Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Can my colleague imagine what that will do to the economy, to small businesses?

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think the important point of all this is there are a lot of different savings accounts that may work for a family, but the emphasis is that the tax system as we have passed it recognizes the importance of saving for the future. Right now I think the consumer debt is something like $4 trillion nationwide. It may even be bigger than that. But we as a society need to start saving money for the future. And by implementing these new IRA type savings accounts, that is what we are doing.

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

Mr. KINGSTON. This is not Republican propaganda. This is an actual newspaper headline. The Washington Times, a well-respected newspaper. The headline of it, Tuesday, September 30, 1997, ``White House Champions The IRS. President opposes citizen oversight.'' I will read the gentleman the first paragraph. ``The White House yesterday came to the defense of the embattled IRS, vowing to vigorously oppose congressional efforts to create a citizen oversight board to protect Americans from agency abuses.''

Mr. KINGSTON. North Korea. Major U.S. competitors will be exempt from this Clinton gas tax proposal. And why the administration thinks the time is right to increase the gas tax 20 to 40 cents a gallon----

Mr. KINGSTON. The way I always explain it, we get a lot of criticism: Why are you trying to cut taxes? I say it is very fundamental. Middle class people have more of their money, more of their own money in their pocket because we in Washington confiscate less of it. Then what is going to happen is they are going to spend more. They will buy not necessarily a lot of glamorous things but lots and lots of very important things in the economic chain: more CDs, more socks, more pairs of shoes, hats, shirts, basketballs. When they do that, more jobs.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me. The capital gains tax rate has been 28 percent on items that a person sells for a gain, the amount of money that they have made on it. Now, it is ironic because there again we are taxing savings and we are taxing money that has already had taxes paid on it. The typical example that I see over and over again in my area, which is a growth area where we have a lot of senior citizens, many of them have saved all their lives. Now they are in their upper years and they want to cash in maybe some of the stock that they have saved and maybe use it for a medical emergency, maybe for some long-term care, whatever, residential care, but they are taxed at this 28 percent rate. Under our plan, depending on what their bracket is, they would be taxed at 20 percent, possibly as low as 15 percent, depending on their income bracket. Personally speaking, I would love to have zero capital gains tax for people like that, but if we can start with that, I think it will help seniors a lot and, again, encourage people to save money. Our office went back to 1956 Treasury records and every time that the capital gains tax rate was low, revenues from capital gains had increased. But when the rate is high, people hold their assets and as a result there is not much revenue from it. I believe that this is going to be extremely beneficial, not just for the economy but for deficit reduction. The gentleman has been such a champion on deficit reduction, I almost would be willing to predict that with the surge of new sales of assets and so forth because of this capital gains tax reduction, that we will potentially as soon as next year be able to balance the budget.

Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman has touched on a very important point. In between the blue line of where the money actually is and the green line of where the plan is, I am scared to death that even on a bipartisan basis we will rush out and spend the money. I always say this is like somebody who is on a six-month diet and finds out at the end of the second month that they are ahead of projections, so instead of finishing the diet, in three months they go out on an eating binge and eat lots of ice cream and cake to celebrate. Are we going to do that? Are we going to rush out and spend this money, or are we going to do the right thing and apply it to the national debt?

Mr. KINGSTON. Under the Neumann budget, which you authored and I supported, had that passed, that deficit would have been zero probably.

