[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 32 (Monday, March 21, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[Congressional Record: March 21, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
{time} 2050
IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING AMERICA
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Peterson). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston]
is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate the opportunity to
address the House tonight on a number of important issues that are
facing the country today, that of defense, that of health care, that of
the family and taxes and crime, and so forth.
I am going to start out by yielding the floor to the gentleman from
Utah [Mr. Hansen].
Mr. HANSEN. I appreciate my friend from Georgia yielding the floor to
me.
(Mr. HANSEN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks.)
Mr. HANSEN. Mr. Speaker, it has been interesting as we go through the
downsizing of the military, we all realize that this is a necessary
thing to do. But the question comes down to how far do we go?
We are going through a base closing. We have done a 1991 and 1993. We
are looking at a 1995. We are finding out the Pentagon does not have
the money to come up with the promises they made as far as defense
conversion, as far as cleaning up the toxic wastes, all of the
economies of the area. I do not see that money coming about as we first
anticipated it would. We have a big backlog.
Having sat for 6 years on the Restoration Environment Panel of the
Committee on Armed Services, I do not think there is enough money in
the whole defense budget to take care of the toxic wastes we see in the
various bases, but we are looking at those things. We know every time
there is a debate on the floor, people stand up and say the cold war is
over. Why are we spending all this money on defense?
If I may, Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk for just a moment on the
history of what has happened in this country of America where we are
all Pollyannas and want to believe the very best. We want to believe
that all is well. Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. No more problems
for any of us.
Unfortunately, that is not what history tells us. Those who choose
not to learn from history seem to relive it. That has been the case of
the United States of America.
During the First World War, my father was in that one. He flew
Jennies down in Texas at Kelly Field, that fine old airplane that many
of us look back on and those of us who have been pilots enjoyed that
very much. I remember my dad talking about how euphoric they were when
the war ended, the war to end all wars, bring the doughboys home. It is
all done. We have nothing more to worry about.
Then in a few short years, just a little over 20 years, here came the
Second World War, and the United States was not ready to get into it,
because after the First World War, we went too far too fast. We wanted
to believe this Pollyanna thing that all is well. There is nothing more
to worry about. Things are OK in the world today. We have brought the
boys home. There is nothing more.
In the Second World War, probably one of the bitterest wars ever
fought on the face of the Earth, look at all the people we lost, both
in the Pacific and in Europe. Look at the terrible things of war that
were created. Following that, again, the same euphoria seemed to
permeate the people of America, all is well. There is nothing more to
worry about.
I still remember my father saying to me, you were too young for the
Second World War, you will be too old for the next one. Again we
disarmed too far and too fast and found ourselves after winning that
one at a point where a man by the name of Kim Sung from North Korea
said to a man by the name of Stalin from Moscow that I can push the
people off that peninsula in 3 weeks and the United States will not
respond.
However, he read that one wrong, as we all know, and we did respond,
and the Korean War started. I am a Korean War veteran myself. We got
through that one. Then Vietnam, that terribly unpopular war.
After each one of those, what does the United States do? We disarm
too far, too fast. And a few little ones like Panama, Grenada, Libya,
and then the Persian Gulf, which was probably a textbook war, if there
can be such a thing.
Now we find ourselves in the position of doing it again. I have the
greatest respect for people like Chairman Dellums and Chairman Sam
Nunn. But as I look at what we are doing now, we find ourselves, first
we were looking at the force structure that Dick Chaney, Colin Powell,
and George Bush worked on, which was basically a 25-percent reduction
in military. Now under the Clinton administration we are seeing closer
to a 40-percent reduction in military, which I personally am worried
about, and I feel we find ourselves maybe in the same position.
I know the Director of the CIA, Mr. Jim Woolsey, has made a very
interesting statement. He said the Soviet Union was like a great big
dragon out in the jungle. And that dragon has now split apart and now
we have 50 poisonous snakes.
