Marine, I would ask you this. Have you ever dug in a foxhole? Have you ever had dirt in your face? Have you ever had the blood splattered on your uniform of a buddy as he or she lies dying, and did that blood splatter make a permanent star on your emotions? I say, Mr. Speaker, send in the Marines; send out Sara Lister. Let us have her resignation today.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, this is the way it is. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding this time to me. The argument of sampling really boils down to this very simple chart. Under the United States Census called for by the Constitution, the way it has always been done, they go house to house, door to door, and they count. Go to the first house, 3 people; the second house, 7; third house, 6; and we come up with 16 people. Pretty clear, pretty explicit, very understandable. Now, as the last speaker said, Democrats' sample-matics is all about politics. Go to the first house, 3 people; go to the second house, 7 people; go to the third house; and, really, they do not go because they do not feel like it, it is time to knock off for lunch or do whatever people do when they work for the Government. So then they say, well, how many do we really need? We need 15 to 25 people? Well, we will just do that because we did not go to the third house. That is what this is all about. If my colleagues like sampling, how would they like it done in their election? If my colleagues like sampling, sample their next IRS return and see how their administration backs them on that. Sample their golf score, sample their bookie; I do not know. Mr. Speaker, this is the way to do a Census. Count it head by head, door by door.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I just want to say, I think this bill has a lot of good things. It is a product of a great compromise and a lot of work. One of the things I think is very significant and that is a debate we do not have much in our country is what is going on with the nuclear weapons stockpile in Russia. We often concentrate on a lot of issues, but we never ask ourselves as a country, as free people, what are they doing with all their nuclear arms? This bill starts to address that by withholding assistance to the Russian Government unless we know exactly what they are doing with their nuclear arsenal, and hopefully they are not selling it around the globe. There are a lot of good things in here. It increases international narcotics control by $17 million over last year, bringing the 1998 level to $230 million. But there are some things it does not do which have been addressed, and we look forward to working with the administration on that. We want to address the issue of the U.N. arrearage. We think that the United Nations has taken too big of an assessment against the United States, and we want to work through that. We also want to work with this IMF funding to have stability in some of the developing countries. We look forward to working with the administration on that and solving these problems, and we also hope the administration will work with us in making sure that none of this money goes to groups who choose to lobby for liberalization of abortion laws, and also groups who may tend to have some of their own moneys used to support abortion. We think there are a lot of things we can get together with the administration on, and we look forward to that process. Hopefully the authorization bill that will come maybe as early as tomorrow will address this.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture for allowing me to speak on a bill that they have worked very hard on and has lots of good merits. I think the House bill should be passed, as is, by both bodies. I do not feel that way about the potential Senate bill, and even though I have not seen or read the Senate bill in its entirety, I have a lot of concerns about what is coming out of the Senate side of this bill. Making research mandatory, for example, puts research funding at the tune of $780 million on the same level with Social Security, VA payments, Medicare and Medicaid, and unlike making a decision to postpone research on certain kinds of plants and animals, one cannot postpone payments on Social Security, and I do not think that the Senate bill is right in trying to make research mandatory. I also have concerns about the $300 million Fund for America, which would allow the Secretary of Agriculture to have a pot of money that could be used to reward or punish friends and enemies accordingly. I do not think that is a proper thing, that we need to put more politics in it. I am also concerned about what this bill could do in terms of an unfunded mandates to Medicaid to our States. I have a lot of concerns about it, but I do want to emphasize, Mr. Speaker, I think the House bill is the model which we need to pass. I do not think the Senate bill is. I am very concerned that the Senate took a good and proper fundamental use of taxpayers' money and a fundamental jurisdiction of the Committee on Agriculture, and they have politicized it. What I urge our Members to do as this bill goes to conference is to stick to our guns; do not accept the Senate bill, do not accept the Senate amendments, do not increase spending, do not increase unfunded mandates, and do not create more mandatory entitlement programs.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, sometimes on particular issues, the distinctions between the Democrat and Republican Party are blurred. But when it comes to taxes, there is absolutely no doubt. What does the leading Democrat in the United States of America have to say about tax cuts? They are selfish. Good gracious, you might use the money to buy your child new braces. What did he say? He said several issues here again. What does the deputy secretary of treasury under Clinton say? When it comes to estate taxes, there is no case other than selfishness necessary. That means, if we work hard all our lives and we want to pass the family farm on to our son or daughter so he or she can continue to plow the fields that our grandparents walked in, that means we are selfish. And then what does the leading Senate Democrat say, Tom Daschle? ``But certainly I don't think that many people are overtaxed.'' Now, go tell that to the people who are working 60, 70 hours a week, working overtime, the man and woman passing like ships in the night trying to make ends meet, buying new tires, repairing the dryer, trying to pay the home mortgage. Tell them that they are being undertaxed and they are being selfish because they want more. Please, Democratic Party, join the American people and let us work for tax relief.