Mr. KINGSTON. It is interesting because some of our colleagues right now are really pushing a Federal takeover of local school construction. They want the Federal Government to go in and build school systems. Now, as the gentleman knows, bricks and mortar has always been the domain of local school boards. And school boards in local communities that have been responsible and have kept up with it, do not have the problem. But what is also interesting about this debate, this urge to go out and spend the money that some of our liberal colleagues have, is that when the gentleman and I talk about education, when the gentleman and I talk about the strengths of education, when the gentleman and I reflect back on our own educational history, we do not talk about, hey, I went to this beautiful school; it was three stories tall, and the bricks were so wonderful and the glass windowpanes were so special and the light sockets were just out of this world. We do not talk about that. We talk about, hey, I had Miss Jones, I had Miss Reynolds, and I had Miss Musey, and I had Miss Smith, and they were great teachers and they made a difference in my life. And not one of them would have been any different in a different building. Our children need to be in decent buildings, but the big problem in education today is we need to put money into the teacher in the classroom, not into the bureaucracy in Washington that is going to dole out on a political basis bricks and mortars and make-work projects for educational bureaucrats. It is ridiculous. Let us give the money to the kids in the classroom and the teachers.

Mr. KINGSTON. Dwight Eisenhower said that, ``Once the American people have made up their mind to do something, there is little that can be done to stop them.'' I agree with that. I think the American people have made up their mind. Congress has to keep their own feet to the fire.

Mr. KINGSTON. One thing I would like to see discussion on, instead of just straight more tax relief, perhaps move towards tax simplification, with the intent of accelerating the debt pay-down, because if we can do it this way in the year 2026, if we just change taxes to make it simple, I believe many, many people in America, given the choice of reducing their tax rate 5 percent versus going to a flat tax or a consumption tax, they would probably say, give me this tax simplification, because the extra money I am having to pay my accountant and lawyer to file my taxes is a tax anyhow. So just give me tax simplification. I am very proud that the Republican party has taken the initiative on that. I am proud that the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] and the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Tauzin] are going to be going around the country having debates on consumption versus flat taxes. I have not fully decided which route we should go in terms of the folks back home, but I welcome the dialogue in the debate.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I do want to say one thing to keep in mind. The line-item veto only applies for deficit reduction. So if, in fact, the deficit is zeroed out next year and the budget is balanced, which we all hope that it is, we will effectively not have a line-item veto. The gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Upton] has sponsored legislation which I have cosponsored, and my colleagues probably should look at it if they have not, that says, even if there is no deficit, the President would still have a line-item veto for the purpose of continuing to ferret out wasteful spending.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, there is a story of a very learned doctor of theology, a distinguished minister, who was walking through the park one day. He sees a guy who is kind of an itinerant of sorts, and he is reading the Book of Revelations. The doctor of theology says to him, in a condescending, intellectual way, my good man, ``Do you have any idea at all of what you are reading in the Book of Revelations?'' To which the guy said, ``No, I can't say I understand every little bit of it.'' And he says, ``Then sir, why are you reading it?'' He said, ``Because I know how it ends.'' What I am saying, Mr. Chairman, is I do not believe this is a debate of pointy-headed intellectual bean-counters. I think this is a debate about common sense. Here is how I understand this issue. Under the normal U.S. census procedure, you go to a house. You ask how many folks live there. Three. You go to the second house. How many live there? Seven. How many live in the third house? Six. You write down three, seven, six. You come up with 16. Now, under the Democratic samplematics, you are doing it a little more creatively. You go to the first house and count three, to the second house and count seven, and at the third house you go to the drugstore and get yourself a Coca-Cola, and you sample about 20 people there. Then, depending on how many you need, you say, in total, we got maybe 15 to 25 people, depending on how many the folks need back in the office, and that is the count. Now, let us say that is how this thing works, in layman's terms, so I can understand it. Now think about it in other potential applications. We may want to take a second look at this as Members of Congress. What would be some other potential sampling applications? How about balancing your checkbook? No problems with overdrafts. How about adjusting your income taxes; you know, sending it to the IRS, and when they start complaining, there is a lot of IRS passion going on these days, you can say, ``Hey, look, I just used sampling to send you what I owed you.'' That has often handicapped us. I will just say that a lot of people sample on their golfing already. On the SAT, for those Members with teenaged kids trying to get into college, sample up the SAT score, 1,500. Speeding tickets: ``Officer, I was going about 100, but I was sampling. Just give it to me at 55.'' That is what this is about. Mr. Chairman, the 14th Amendment of the United States says it real easy for someone like me and a lot of other folks, that counting the whole number of persons in each State is the way to do your sampling.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, when the White House was having organized fundraising events in the Lincoln bedroom for Democrat fundraising purposes, when it was raised by Republicans, Democrats said, ``You are being partisan.'' When the Vice President of the United States raised thousands and thousands of dollars in a Buddhist temple from Buddhist monks and nuns, who had to take vows of poverty but they came up with $5,000 each, we were called antireligious. Now, because of some very questionable voting tactics in the California race, we are being dragged into this thing on a race count. You know, fair elections are not the domain of the party that lost, it belongs to everybody, Democrats and Republicans. We have a situation here where files have been subpoenaed. The legislation that we are having to pass today, which I hope all the Democrats join us in voting for, simply says give us the files so we can get to the bottom of this. We want to know whether it is fair or not, because it is not a Democrat or Republican issue.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, there is a lot of talk about national testing, so I designed one for Congress. Multiple choice. If a Federal official raises money from a taxpayer-funded office, he is: A. Breaking the law. B. OK if it is soft money. C. OK if he does not remember doing it. Number 2. A Buddhist temple is: A. A place of worship. B. A great spot for a fund-raiser. C. I do not recall. I never went to one. I never heard of it. Anyway, it was not a fund-raiser. True or false/Definitions. If you were subpoenaed by the Thompson committee, DNC stands for ``did not come.'' If you were a major TV network during the Thompson hearings, DNC stands for ``did not cover.'' If you are the Vice President, DNC stands for ``did not call.'' If you are a foreign national, DNC stands for ``did not contribute.'' Finally, Discussion Questions. What is the difference between ``Find Waldo'' and John Huang? Answer: You can eventually find Waldo.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would say, Livingston also sat on the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues. The interesting thing, along the lines of the words of the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] in 1997 were said nearly 100 years ago by Grover Cleveland, and these are his comments that I want to close with. It says, Mr. Speaker, and I quote: The man who takes the oath today to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States only assumes the solemn obligation which every patriotic citizen--on the farm, in the workshop, in the busy marts of trade and everywhere-- should share with him. The Constitution which prescribes his oath, my countrymen, is yours; the government you have chosen him to administer for a time is yours; the laws and the entire scheme out of civil rule, from the town meeting to the State capitals and the national capital, is yours. Every voter, as surely as your chief magistrate, under the same high sanction, though in different spheres, exercises a public trust. Nor is this all. Every citizen owes to the country a vigilant watch and close scrutiny of fidelity and usefulness. This is the people's will impressed upon the whole framework of our civil policy--municipal, state, and federal; and this is the price of our liberty and the inspiration of our faith in the public.