Think about it. We do not have to be too bright to figure out there
are poisonous snakes in various areas. You can read Jane's, the defense
magazine, and know what is happening in Libya as far as biological and
chemical, know what is happening in Iran and Iraq. We know what is
happening in North Korea, and many areas. These 50 slithering poisonous
snakes are all over.
Yet, at the same time, we are disarming the military so rapidly that
do not we ever learn from history? Didn't we learn what happened? The
First World War, the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, one after
another? Are we going to put the people of America in jeopardy again by
disarming this Nation too far and too fast?
Will we ever learn from our great first President, George Washington,
who made the statement, ``The best way to keep the peace is be prepared
for war,'' not overly prepared, but adequately prepared, that we can
handle any contingency that may happen.
I submit to the American public that we are not there and we are
going too far and we will rue the day we do that, just as we did at the
First World War, the Second World War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War,
and you name it. Let us be cautious as Members of Congress who are
making these policy decisions. Let us be cautious that we do not disarm
this military to the point we can't bring it back.
Do you realize how fast we could build P-51's, DC-3's, B-17's, and B-
24's. Well, you can't do it now. There is no way we can build like we
did during those times. Now we will have just what we have got, and
those 50 poisonous snakes worry me, Mr. Speaker, and they should worry
the American public. We should be very cautious and very prudent as we
start this builddown and not go as fast as we have in the past.
I thank my friend from Georgia for yielding to me.
Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman from Utah.
I wanted to touch base on two of the things you pointed out. I have
read during the course of this year ``The Last Line,'' part II, by
William Manchester, which is a biography of Winston Churchill, and the
book actually took place from about 1920 to 1939.
During that period of time, of course, Churchill fell from grace in
the English Parliament. Really he was one of the most hated men in
England during that period of time. What he was hated about was he kept
saying we are not preparing, we are disarming too fast and meanwhile,
Germany, yes, Germany of all places, is rearming, and they are
building, and they are getting prepared for a war. They are going to be
a world power.
Nobody believed him. History shows Churchill was ridiculed, laughed
at, and scorned. Yet, he stood steadfast, and because of those beliefs,
he was able to become Prime Minister and lead England successfully
through World War II. But he was out there crying in the wilderness
alone.
Mr HANSEN. If the gentleman will yield, it is interesting to me you
would bring that up, because that is another classic example in world
history. When Chamberlain the Prime Minister of England, talked to
Hitler about whether or not they were going to Czechoslovakia, and
Chamberlain came back and told the English people all is well, we have
it worked out, he was cheered all over England.
But a voice of reason and understanding, Winston Churchill, stood up
and was booed off the House floor, the House of Parliament. And yet in
a short time, did Hitler live up to what he said he would do? Surely
not. He walked right into Czechoslovakia, and the next thing we knew we
were in it up to our ears. That man that had the courage to be the
voice of reason when everyone wanted to believe differently, stood up,
took the flak that he had to take, and later, as you pointed out so
ably, became the Prime Minister of England and was the man who gave the
inspiration to all of the world when he talked about we will fight in
the streets, we will do all this type of thing.
Churchill was an amazing individual. In fact, in his last talk that
he ever gave to Parliament, he stood before them and all he said is
never give up. Never, never give up.
I cannot say it the way he would say it, of course, but that is a
good thing for all Americans to look at also as we look at the roots
that we have from England.
And I am interested in what you said about him, because he was one
great leader, and probably someone we should all emulate and should
think about it and cautiously think about it as we, here as Members of
Congress, who are studying the policies, setting the money for what is
going to happen with the defense of America, should never forget those
great lessons of history from people such as him.
Mr. KINGSTON. I think the gentleman is correct. I have heard it said
many times that while the United States cannot afford to be the
policeman of the world, if there is to be one, let it be the United
States, because we have always been a peace loving nation and have
never used our military power to invade other countries, as history
shows many other countries do when they have that advantage.
The gentleman from California is here and has great knowledge and
expertise on military topics. If I could yield to him.