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I got up early this morning and went jogging down Independence Avenue. As I did, a lot of hard-working men and women were coming in from Virginia to work. It was early in the morning for these two-income families. They work hard, and they raise kids. Statistically, many of them have two kids. They help them with their homework, try to teach them responsibility. These parents volunteer at the school and the church and the United Way. They often have to sacrifice. They cannot go on vacation because they have to buy a new dryer or a new set of tires. They might have to buy braces for the 14-year-old. But yesterday, the President of the United States told these hard- working men and women that if you vote Republican today in Virginia, you are selfish. Paying 38 percent total household taxes is not enough. You have to pay more, the President of the United States told these hard-working men and women. I would say to them that they are doing their best, they are paying taxes, they are not taking things out of society, they are earning their way, they are teaching their children to earn their way, and they are going to become future taxpayers. They are doing more. I wish we had more of these selfish people, Mr. President. I think you owe the people of Virginia an apology.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, recently a teacher in Camden County, GA told me about going to a conference near the State capitol designed to tell teachers not to hug kids anymore and not to be in the room alone with them anymore, never to touch them. She says, ``You know, it's too bad because in the school district that I'm in, a lot of these children are from broken homes and they need hugging more than they need A's.'' Another teacher told me she cannot get parents to participate in the PTA programs anymore because when parents come up with good ideas, they just cannot get through the red tape. Then another teacher in Darien, Georgia told me that she has to spend 2 to 3 hours each week on paperwork just to keep up with the bureaucracy. Mr. Speaker, I believe we need to have more local control of school systems. We are going to vote today on a charter school bill which will give local control and get the bureaucracy out of the classroom so that the teacher can develop the relationship that is needed to teach Johnny how to read without a bunch of busybody bureaucrats from the State capitol or Washington, DC, telling them what they have to do and what they do not have to do.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, why are the Democrats trying to keep the status quo in public education? Are they so much in the pocket of the Washington Teachers Union that they are willing to sacrifice America's children to educational mediocrity. As a public school graduate and the son and brother of teachers, I am appalled by this out-of-touch, deny-reality approach to education. Just because Washington bureaucrats do not want to improve public education does not mean that Congress should be afraid to tackle the job. Since my graduation from high school, SAT scores have fallen. Tests on an international basis show that Americans are behind German, Japanese, and British children, and private schools and charter schools are flourishing in popularity. Why? Because of local control. Because of less Washington bureaucrats. Not because of Washington redtape and all the status quo things that the Democrat Party seems so content to keep piling on, and piling on, on the teacher and her classroom. I say let us improve public education. Let us start by returning dollars not to the Washington bureaucracy but to the teacher in the classroom.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, why are the liberal Washingtonian Democrats so afraid to change public education? Why are they trying to maintain the status quo in public education? What is it that they were afraid of? Are they so in the pockets of the Washington big unions that they are willing to sacrifice America's children to educational mediocrity? I am a graduate of public schools. I am the son of a teacher and the brother of a teacher. I think it is very important for us to have a strong, dynamic public education system, and that is why I have worked with our conference to try to give public education the schools that they need to prepare our children for the future. I am appalled by Members of Congress who choose to ignore the global realities of a changing world in order to keep the status quo. Just because Washington bureaucrats do not want to change or improve education does not mean that Congress has to be their lap dog. Since I graduated from high school in 1973, SAT scores have fallen. On an international basis, American children, compared to Japanese, German and British children, score lower on many of the standardized tests. Public schools are losing students to private schools and religious schools, and home schools are increasing in popularity and numbers. Public schools, because of this Washington command and control approach, have lost their local flexibility, their local control. They are mired in paperwork and red tape. That is why charter schools have become so popular. What are charter schools? Charter schools are public schools. They are funded by public tax dollars. But unlike a regular, normal school, a charter school is free of the educational restrictions that the bureaucracy puts on them out of Washington and out of the State capital school boards. They are so popular that in 1992 there was one charter school in the United States of America. Today there are 1,000, and within the next 3 years there should be another 2,000 to 3,000 charter schools. Again, why are they so popular? Because they have local control. What is it that teachers and educators