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Back years ago schoolchildren were required to memorize this. What a shame that is no longer the case.

Mr. KINGSTON. I agree with the gentlewoman. I was speaking the other day in Brunswick High School, to the junior school, a lot of 16-year- old kids. The young women in that class were particularly interested in a lot of issues, but we got on the success of abortion and so forth, and the subject of choice, and one of the things that I said is remember, you are 16 years old. Decisions about sex are tremendous, major league, life-affecting decisions. You may be pro-life, you may be pro-choice. Whatever your decision is, it is a major league decision when you get into that arena. So I would say to you, young 16-year-old boys and girls, be very, very careful. This is not deciding what kind of car you are going to drive, what you are going to study, what sport you are going to play or what band you are going to go to. This is a major league decision, whatever you choose. You need to be very, very cautious about it. Sometimes I think that we as adults do not talk to the kids enough. I have a 14-year-old daughter, and in talking to her, and then turning around and talking to my peer group parents, I am alarmed at what the parents are not talking to their children about. To some degree, and I would say it is my opinion, if my daughter gets pregnant, it is not her school's fault, at some point it is not my fault or her mother's fault, it is her fault. To put that kind of mentality in her where she is shifting the responsibility and saying you know what, look at yourself in the mirror, you have to take a major role here, and we are always reluctant to talk frankly with our young people, and yet in so many ways they can handle it. But we have got to put them on notice and talk to them. I find time and time again, parents are not talking to them. I have some drug statistics that I will share later on, it is just unbelievable that parents do not know what is going on with their kids.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield. Would the gentleman go ahead and read the Preamble or should I? I think we should remind everybody about this.