{time} 2100
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I listened with interest to my friend from
Utah, who is one of the leaders on the Armed Services Committee,
because what you have said needs to be said at townhalls throughout
this Nation. Instead of the news media focusing on some of the juicier
aspects of Government and politics, they need to be looking very
seriously at what we are doing with our defense apparatus, this
dismantlement we are going through, and address it.
Let me take some of the statements that you have made and talk a
little bit about some specific things.
First, the threat has changed. I think we all concur in that. The
former Soviet Union is now broken down into States. The problem is that
the four States of Belarus and Kazakhstan and Ukraine and Russia that
came out of the Soviet Union, those four States at least retained
nuclear weapons. And it is at times the ownership of the pink slip of
those nuclear weapons is somewhat in doubt, and the political
leadership is a very fragile political leadership in those four States.
I think that those nations are understanding now, I think they have
always known instinctively, but they are understanding now that the
ownership of those nuclear weapons gives them prestige and gives them
leverage.
In looking at the Nunn-Lugar moneys, the moneys that we have
appropriated in Congress to dismantle some of those nuclear weapons, we
notice that the schedules are dragging and dragging and dragging. We
keep asking in Armed Services, when are they going to dismantle the
nuclear weapons aimed at us? The answer is, sometime in the future. But
we tend to have a few problems with moving this process down the line.
I think the delay is caused by the fact that these nations understand
there is a certain prestige attached to these weapons. I think it is
going to be a long time before they are dismantled. But beyond the
Soviet threat, we have North Korea obtaining nuclear capability. We
understand that. We also understand that there is very little we can do
about it, according to our experts who say we cannot make a clean
scalpel-like attack, surgical strike on the nuclear apparatus, the
nuclear development apparatus of North Korea, like the Israelis made on
the Iraqi nuclear reactor, because they have underground facilities. It
is very complex. It is difficult to tell exactly what is going on and
where. And our intelligence apparatus has not penetrated the Korean
peninsula well, everyone understands that. And so we have problems with
stopping this development.
When you are dealing with the brutal leadership of North Korea, we
have discovered that the fine print and the excellent, eloquent
statements of our diplomats have little effect on their military
machine and on their nuclear development operation.
So you have nuclear weapons being acquired by an instable regime that
is dependent on the personalities of a few people.
In the South China Sea, you have Communist China now claiming a great
deal of territories, understanding that there is some wealth in the
South China Sea, moving into the South China Sea with strength,
building warship bases and warplane bases in the Sea.
In the Balkans, of course, we have the situation that most Americans
who watch CNN are aware of. The Balkans continue to explode. And in the
Middle East we have a continuing, dangerous situation. And overlaying
all of these threats around the world, we have now a stampede among the
Western nations to proliferate high technology, what is known as dual-
use technology. That is machinery and technology that can be used on
the domestic side to make plant and equipment for domestic
manufacturing operations but also be used on the military side to build
the military machines that at some point may meet young Americans on
the battlefield and kill them. That is militarily critical technology,
and I am reminded that when we found the skull furnaces that had been
shipped by the United States to Saddam Hussein before the Iraq
conflict, and we looked up the documentation that came out of our
Department of Commerce, they had stamped on that documentation for
these skull furnaces, which were used by Hussein in his nuclear weapons
development program, very critical parts, they had stamped on those
documents that they were going to be used by the Iraqi people to make
prostheses for amputees.
Of course, our Department of Commerce bought that particular
explanation. The point is that even with that illustration, the United
States is the most conservative Nation of all the nations in the
Western democracies with respect to shipping high technology to our
potential adversaries.
We now have a stampede, a flood by Great Britain, by France, Germany,
Japan, by many others to sell military critical technology, technology
that is equivalent to selling Winchesters to the hostiles, to our
adversaries. It is no longer just a thin hemorrhage around the world.
It is a flood of technology.