are so sick of? I will give my colleagues an example. A teacher in Camden County in my district was telling me she just returned from a seminar on child sensitivity where they told her, at great expense to the taxpayers, not to hug children, not to be in a room alone with a child, and never to touch a child. And she works in an area where there are lots of broken homes and lots of kids who, Mr. Speaker, frankly, need a hug more than they need an A or an A+. They need a little loving, but we are paying teachers to learn how not to hug children. Or the teacher in Darien, Georgia, who told me she has to spend 2 to 3 hours each and every week filling out paperwork for the bureaucrats in Atlanta who must send it to their bureaucrat bosses in Washington, D.C., 2 to 3 hours a week, which could be spent helping that marginal student catch up on the algebra or on the chemistry or on the social studies. But it is gone. Or the mother in Savannah, Georgia, who tells me she no longer goes to PTA meetings because if she comes up with ideas, the teacher may agree or disagree with her, but it does not matter because they cannot change a thing because the teachers' hands have been tied by the bureaucrats, and the bureaucrats' hands at the school board have been tied by the Washington bureaucrats. People want to return to local control in education. Our schools back home want to be free of Washington command and control bureaucracy, Mr. Speaker, and that is why it is so important that we, as a Congress, keep pushing for local control of education, we keep pushing for flexibility in the classroom, and we keep pushing to put educational dollars in the classroom with the teacher and the student and not the bureaucratic brokers in Washington and the State capitals. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time with a final word; that our public education system is well worth fighting for. Again, I am a graduate of public schools. I believe in them. But I believe we have to allow them the flexibility to be the great institutions which they once were.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, in 1992, there was one charter school in the United States of America. Today, there are over 1000. In the next 3 years, there are expected to begin 3,000 more. What. Is a charter school and why do they seem to be growing and seem to be so popular? A charter school is a public school. It is publicly funded, but unlike most public schools these days that have all their rules and regulations dictated by Washington bureaucrats, charter schools have their own rules, their own goals and their own set of regulations. That is why they are so popular. Every day when I speak to a teacher, she or he tells me about the paperwork that they must do, 2 to 3 hours' worth each week to send off to Washington or to Atlanta to the State Capitol. They tell me about going to seminars where they are told not to hug children, not to touch children, never to walk into a bathroom alone with a kid because of harassment and so forth. I talked to parents who will no longer go to PTA meetings because they say it does not matter. We have no control anymore. Mr. Speaker, charter schools return local control to those parents and those teachers and that classroom. That is why charter schools are so important and that is why the Republican conference is supporting them.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. I think we should move for simplification and we should move to insist that IRS employees have a taxpayer friendly attitude. But along with this, whether we go to a flat tax or whether we go to a national sales tax or whatever we do, we still have to keep tax relief in mind. Here are some examples of hidden taxes that we do not know about when we think about it. This is from Americans for Tax Reform, 1997: That a bottle of beer has 43 percent taxes. An airplane ticket, 40 percent tax. A bottle of liquor, 72 percent taxes. Electric bill, 25 percent taxes. A loaf of bread, 31 percent taxes. A car, 45 percent taxes. A hotel bill, 43 percent taxes. A restaurant bill, 27 percent taxes. A packet of cigarettes, 75 percent taxes. The phone bill, which keeps going down and down and down incidentally, 50 percent taxes. Pizza, 38 percent taxes. A set of tires, 36 percent taxes. And a can of soda, that is what my colleagues say up north. We say a can of Coca-Cola where I am from.

Mr. KINGSTON. And as a distinguished member on the Committee on Ways and Means leading the tax fight.

Mr. KINGSTON. Now, the use of the audit, I understand that regardless of who the commissioner of the IRS is, the commissioner, the head person is appointed by the President of the United States and regardless of who that appointee is, Democrat or Republican, audits still seem to happen with a curious degree of coincidence. For example, my wife's great uncle, who is deceased now, during the 1930s made a wisecrack about the WPA, the Works Project Administration, of the Roosevelts, and he made a comment to a group that was working on a street or road. He said that unfortunately the employees got there before the truck with the equipment did, and so the shovels are going to be a little bit late today, but to tell employees to go ahead and start leaning anyhow. He made that comment and was asked by the Roosevelt administration to take it back. This is America. Free speech. He made a comment. We may like it or not like it, but he has a right to say it. He would not retract it. This is years and years ago. And as a result, coincidentally, he was audited the next year. Now, we have another case of a young lady named Paula Jones. I do not know Ms. Jones, but she has suddenly become audited. Now, I am sure it is just coincidence, but did the Committee on Ways and Means come up with any correlation between Paula Jones' legal situation right now and the fact that she is being audited?

Mr. KINGSTON. A can of soda, 35 percent taxes. A gallon of gas, 54 percent tax. When taxpayers say, ``I am paying too much tax,'' they are saying ``I pay too much sales tax. I pay too much income taxes and tangible taxes and ad valorem taxes.'' They are not thinking about what they pay when they buy a pizza or tires or pay their phone bill. This is a tremendous problem.