Jack Kingston

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to talk tonight about a number of issues, but before I do so, I wanted to commend the gentlewoman from North Carolina on a very, very important topic, one which I think is probably one of the biggest issues in America today, and certainly I appreciate your leadership on it. I am from Savannah, your hometown. As the gentlewoman knows, we have a tremendous problem because of so many teenage pregnancies.

Mr. KINGSTON. I agree. Parents have got to come back into the formula. We are moving in the same direction on this. Let me say one thing that I have been appalled about with the parents. They are bombarded. When you ask parents, well, do you listen to your kids' rock and roll? And parents think rock and roll, they think the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix. They think of their rock and roll generation. They do not understand the Fujis or Tori Amos or some of the groups now that are out there. They are not singing ``I want to hold your hand.'' They are very explicit on sex. Sometimes those explicit sex labels or lyrics are not on the CDs that the kids are buying. Parents should take that opportunity to say ``let me see what you are listening to,'' because now most of them have the words out there. I have had this happen with my daughter Betsy, because I like music, and I like to sit down with her. I cannot believe some of the stuff, the ``F'' word all the time; sex, all the time. What it does is it gives parents an opportunity to see what their kids are up against every single day of their life, but it also gives, between parent and child, an opportunity to talk. Sometimes parents say ``I am a little reluctant to talk to my kids about sex or whatever, and I do not know how to bring it up.'' All you have got to do is open some of their magazines, maybe read some of the inscriptions in the yearbook, read some of the lyrics on their records and CDs. There is a volume of material that is an entree for parents to get involved and started talking.