So overlaying all these threats that we have in Korea, with respect
to China, with respect to the former Soviet States, with respect to the
Middle East, and with respect to what I guess you would call the usual
suspects, Libya, Iraq, and others, you have overlaid on this
proliferation of killing technology that is currently at flood stage.
We have a very dangerous world. And against this threat, the Clinton
administration is reducing national security by $127 billion. This was
last year's baseline, $127 billion below what George Bush cut out of
defense of $50 billion. So this is $177 billion below what we figured
in 1990, we would need for national defense.
We have cut our fighter forces 50 percent. We have cut our bomber
forces by 33 percent in just a few months. We are now reducing our 600-
ship Navy. It was almost 600 ships a few years ago. It is a little bit
above 300, massive reductions taking place right now.
We are cashiering 600 young people a week out of the military, taking
the uniform off these people, putting them back in the private sector
and praying that the world is going to be stable.
I think, to the gentleman from Utah and my good friend my Georgia, I
think we are approaching what George Marshall described, after World
War II, when somebody said, what do you think about the demobilization,
General? He said, ``This is not a demobilization; it is a rout.''
Of course, we know that shortly after that rout took place in the
most powerful army in the history of the world, the United States
military was down to such a level that when we were challenged in
Korea, we were unable for many months to meet the challenge,
Mr. KINGSTON. I wanted to relate a old hunting story. We were talking
about selling technologies to our suspected enemies.
There is a great and illustrative joke, the story of a hunter who was
out hunting when it was cold. He found a frozen snake, and he took the
snake home with him. And he heated the snake up by the fireplace and
gave him a little water, fed him a mouse. And the snake, sure enough,
revived and got alive again.
Then one day the man was moving the snake's water dish and the snake
bit him. And the hunter said, I do not understand this. I took you in.
You were fed. You were frozen. I thawed you out. I fed you, gave you
water. The snake shrugged and says, you knew I was a snake.
I think that is what we forget in America. Often we think that we can
kill our enemies with kindness when, in fact, you cannot reform people
who do not want to be your ally. Yet time and time again, we do sell
furnaces or other sort of technology to the people who will be after
our very own citizens in one form or the other one day.
Mr. HUNTER. I think my friend is right. He has made a wonderful
illustration with this story.
My only problem with that story is, I think it is very difficult for
me to imagine how a snake shrugs.
Mr. KINGSTON. You people in California do not have very big snakes.
We will get you to Georgia sometime.
Mr. HUNTER. You have those broad-shouldered snakes in Georgia.
Let me bring out one other thing that I think is important for us to
remember. That is, as Leo Thorsness, who was a POW for many years in
North Vietnam and a Medal of Honor winner, said, he said in areas of
national defense, if you are going to make a mistake in budgeting, err
on the side of strength.
And what I think the American people were so grateful for during
Desert Storm was when Colin Powell said, we are going to destroy the
Iraqi Army, the fourth largest military in the world, with overwhelming
force.
So we met that military with overwhelming force, and we took around
100 casualties, that is KIA, killed in action, 100 casualties.
Somebody was comparing that to the number of people who were killed
in drive-by shootings in Washington, DC, during the same period of
time. I think there were more people killed by drive-by shootings in
the drug wars in Washington, DC, than were killed during Desert Shield
and Desert Storm on the battlefield in Iraq.
The reason we were able to prosecute that war and cut off Saddam
Hussein before he cut the oil lifeline that the West depends on, the
reason we were able to do that was because we had overwhelming
strength. This was not an even match.
{time} 2110
In technology and in quantity and in quality of systems, we had
overwhelming strength.
We are now cutting back to where our analysts are coming in, like
those from the General Accounting Office and the Budget Office, who
told us the other day in the Committee on Armed Services, ``We think we
can win these wars on what we are going to have.'' I asked him, ``Did
you take into account casualties?'' ``No, we did not take into account
casualties.''