Mr. KINGSTON. I appreciate your leadership, and look forward to working with you as we wrestle with the issues. Mr. Speaker, one of the issues I wanted to talk about, that ties into this on the subject of age-appropriate parenting and marriage-based parenting, has to do with the kooky policy that we have in our Internal Revenue Code that says when two people get married, they pay more taxes. It is true, Mr. Speaker, that right now it is less expensive to live together than to get married. If we agree that marriage is a good institution and we agree that marriage-based parenting is the best way to raise kids, then we should have a tax policy that says when you get married, you either get a tax credit, or at least you do not have to pay higher taxes because of the union between a man and a woman. But right now we have what is called a marriage tax penalty, and it penalizes, of course, working folks. It is time for this Congress to act on the marriage tax penalty, to repeal it, so that people are not encouraged to live together and they are encouraged to get married, if that is what they want to do, or at least not be discouraged by the tax system. A couple of things also that are affecting the family that I wanted to share with my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, on this subject of children. Right now, average middle school students, and this is a very recent survey, shows that by the age of 13, 40 percent of American students know someone who has used acid, cocaine or heroin. Thirty-four percent of the 13-year-olds have friends who are regular drinkers. Twenty-nine percent of the 13-year-olds in America can buy marijuana within a day, and 12 percent can buy it within an hour. Twenty-seven percent have friends who use marijuana, and one of four have attended a party in the last six months where marijuana was used. I do not think parents know to what extent the drug problem is in America. Now, let us go up a couple of years. By the time these kids are out of middle school and in their senior year, age 17, two-thirds can buy marijuana within a day, 44 percent within an hour; 62 percent have friends who have used marijuana, and 21 percent will say that more than half of their friends use marijuana. Half of the kids have seen drugs personally sold on their school grounds, and 60 percent of American 17- year-olds attend schools where 60 percent of the kids drink on the grounds. We are losing the war against drugs. I think that the President certainly has a right to bring up this tobacco situation, and we need to reduce teen tobacco use. There is no question about it, and I think we can do a lot in that regard. Yet, while we are debating the tobacco wars, it is a shame that for the columns and the ink and the advertising and the air time that has been spent on tobacco, probably not even one-tenth has been spent on the drug problem. These are tremendous problems, Mr. Speaker. This is something that centrally affects all of the children in America, and if one does not believe it, talk to a 13-year-old, 14- year-old, 15-year-old, 16-year-old, 17-year-old; find out from them directly, do not take my word for it. Sit down and talk to the kids. As somebody who goes to lots of high schools and lots of student groups to talk, I have seen these statistics are roughly true. I believe that is a tremendous crisis that is facing our country. Our country, as my colleagues know, Mr. Speaker, has lots of crises, and we as Americans, the great Nation that we are, we face crisis after crisis and we live up to it, and time and time again we pull through. I think a lot of the secret to our success is because of something that happened on this date in history, September 17 in 1787, and that was of course the signing and general ratification of the United States Constitution. Our Constitution, as my colleagues know, came as a result of the Articles of Confederation not being strong enough to meet the needs of the American system of government after the Revolutionary War. The thing about after the Revolutionary War, we spend a lot of time talking about Francis Scott Key, and we can stand on the gunnel of the ship with him as we see the ramparts in the air and the flying through the night, and we think about the glory of the great American Revolution. We think about Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox of the Revolution, hiding in the oak trees and the Spanish moss with the alligators and the snakes and the mosquitoes and running raids on the British soldiers, and them realizing that if somebody is willing to sacrifice that much for freedom that they probably cannot be defeated on the battlefield. We think about the Francis Marions of the world. We think about George Washington at Valley Forge. We think about Nathan Hale, a school teacher who went behind enemy lines to spy on Cornwallis, and who, when caught, with a noose around his neck, utters the