Mr. KINGSTON. He is a very important historical figure. The gentleman actually had a fifth delegate named William Churchill Houston who did not sign. And it is interesting, because in Georgia we had a William Houstoun who also did not sign. They spelled their names slightly differently. The one in the New Jersey was H-O-U-S-T-O-N and the Georgia one is H-O-U-S-T-O-U-N. As was the case with so many of the delegates, they had to go back home and conduct business or see about family or whatever, and not all of them made it to the actual signing, but boy, did they make their imprint on history, not just for all of us, but in the world. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to get this correct. I just heard the Democrat Party say that the Republicans who freed the slaves in the Civil War were radical extremists. I just want to make sure we got that right in the Record. The Republicans who led the fight against slavery were radical extremists? Very interesting concept. I thought that that chapter of our Nation's history was a sad one, but unfortunately a necessary one. I think it is a real mischaracterization when you try to say because someone is saying the Government does not have all the answers, that you say that that means that they are extremist. Look at the Washington, DC, school system. Washington, DC, schools are not even open. In fact in our office, we have a student from Washington, DC, because she cannot go to her school because the inept, incompetent, overspending, potentially corrupt government system run by the U.S. Congress to a large degree in Washington, DC, cannot even open. I think you can balance out the best of government and the best of the private sector and do what is best not for political parties but for the children of America and education.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to address the House tonight and look forward to a good dialog with my friend, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough]. First of all, I want to say that I certainly think that it is a good time to talk about campaign finance reform and all the things that have been going on, particularly with the shenanigans at the White House, the renting of the Lincoln bedroom, the raising money on taxpayer premises, the fundraising at Buddhist temples and so forth. I think we should talk about PAC contributions and what we should do about it. Should we limit it? I think candidates should be forced to raise 75 percent of the money that they spend on their campaign in their own district, rather than having money sent to them from Washington special interests. Let us raise it in hometown America, make as many of those contributions individual. I am not sure if we should outlaw PAC's, but I do think it is proper to say maybe 25 to 35, maybe 40 percent of the money should be the maximum limit for PAC contributions in the aggregate, but beyond that you should have money raised individually. You need to have public disclosure in all of that. But, Mr. Speaker, one thing we have got to do is enforce existing laws. It is a little ridiculous to blame all the problems on campaign finance reform on the need for a new law when we have laws on the books right now that would apply to a number of the situations that are going on. There was a great article in The Washington Times on September 2, written by Mark Levin on the subject. He says any time a politician wants to get a good response from an audience, all he or she has to do is say, we need campaign finance reform. Everybody claps. Then somebody else stands up and says, we need to protect the first amendment, freedom of speech. Then the group claps again. So you have this kind of a very win-win dialog when you go back home and so forth. But let us talk about some of the laws that are already on the books. The 2 U.S.C. 441(e) prohibits foreign nationals from directly or through others contributing to any political campaign or soliciting acceptance or receiving such contributions; in other words, no foreign money. Clearly, then, foreigners may not attempt to influence an American election by giving money to such groups as the Democratic National Committee or to the Republican National Committee. But it seems to be the Democratic National Committee that had the biggest problem with this on the last goaround, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure of the number, but I believe it was something like $3 million in foreign contributions. Again, U.S.C. 441 clearly prohibits that. Then there is section 18 U.S.C. 1956, which prohibits the solicitation or acceptance of laundered campaign contributions intended to conceal the nature, source, ownership, or control of the funds. This would apply if you were going to, let us say, go to a Buddhist temple and have a huge fundraiser from dirt poor Buddhist nuns who have taken an oath of poverty. Where do they suddenly come up with $140,000? If it is the case that they were used simply as a fence, if they were laundering the money, then here we have this law, 18 U.S.C. 1956 that prohibits it. It is on the books now, Mr. Speaker. We do not need new legislation. Then there is 18 U.S.C. 600, which prohibits promises of contracts or other benefits as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity. Among other things, this would prohibit, for example, the Department of Commerce from selling trade missions in exchange for political donations. And as we know, there seems to be some suggestion that the Department of Commerce rewarded heavy contributors to the administration with trade trips and so forth like that. Along with U.S.C. 600, there is 18 U.S.C. 601, which prohibits the withholding of a benefit or program of the United States from any person who refuses to make a campaign contribution. In other words, you cannot withhold something because somebody supports your opponent. I think that is very important and something that all of us in Congress need to be aware of. A couple of other things: 18 U.S.C. 595 prohibits employees of the Government from using their office in any way to affect Federal elections. This law seems to have a problem with it for politically appointed employees who seem to be using taxpayer premises for a campaign purpose. And we have learned a lot about that recently. Then there is 18 U.S.C. 607, which prohibits the solicitation of campaign funds on Government property. Records show that in the administration a number of people violated this law over and over again. Not only did they make dozens of calls for cash from such places as the White House or auctioning