I just want to give two situations and ask you to compare them. At
Antietam, just a few miles from here, where Robert E. Lee invaded the
North during the early part of the Civil War, went across the Potomac
and took on McClellan's army at Antietam Creek, the battle forces of
the South and the North, considering the geographical proximity or the
geographical location that Lee set up in, were fairly, fairly even.
There was rough parity. The North had more people but the South had a
geographical--because they sat up on a ridge near Antietam Creek, they
had the edge in terrain and topography, and they were set up in a
fairly strong position when the North struck them.
Because both sides were evenly matched, it was a fierce, grinding
struggle. In a matter of about 10 hours, 33,000 Americans were either
killed or wounded. The cornfield, if you go to Antietam Creek and you
stand there and you let the ranger brief you on that battle, and you
are standing there at the headquarters of Antietam battlefield, he will
show you where the cornfield was, the famous cornfield which was taken
and retaken by both sides, until it had switched possession six times.
At the end of that carnage, you could walk all the way across the
cornfield on bodies.
We took 33,000 casualties, North and South, in that battle, because
there was an evenness of forces; because there was not overwhelming
superiority on one side or another.
Compare that with our fight in Desert Storm, where we beat the
fourth-largest army in the world and took about 100 men killed in
action. The facts are that having overwhelming force is much better for
your young men and women in uniform, because it protects them, it
allows them to get the job done quickly without taking massive
casualties, and it does not turn your operation into a long, grinding
battle that wears you down and results in body bag after body bag being
shipped home.
Mr. HANSEN. Will the gentleman yield on that?
Mr. HUNTER. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Utah.
Mr. HANSEN. I think my friend from California has brought up a very
interesting point, talking about the Civil War in the United States of
America.
As we go back and look at the history of that, it was a grisly, mean,
dirty, bloody affair, and we lost literally thousands and thousands of
our people.
Now we look at the thing today, as we talked about, the kind of wars
we could look at. The gentleman brought up the idea of weapon
proliferation, talking about ethnic, religious wars, problems we have
probably not faced at other times, and the gentleman has used a good
example which I appreciate the gentleman used, what happened in Iraq.
At this point, the big, fourth-largest military might on the face of
the Earth moved into Kuwait. It was a war of aggression, much like
during the Second World War, when Hitler's Germany moved into
Czechoslovakia, France, Scandinavian countries.
At that point people wanted to push them out. It was the
anticipation, get them out of our country. They have occupied something
that is not theirs.
It is interesting the gentleman brings up the Civil War, a different
kind of war. In Vietnam, what did we have on our hands? We had a civil
war on our hands. When you talk to people who were Vietnam veterans,
they did not know who was wearing the white hat, who was the right
person, a very difficult type of war to get in. Korea was another civil
war. Ours was a civil war. The history of civil wars is that they are
very tough to win.
Now as we look at what we may face now, these are not easy wars, and
I'm not saying the Persian Gulf was easy, but we knew those people did
not have their hearts in it. Look how they surrendered.
Look at the problems with Bosnia and these areas. Look at some of the
problems that could come up. What you have alluded to is another one of
these tough wars to fight, much more, even with the overwhelming odds
because they had people fighting for God, country, and mother, so to
speak. It is not one of those things where they are mercenaries.
There is another point that I believe even requires a higher degree
of training, a higher degree of preparedness, than having the
technology and the overwhelming odds that we have. It is a sin almost
in my mind to see the technology that we have perpetuated in America,
which has been the leading edge of why we have been ahead and in my
opinion why the cold war ended, is the technology of America. To see
that taken apart and eroded is to me one of the biggest mistakes we are
seeing in America at this particular time.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I think one of the things
we are saying is that yes, it is efficient to swat a fly with a
sledgehammer when you are talking about saving lives. That is how the
American military has been successful throughout the years.
Mr. Speaker, we have a couple of other things we wanted to talk
about, but I don't want to cut the gentleman short, but just encourage
him to maybe sum up.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman from Georgia, and I thank him for
letting my friend from Utah and I talk a little bit on his time in this
special order.