words, ``I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.'' Incidentally, Mr. Speaker, that was moments after the British asked him what his last request was, and his last request was to write a letter to his mother and asked them to deliver it, and the British soldier took the paper and tore it up, and he turned around and made this great and wonderful lasting statement about America. That is our glorious Revolution, and yet sometimes we do not remember that once in war, after we take the hill, sometimes the work is not finished at all, but just beginning in a new phase, and that is where America was after the Revolutionary War. We had a weak executive. We had no, virtually no court system, and the power of the States was tremendous, so there was little State unity. It was clear that the Articles of Confederation needed to be rewritten. So a Constitutional Convention was called on May 14, 1787. Now, politicians being politicians, it took them from the 14th until the 25th until they had a quorum. Now, we think about how long it takes us to have a quorum coming over from Longworth and Cannon and so forth, but here they had to go by horseback and sometimes they did not even know there was a quorum call. But it took them a while, and finally they got a quorum and they went to work, and out of 55 delegates, 39 made it until September 17 to sign the Constitution. It was a great period in history. A lot of the big minds, the great minds of our history were in the room: Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, Madison, Washington, a lot of the great thinkers, and yet other people were gone. Thomas Jefferson was in France; John Adams was in Britain; Samuel Adams, not a delegate; Patrick Henry refused to because he did not like the idea of a strong, centralized government. They got together and in September passed it. It took until July 1788 before the State of New York actually ratified it, but the Constitution was brilliant. It was profound, and it was concise. The major parts of it, part one, the legislative branch, the apportionment, at that time there was a lot of growth in the State of Virginia, some growth of Georgia coming on, but a question as to how many Members of Congress would we in Georgia have. It was decided through a tie, and I believe that Washington and Franklin were both very integral on this, George Washington actually leading the way, that we would have one Member of Congress per 30,000 people, so Georgia ended up with three Members of Congress and Virginia with 25. Now, when we think about our Congress today, we are at 600,000, and no doubt at the next reapportionment it will probably ease up to 625,000 or something like that. The legislative branch was outlined in section 1. Also, the power to collect taxes and borrow money. Now, just think about that. We have certainly utilized section 1 of the Constitution to the fullest extent. Section 2 gave the executive branch strong authority. Section 3, the judicial branch. Now, one of the problems that I think we are experiencing in some parts of the judiciary, the judges can get in an ivory tower. We know the case last year, Mr. Speaker, of a judge who when a drug case got to his court, and the circumstances were such that a woman was driving around in a high-risk area in, I believe, New York City, some guys came out from the darkness. She opened the trunk, and they pulled out of it two duffle bags of cocaine. When this happened, the police sting operation moved in, and the people ran, and the judge threw out the two duffle bags of cocaine as inadmissible evidence because he said that in that part of the country, in that part of the city, it was appropriate to run from the police because the police are oppressive. Now, that was later, because of the public outcry, the judge backed down on that, but it is pretty bad when we have members of the judiciary who are so high in an ivory tower that they remove themselves from the real world. I think that can happen in any branch, but with our legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, we all have to keep each other in check from time to time, and certainly the judges have no hesitation of keeping Congress in check. Section 4 of the Constitution, the interstate commerce clause, part of that was how does a State become part of the Nation. When I was first elected to Congress in 1993, I believe one of the big issues was making Washington, DC, a new State, which was voted down, but that was actually outlined in the Constitution. Section 5, amending the Constitution. Mr. Speaker, since the beginning, we have had 4,900 proposals to amend the Constitution. I believe only 27 have passed. And Miss Johnson at Brunswick High School corrected me on that the other day, so if I am wrong, we are going to talk to Miss Johnson about it, but Miss Johnson is never wrong. We have votes on this this year. As my colleagues know, the Balanced Budget Amendment would be another amendment; and flag desecration, to