coffees at the White House or selling the Lincoln bedroom, but it seems to be there was certainly a pattern of covering up from it, which is interesting because 18 U.S.C. 2 prohibits anyone from helping or furthering a criminal act. Eighteen U.S.C. 371 prohibits two or more persons from conspiring to commit a crime; 18 U.S.C. 1001 prohibits anyone from making false statements to Federal investigators; 18 U.S.C. 1621 prohibits lying under oath which is, of course, perjury; 18 U.S.C. 1623 prohibits lying to a grand jury. These are criminal statutes unaffected by campaign finance reform, Mr. Speaker. These are already on the books. All the folks who seem to be crying about the need for campaign finance reform are strangely silent on the laws that are on the books right now that are not being enforced. While I think that we need to look at our campaign finance laws, see if we can improve them, I think it is very important to do it on a bipartisan basis. I also think, Mr. Speaker, we should be able to investigate folks who have broken Federal law on a bipartisan basis. There is nothing Democrat or Republican about somebody breaking the law. It is simply a matter of enforcing what we have. Mr. Levin goes on in this article to say that if somebody, for example, Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary, she has been accused by Johnny Chung of being asked or forced to donate to one of her favorite charities, $25,000 to AFRICARE in exchange for a private meeting. Now, either Mr. Chung is lying and former Secretary O'Leary ought to be outraged and want to investigate that or if he is saying that is something serious we need to know about it. Again, this is a bipartisan question. This is not a matter of Republicans looking good and Democrats looking bad. It is a matter of the laws of the United States apparently being broken. And if that is the case, Mr. Speaker, then let us go after everybody, Democrat and Republican, who have apparently broken laws. This is a great article, Mr. Speaker. I wanted to bring this up in view of the fact that so many of the campaign finance discussions we are hearing, particularly from the other side, do not seem to say, let us enforce the existing laws. Let us investigate this in a bipartisan manner. Let us get down to brass tacks. We will be having lots of debates about this. So I think it is very important that we all talk about the whole picture and not just politically being selective about what we choose to talk about. There are a lot of issues facing the House right now. One of the key ones is education. I want to talk about education a little bit. In America today there are approximately 3 million teachers, most of whom have gone back to work now. Summer is over and school is back in. We have about 111,000 private and public schools. We have 51 million students in secondary and elementary education. In fact, my father and my two sisters have been educators. The student/teacher ratio is 1 to 17 and the average salary for the teacher ranges from about $21,000 to $38,000. The United States spends $286 billion on secondary and elementary education. Among the top 12 countries in the world in terms of education spending, Hong Kong, Japan, Britain, Sweden, and so forth, we rank No. 2. We spend approximately $6,000 per student in Washington, D.C. It is $10,000 in Utah. It is as low as $3,400. So there is a lot of range in there. Got a lot of Federal involvement in education. Approximately 760 Federal education programs, 39 boards, agencies and commissions, and that excludes the noneducation department-type programs, and there are other programs being taught by agencies that are not part of the Department of Education. I think a lot of this Federal involvement, Mr. Speaker, is not in the best interests of the local schoolteacher in the classroom. It seems that the direction of the debate is, do we want to put money into Washington commands and control bureaucrats or do we want to send the money to the teacher in the classroom. I think that when we have a deep Federal involvement in education, we have a lot of unintended consequences. I will give an example. Some of the consequences are just plain political. Right now on Federal math programs there are nine Federal math programs and 14 Federal reading programs. Sounds reasonable, but listen to this: There are 27 Federal environmental programs and 39 Federal arts programs. Now, if we ask the businesses in our communities what is important for them, certainly they want their new employees to be educated in environment and arts and so forth, but if we are to compete on the global front we have to have a strong math and reading background. And again nine math programs, 14 reading programs and 27 environmental programs and 39 art programs. It is done because it is politically popular to pass environmental education, and it is lackluster to pass math programs. We also take away a lot of the academic freedom. When we mandate from Washington what has to be taught by the local teacher in the classroom then we lose a little bit in terms of what can happen. Kids may need a lot of this drug education. They may need a lot of environmental education and so forth, but their primary goal still has to be the reading and writing and arithmetic and science, that core curriculum. And speaking personally, I can say this. I have four children, ages 6 to 14. And if my daughter, age 14, gets on drugs, it is not the school system's fault. It might be my fault, it might be my wife's fault, it might be our parenting skills are lacking, but it is not the school's fault. At 14 certainly it is partly my daughter's fault, if not 90 percent her fault. The fact is, if my daughter gets on drugs, gets pregnant and so forth, it is not a reflection on the school; it is a reflection on me, and we have to come up with that. There is inefficiency in Federal Government command and control. Let me give an example here. AmeriCorps right now spends about $25,000 to $30,000 per volunteer, and their books are in such disarray they could not even be audited. This is not a productive-type Federal Government. In terms of the results, in 1972 the average SAT score was 937; 1995, the average SAT score was 909. And all during this time we had more Federal Government involvement with the local education scene. We have the gentleman from Minnesota here [Mr. Gutknecht], who has joined us and I will certainly be glad to yield time to him on this topic of education; and I know the gentleman has other topics, but I wanted to kind of stick on education for a few more minutes.