Let me just finish by saying this, Mr. Speaker. The airlift that we
have undertaken over Bosnia has now been carried on longer than the
Berlin airlift. This is another aspect of military operations and
military requirements in this so-called peaceful period. We have now
carried that airlift on longer than the Berlin airlift.
Our military operations over Iraq have now been carried on longer and
we have had more military operations over Iraq, aircraft operations,
than we had during the Iraq war, so the so-called period of peace
following the war has been more stressful on our air wings than the war
itself.
At the same time, Mr. Speaker, we have gone down in President
Clinton's defense budget, we are cutting down on the number of new
aircraft that we procure to the point where if we compare what we did
in the 1980's, when we had in naval air, for example, we had about
5,500 aircraft, and that includes fixed-wing aircraft, fighters, attack
planes, bombers, and it includes helicopters.
We replaced those aircraft with replacement budgets each year of in
excess of 300 aircraft, or roughly about 18 to 1. That means for every
18 aircraft we had in our inventory, whether on the decks of our
carriers or in our air bases, for every 18 aircraft in inventory we
would buy at least 1 new aircraft every year.
We have cut back so far on replacing those aircraft, on replenishment
inventories, that we are only going to replace this year at the ratio
of about 1 to 100, so we are replacing them at five times lower rates
than what we were replacing them during the 1980's. That means we are
aging our naval air force.
That means that instead of replacing those 1965 Chevys with new
models, we are going to go ahead and get along with the 1965 Chevys for
a few years longer. That means that when we have that conflict that the
gentleman from Utah [Mr. Hansen] talked about, and it might be a civil
war, it might be something along the lines of Desert Storm, it could be
an ethnic problem, but when we have to meet that conflict, we are going
to have much older aircraft than the modern aircraft that we were able
to prosecute Desert Storm with.
Mr. HANSEN. I thank the gentleman from Georgia for allowing us to use
a little of his time and be a voice in the wilderness in what some of
us feel very strongly about.
Mr. KINGSTON. I appreciate the gentleman's leadership in defense
matters.
I wanted to touch on some health care topics, and particularly, Mr.
Speaker, I wanted to talk about the impact of health care on small
businesses and the family. I think it is so important that we talk
about the family more.
We had this great debate today on school prayer. I was glad to be
here for that. It is very important. I was glad it was a healthy debate
on school prayer. The central theme behind that debate was, will this
make life better for our students and our families, and will we be
getting back to maybe some better values as a country?
I think one of the things that we need to do in America is assess our
tax system as respects the family. A statistic that I fell across the
other day has just shocked me. That is that in the 1950's, the average
American family paid, as part of their income, 2 percent taxes in
Federal income tax, so part of the average family income, 2 percent
went to Federal income taxes. Today that same average family pays 24
percent.
During that period of time, Mr. Speaker, the family time spent with
each other has actually decreased about 37 percent. Now I'm not sure
how that statistic actually has been studied, but I think the fact is
that everyone we talk to is busy: The mom works, the dad works, they
are rushing around here and there, they are trying to catch planes and
go on trips and so forth.
And yet, is our quality of life any better than it used to be, are we
spending more time with our children? No. If we do not spend more time
with them, we do not impart our values and I am afraid if this health
care plan passes with its $400 billion price tag that it will just be
one more massive tax on the middle class who cannot afford it anymore.
I am very concerned that in the health care debate we are forgetting
the tax formula as it hits the middle class, because if we look at it
statistically, Mr. Speaker, the folks who have the traditional families
as much as Hollywood and some of our pseudointellectual think-tank
types hate to admit it, the traditional families have the fewer
dropouts, the fewer drug problems, the fewer DUI's for their children.
We need to do anything we can to promote and encourage that traditional
family unit, and I think making the tax system more friendly toward
them will keep families together.