prevent people from burning Old Glory or using it in certain manners, as they did in one art gallery where they put the flag, the United States flag on the floor and had, including young school children, had it arranged such that people had to walk on the flag to see the art exhibit. That would have been prohibited. Another so-called art exhibit had Old Glory stuck in a toilet halfway, and I guess in certain parts of the world, that is considered art. But the flag desecration amendment would have addressed things like that, and that was in section 5. Section 6, one thing we argue very often around here is the Nation rules over State, national government can supersede State laws, and that is something that of course we fought a war over, and some other issues. That is constantly argued about and debated year after year. Section 7 talks about how to ratify. As I said, actually New York waited almost a year to ratify the Constitution. North Carolina and Rhode Island actually held out for the Bill of Rights, and the Bill of Rights, as we know, were the first 10 amendments, including very, very importantly, the First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the right to assemble. I reminded the school kids the other day, the right to assemble, how important that was to civil rights activists in the 1960s when the civil rights movement was at its heyday. Where did they meet? They met in churches, and they did not need a permit from the governor to do that, as in the early days of the colonies they had to have a permit from King George to get together and that was one way that they kept people from organizing. In terms of freedom of speech, we are having huge debates right now on what should be on the airways, what should be on the Internet. The number one hit area on the Internet today is pornography. Now, the question is, Mr. Speaker, should we have the right of freedom of information, freedom of speech on the Internet? I think most Americans would say yes to that. Okay, what about the 10-year-old? Should he or she have a right to it? People would say well, yes. Now, how do we draw the line? It gets a little more complicated the more we explore what our rights are and then what we are potentially exposing people to. Other things, do we want certain people to have access to how to make a bomb, and would that be something that we would want to guarantee that freedom of speech right to certain folks, maybe prisoners or something like that? Points to ponder. We have right now under the freedom of religion debated the Istook amendment. That is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that would allow for nondenominational student-led prayer in school, and yet, there are some cases where that is going to be very controversial. We may and may not have a vote on that amendment. But again, it goes back to the First Amendment. The Second Amendment, well, we never, ever debated gun control in this body, Mr. Speaker. At least not this week, we will probably get to it next week. But we are always debating these things, and I think the fact that we are makes the Constitution a living, breathing instrument. It shows how profound it is. People do not realize that the American Constitution, while over 200 years old, is one of the oldest constitutions in the world. Britain, France, Japan, all the major nations of the world have had to rewrite their constitutions, but not ours. It is a great, great document. On this date we, as Americans, should be as aware of September 17 as we are of July 4. I want to mention some names. Mr. Speaker, I will submit all these names, but I want to read a few names, because I want to show what these people were. George Washington, a planner, a soldier, a statesman; Nathaniel Gorham from Massachusetts, a merchant; Rufus King from Massachusetts, a lawyer; From New Hampshire, John Langdon, a merchant; William Samuel Johnson, from Connecticut, a lawyer; Roger Sherman, from Connecticut, a shoemaker; David Brearly, from New Jersey, a lawyer; Benjamin Franklin, a printer, a statesman, a scientist, a philosopher; Thomas Mifflin from Pennsylvania, a merchant; Robert Morris from Pennsylvania, a merchant; John Dickinson from Delaware, a lawyer; Jacob Broom from Delaware, a surveyor; William Blount from North Carolina, a landowner; Hugh Williamson from North Carolina, a physician; Charles Pinckney, from South Carolina, a lawyer and a soldier; William Few, from Georgia, a lawyer and member of the State legislature; And Abraham Baldwin from Georgia, a clergyman. They came from all walks of life, and they got together and formed almost a perfect document, or to the world of government certainly one. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth].

Mr. KINGSTON. On the subject of family planning, the most effective course is going to be at home in the family, not the extended institutional family.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Pappas].