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman for those points. I think they are excellent.

Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman, and certainly agree. There are so many things we are debating now in terms of more Washington government in education, national curriculums. I say, let us go back to the local level where the action is, where a lot of the solutions are, and so forth. On the subject of right and wrong, I was jogging the other day out in front, leaving the Capitol, going by the Smithsonian, toward the Washington Monument, and two student-type looking fellows were sitting on the ground with a laptop computer. They had a big poster board. It said, ``Is there a difference between right and wrong?'' And they were sitting around punching figures into their laptop, apparently proving that there was no difference between right and wrong. I did not have the nerve, but I certainly had the mind, and I was thinking, I just ought to jog right over there and step on that laptop and ruin it, and then turn around and see if they think there is a right or a wrong. Because I have a feeling they would say, hey, that was wrong, buddy. And it is interesting how quickly you can kind of turn the debate from some of the academic Washingtonian deep thinkers and just bring them back to the reality of the real world and hometown America, because that is where I think the salvation of our great country is. There are a lot of good people in Washington, great minds, practically brilliant people. I have a lot of respect for many, many folks: Democrats, Republicans, Federal bureaucrats, Federal employees, a lot of good folks in the system. But when we get down to it, the real strength of America is on the streets of America and hometown America, the wisdom of hometown America. I think that is where the goodness is, and there lies our greatness. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlemen for joining me tonight.

Mr. KINGSTON. And we get to sit by and not waste the money.

Mr. KINGSTON. That is right. And teachers, if given the opportunity to be creative, can light the fire in the students' minds and get them enthusiastic. If the gentleman will remember, today we had the Reverend George Dillard give the opening prayer. His wife Renee is a 4th grade schoolteacher at Cannongate Elementary School in Peachtree City, GA. When I introduced George, at Renee's request, I introduced Nellie, who is the fourth grade class's little teddy bear; and Nellie was on the floor of Congress today. Nellie met Speaker Gingrich and Trent Lott and anybody else that Nellie could shake hands with. It captures the minds of those fourth graders. Those 9- and 10-year- olds suddenly say, what is Nellie doing in this Chamber, this place where all these men and women are talking sometimes in such lofty terms? What is that group? Nellie, the little teddy bear of Cannongate Elementary School, has been to over 80 countries and has sat on the Great Wall of China. It is exciting, and Renee Dillard, their teacher, is excited for them. She is showing them a gateway, but she is using a prop. She is using something that was a local idea. It was not a Washington bureaucrat that all fourth grade classes will get teddy bears from here on out. It was local. And when Nellie's novelty has worn off, they will put her on the shelf. But as long as Renee Dillard and other fourth grade teachers can come up with creative and fun ideas to excite these kids into learning, we are going to have kids who are enthusiastic about learning.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield back to me, want to underscore that, because I think that is something that is so true. As I talk to teachers they are very, very frustrated in two things: No. 1, that they cannot control their own classroom anymore because there are so many Federal rules that have been passed down to the State education bureaucracies and then to the local and then to the teacher in the classroom tying her hands up, because sometimes some kids need different things. But one of the results of it, not only is she frustrated with the bureaucracy she works for, but the parents of the students are frustrated, and so they are not involved in the PTA's or the PTO-type organizations, the parent-teacher groups, because they know that they cannot do anything about it. They have a great idea, they get real fired up, they hear about it working somewhere else and rush to tell the teacher, and he or she signs off on it and says it is great; they go to the principal, the principal likes it, they go to the school board and, bam, brick wall. And today the average student, the average 13-year-old, spends 8 hours a week doing homework and 30 hours a week watching TV.

Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, here is an August 29 article in the Washington Times about a public opinion poll that says the economy is booming, the stock market is up, business is good, employment is at a great high, and yet Americans are pessimistic. One reason they are pessimistic is because of moral values. For example, one woman in this poll talked about the country not being on the right track and said that the vulgarity on TV is shocking when people, and this is a quote--well, I do not want to quote it, but just general things that are said on TV and on radio, which are inappropriate, particularly if you have got an 8- or 9- or 12-year-old in the room, or a 30-year-old, for that matter. It is just bad things. Then government, a lot of people said they distrust government. You know, it just says Americans remain largely suspicious of the Federal Government and their political leaders, though the anger of the early nineties has dissipated. I think we in Congress should deal with problems more on a bipartisan basis, rather than finger point and so forth.

Mr. KINGSTON. So much of the discipline picture, though, has got to get back to the home and the parents. We had Charles Ellis Montessori School in Savannah, GA, an excellent school putting out a great product in the students that it educates. The principal, though, told me they have 94 percent parent involvement. If you get the parents involved, it makes a big difference. I will tell my colleagues another personal story and convince them that I have horrible discipline around the house. I have got to tell you about Jim, my 6-year-old. I love Jim. I am excited. We are going home tomorrow, and I am going to go play with Jim. Jim is very, very independent, a little blond-headed boy, solid as a rock, not an ounce of fat on him, all muscle. Ninety-nine percent go. All the time. He does not have a slow gear. He started kindergarten last year. He did not like it. He liked summertime, he liked independence. He did not like sitting in the classroom. The teacher tried to include him in on the program, Ms. Stafford, but Jim resisted. It got worse and worse. Ms. Stafford took him to see the principal. Jim did not like the principal at all and kicked the principal. The teacher was horrified. The principal was horrified. She called me up and I was horrified because, as you know, particularly during the 1960's when the three of us went through the school system, principals were like God. They had the final word on everything, and no kicking. But Jim did not know the rules. So the principal called me up. We had a parent conference and all this. She did something that I really think is great. She said, ``I want to know where you are 24 hours a day. I want one number and one name, and if I call that name and that number, you, no matter where you are, are going to come to this school and pick Jim up and take him home. Do you understand me?'' I said, ``Yes, ma'am, I understand you.'' THere was just no gray area to it. She laid out the rules; the program was clear. And, needless to say, Libby and I got to work on Jim, double overtime, and he ended up having a great, spectacular year. That was last year. He ended up, I think, a model student. I do not know if the teacher will agree with me, but it was perfect. The beauty of it was the principal had the flexibility to grab me, somewhat rhetorically, by the tie and say, ``Look, sucker, your kid is a problem. I want him off my campus, because he is disrupting the learning of the other kids. You are going to come get him.'' Again, no lawsuit, no Federal involvement, no big problem. We understand that she was looking out for the greater cause, and we cured the problem. You cannot do that in most school systems today because the parents will say, ``Well, it is not my problem. You all probably abused him.'' It is just so stupid in society, some of the things we are getting into now. But I think it is because of this Washington bureaucracy, centralized planning for education, instead of giving the teachers and the principles the flexibility they need.

Mr. KINGSTON. I want to say this by way of introduction of the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Weldon], he is one of what, is it four physicians in Congress or three?

Mr. KINGSTON. I was hoping the gentleman would confess.

Mr. KINGSTON. On that same subject, I was talking with some executives at BellSouth from Georgia earlier today, and they are very, very involved in education and trying to get kids on line and computer friendly on the Internet and all the good stuff we need to do to compete in a global economy. They were giving me an example of Salem High School in Georgia, in Rockdale County, I believe, but what he was saying is, the principal came into this high school and said we are going to do pass-fail. I am going to teach you how to think, not just how to make an A. I am going to teach you how to think. Everyone was up in arms and so forth, and it was a very tough storm he had to weather. But now 4 years later, according to the BellSouth people, this principal at Salem High School is one of the most popular in the State because he did something different, and people bought into it; and once they understood it, they liked it, and the parents got behind it. But, again, they did not need a Washington bureaucrat to tell them to do it. But there may be a Washington bureaucrat that can tell them they cannot do it, and that is very, very harmful. Another example. I was in Camden County talking to a school board member down there in Camden County, GA, which is where Kings Bay is, and they have lots of growth. And most of the schools are new, but they had a lot of problems because of the growth problems. This school board employee was telling me she had just returned from a seminar in Athens, GA, on sensitivity. Sensitivity is a bureaucratic concept, and basically what it says is teachers cannot be alone with the student because they might do something wrong. They cannot touch a student because they might touch them too long or in the wrong place or something. They cannot be too familiar with the student. They cannot use any slang or joke around with them because they may be offended by it. She said the heartbreaking part of that is that so many of the kids, 6 and 7 years old from broken homes, the No. 1 thing they need is not learning the math tables, but getting a good hug and not just one but two. And she says, now I am coming back from this taxpayer-funded seminar to tell my teachers in their classroom that we cannot hug our students anymore when they do a good job. And, again, as a parent of four, we have to hug each other four or five times a day just to kind of get things moving, and actually that is just by the morning time. But we are hug friendly, my family, and I think in most places in America there is nothing unique about it, but it needs to happen. Another thing maybe on a different side is, as the gentleman knows, we cannot spank anymore, we cannot have prayers, we have to be careful not to offend anybody and so forth. And I think about the times when I was in school, one time in particular when a guy named Bennie Lacount and I were sitting in the gymnasium, and Mr. McBride, the vice principal, came and sat down in front of us on the bleachers, and we were behind him. And across the gym floor were all the seventh and ninth grade girls, and they were looking good, and Bennie Lacount slipped me a piece of bubble gum. And we were not supposed to chew gum, especially in gym, because it could damage the gym floor, but we just started chewing. And seeing how the vice principal was sitting in front of us, we thought we would blow a few bubbles to the girls across the gym floor and get away with it and kind of be young and studly and impress the women. So we started blowing bubbles. Well, Mr. McBride did not see us, but we did not anticipate Coach Stalvi, who was watching from the wing; and he called me over and said, were you chewing gum? And I was 13 and I said, no, sir. And he said, you were not chewing gum? And I said, a little weaker that time, no. And he said, I saw you chewing gum. You were chewing gum, weren't you? And I said, yes, sir. And he said I would have spanked you twice for doing it, but now I'm going to spank you five times for lying. So he took me in his office, spanked me, Benny only got it twice because he told the truth but I got it five times. But I deserved it and it straightened me out and I am not in therapy, I am not a victim, I did not sue Coach Stalvi, I did not sue the school system. Maybe my heinie got a little black and blue for a few days but not a boy in the locker room thought that I was innocent. It was understood, growing up, that if you broke the rules and got caught, you were going to be punished. That is not clear anymore in our school system. But it is not the fault of the teachers. It is the fault of the Washington command and control bureaucracy, the centralized planning agency who wants to run the lives of all of America. Because not everybody needed a paddle growing up. But I was one who did. Every time I got a paddling I deserved, it and every time I got a paddling I got a little bit closer to being straight and being a good citizen, and so forth. I can promise that growing up, if it were not for those installments in discipline, there would be a lot of us who continued down a very, very wayward and harmful path.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think what is very, very important and what he is talking about is that allowing the local innovation, the grassroots on up rather than the command and control pushing down the rules, what will happen if Minnesota is as good as all reports are right now? Everybody is excited about what is going on in Minnesota. I can tell my colleagues what is going to happen. Florida and Georgia are going to go up there and figure out what can we do, what is working and how can we change our system. The HOPE scholarship which has been a successful program of Governor Zell Miller, Democrat in Georgia, as the gentlemen know was somewhat copied in the recent budget bill. There is a lot to be said by having 50 different laboratories and then thousands of other labs in county and city school systems.

Mr. KINGSTON. Six. It is amazing though that somebody in the height of a medical career, a successful medical career would take the time out to somewhat sidetrack or derail his career to be a Member of Congress. We are just so proud to have somebody like the gentleman with us.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I introduce the pastor of the day, the Reverend George S. Dillard. George has been a friend of mine for over 10 years. I met him when he was a resident of Georgia's First District, and after many years of good representation in the First District, he had the misfortune of moving to the Third District and being represented by the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Collins]. But he does keep in touch with the First District, and we are happy to have him back with us today. He is doing great work up in that area. George was a graduate of Campbell High School. He was born in Fairburn, GA, and received his bachelor's degree from Atlanta Christian College. He received his master's degree, magna cum laude, from the Evangelical Theological Seminary, and this year will get his Ph.D. from that same institution. George is a minister of evangelism and preaching at the Peachtree City Christian Church in Peachtree, GA. George is listed in Who's Who in Religion and was selected as one of the most outstanding young men in America. George is also here with his beautiful wife, Renee, who is with us in the gallery today. Renee is a schoolteacher at Cannongate Elementary School, and their mascot, Nellie, is with them in Washington today, so Nellie says hello to you from all the fourth graders back home. We will be going back to report on how well we are doing, so watch us today. Their children, Tiffany, age 6, and Alexis, age 3, are not with them, but they do travel with them frequently. They are good folks, and George has proudly been proclaiming the gospel wherever he goes. As we heard today, he is a man of God. Please welcome my friend, Rev. George Dillard.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable to hear Democrats talk about campaign finance reform and the need for it while they are strangely, strangely silent on the subject of criminal violations apparently by Members of their party in this administration. Point in case. U.S. Code 18-1956 prohibits the solicitation or acceptance of laundered campaign contributions intended to conceal the nature, source, ownership or control of the funds. This prohibition would cover the tens of thousands of dollars donated to the Democratic National Committee by dirt poor Buddhists. If they do not like that law, here is another one; 18 U.S. Code 600 prohibits promises of contracts or other benefits as consideration, favor or reward for political activities such as the Democrat Department of Commerce trade missions in exchange for political donations. Or this, 18 U.S. Code 601 prohibits the withholding of a benefit or program of the United States from any person who refuses to make a campaign contribution. There are dozens and dozens of laws that are already on the books that have apparently been violated and the Democrats have no interest whatsoever in trying to enforce the existing law. Let us do not try to confuse things. Let us enforce existing law, then move on to campaign finance reform.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, there is a big misconception among many people on that side of the aisle that more spending means less deaths. I want to say in 1994 the number of work-related deaths was 6,632. That number dropped in 1996 to 6,112 and that was with very, very limited increases on the budget for OSHA, in fact so limited that you routinely call it a cut. Let us be honest with ourselves. There is not a proven relationship in spending more money on OSHA bureaucrats and saving workers.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words. Mr. Chairman, I stand in support of the amendment in transferring money from OSHA to handicapped children and to the local school boards, the local school boards and the folks back home, the property taxpayers are making up the difference now in this important IDEA program. We need to help them out. This amendment gives us an opportunity to do that. But it also gives us an opportunity to send yet another message to OSHA that the American people want to get the Government off its back. OSHA is a nitpicking regulatory agency, far beyond their alleged mission of human safety. We talk about safety. It is like OSHA has the franchise on it, Mr. Chairman. The fact is that let us just say the businesses of America did not care about their workers. Let us just say it did not matter to them. What would be the consequence of having somebody hurt to a manufacturing plant? Workers compensation premiums would go up. That is a substantial amount of money. The workers who are injured would cause downtime to the production line. The machinery would be broken; the car, for example, would be wrecked. There would be bad will. There would be morale problems. There would be a PR problem. All of these things come into play in the event that a business is not concerned about safety. But the reality is, Mr. Chairman, businesses do care about their employees. They want their employees to stay there for a long time. They want their employees to be safe. They want their employees to be comfortable, secure, and happy. And that is why they take lots and lots of precautions on their own without OSHA coming in and interfering. Here is the light reading of the night, Mr. Chairman. You look like you have some spare moments up there. This is the OSHA regulation on asbestos. You will remember that the Environmental Protection Agency outlawed asbestos in all forms and a court threw that out and said, you can't go that far; you are going beyond your mission statement. But OSHA steps in and says, that is OK. We will enforce it, even though the court said not to. What fine work did they produce as a result of their interference? The first thing they did is they came up with a new brake for cars, even though using the asbestos in automobile brakes did not cause any damage in terms of people breathing asbestos or anything like that. OSHA came in and said, you have to have new brakes on cars. These new brakes, Mr. Chairman, take twice as long to brake, and as a result, according to a scientific study by the National Safety Board, Transportation, we have been losing 150 people more each year. I repeat, 150 deaths have been caused in addition because of OSHA's great work on taking asbestos out of brakes. That is not looking out for worker safety. What are some of the other fine examples of the great work that they do? Well, there was the case of a business that had a problem with employees stealing fire extinguishers, so the business put the fire extinguishers behind a very thin, breakable glass. But then the OSHA inspector came back around and said the fire extinguishers were no longer accessible because they were behind this breakable glass. The company was fined. Then there was the case of a shampoo manufacturer. The shampoo manufacturer, Mr. Chairman, used large stainless steel open vats to mix the product in. When they were cleaning the product, the bowl, of course, was empty and employees would actually go inside the bowl and clean it. Well, even though there was no top on them, not just during the cleaning but actually during the mixing of the product, there was not a top for these large vats or bowls, OSHA came in and said that the workers who were cleaning the bowls were in a confined space and, therefore, they needed to be treated like they were in an enclosed tank. So OSHA required the shampoo company to have rescue teams standing by with respirators and so forth. This is an absurd example of a bureaucracy that has gone crazy. A couple of other examples. In Indiana, there was a company called Zilkowski Construction Company that was fined for having a can of Pledge furniture polish in a trailer with no material safety data sheet on it. Is that not a real treacherous situation for workers to be exposed to a can of Pledge furniture polish? And then here is another one. 1992, a company in South Bend, IN was cited by OSHA for not having a brand specifics material data safety sheet for chalk. That is chalk that you would write with. That is the kind of ridiculous thing OSHA would do.

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

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

Mr. KINGSTON. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman, I am glad the gentleman brings that out because it makes us think maybe there is hope for reform in this agency, but I am still not, and most of the folks back home who were employers who are suffering from all this nitpicking, I still believe they are saying, do not increase this agency, do not send more Government down here to my manufacturing plant. It is interesting, the manufacturing jobs in America in 1960 were two-thirds of the working population. Today they are one-third. One of the major reasons why businesses go overseas, Mr. Chairman, and we are losing the manufacturing base is because businesses here are having to pay too high a price to do business and commerce in America because of excessive regulatory agencies such as OSHA. I say, let us not increase them at this time, let us leave their funding at a level base and let us send the difference to handicapped and disabled children in our districts.

Mr. KINGSTON

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, yesterday Democrat after Democrat cried for campaign finance reform. For Democrats to talk about campaign finance reform is a little like getting mad at the road for the transgressions of a drunk driver. Where have they been when it comes time to talk about Buddhist temple fundraising or selling the Lincoln bedroom or Pauline Kanchanalak or John Huang or Charlie Trie or Eric Hotung or any of the aforementioned people or subjects? But just in case those are not good enough, I have got some additional reading material for some of you. These are good. I think you may have heard of these papers, the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Reno Review, ``That could lead to Gore independent counsel.'' Washington Post, September 4, ``U.S. set to probe Gore calls.'' Washington Times, ``Justice looking anew at probe of Gore.'' Even the New York Times, that great conservative publication that it is, front page, ``Inquiry on Gore fund-raising.'' Lots of good reading material in here. I am going to leave it in the House Chamber because I know some of you maybe do not read or have not had time to, but I am going to encourage you to do that because when it comes time to talk campaign finance reform, there is a lot of material right here, and I say let us start doing it on a bipartisan basis.