I am going to also say this is not unique to the middle class. If you
look at what we are doing for the folks in the lower social and
economic levels particularly those who are on welfare, we are
absolutely murdering them. We do not even let the dad get near the
house because if we do we cut off all of the benefits, push them off
the economic cliff and they cannot survive.
The gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter].
Mr. HUNTER. I know the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Taylor],
has some important comments on this so I will not take long. But the
one statement the gentleman just made about the so-called Great Society
and the progeny of the Great Society which are all of these programs
that are supposed to help people are something I have often reflected
on because as a young lawyer in San Diego County I remember going to
the presiding courtroom of the superior court and the municipal court
and watching fathers be sent out for trial, for criminal trial on the
basis that they had been caught by a neighbor or seen by a neighbor
slipping back into their own house. And that was a function of this,
the great welfare system that was a function of this, the great welfare
system that was built initially under Lyndon Johnson, that said that
people got more money if the father was not around, and as a result of
that, you had families that purposely stayed apart or gave the image of
staying apart, the impression of staying apart so they could receive
more money. It was human nature to do everything you could possibly do
once you have been seduced by the great welfare system from Washington
to accommodate that welfare system. You do everything possible to get
the most money possible.
So as a result, instead of Lyndon Johnson's pride and joy, the Great
Society welfare programs, bringing families together, they ended up
splitting families apart because they gave them an economic incentive
for the father to be gone and ultimately the father would be, if he was
caught slipping back into his own house to see his own wife and
children, he would be criminally prosecuted. And I have wondered often
how many families were broken up permanently because they made that
initial separation on the basis that they could get more sugar from
Uncle Sam, more money from Uncle Sam if they would just split up. The
gentleman is right on point when he mentioned that fact.
Mr. KINGSTON. I will give the gentleman a statistic that has been
proven. Ninety-two percent of the children on AFDC or basically welfare
do not have a father at home. Listen to this: 35 percent of the
children in Washington, DC, are on AFDC, 28 percent in New York City,
24 percent in Chicago, 19\1/2\ percent in Los Angeles, and the national
average is 13 percent. And that is because our tax policies and our
benefit policies have attacked the family, and particularly in these
cases the family in the lower socioeconomic levels.
There is a bill pending right now which I am a cosponsor of, which is
a rent control bill that actually allows the father to move back into
the housing project and does not kick the family out, because we have
got to rebuild the family before we can get folks off welfare, and this
is an issue which is bipartisan. And I am proud to say that there is so
much agreement between the Democrats and Republicans on it, to me there
is no reason why this should be back burner stuff. We should be
debating this and moving this through the Congress before recess,
because it is that important to the security of our Nation. But there
is so much bipartisan agreement on it.
I know the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Taylor], wants to say a
word and I am happy to yield to him.
Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia
having this special order and giving time. I was interested in his
comments about small business and how the health care bill, the Clinton
health care program will impact small business. I think most of us
recognize that mandates that will be placed on small business, if that
legislation passes, will kill a lot of small businesses. About 95
percent of the jobs in my district are tied to small business, and we
feel that, in fact I have had business after business tell me they
cannot sustain that kind of cost.
Now I know Mrs. Clinton said we cannot afford to be concerned about
these under capitalized small businesses. I think that is the way she
put it. But we have to recognize that everything from Apple Computer to
Coca Cola started in someone's back yard or in their garage and became
a small business. That idea was developed. As it proved to be an idea
that served people, it grew into a large business, and that is how most
large businesses become large, they start as small businesses, are
allowed to grow and become successful and then provide more and more
jobs and more and more benefits as they are able to do that. There are
few businesses that start as major businesses, few companies in this
country start this way.
I know the President has been in Detroit with the job summit worrying
about creating more jobs and strengthening the economy. That was the
base of his whole campaign. It is a worthwhile goal that many of us
want to work toward. But, he has lost his compass in that direction. It
is the Government that is creating the problem for small business. I
cannot tell you the hours and hours I spend and the horror stories I
hear of the Government, the onerous hand of Government and the damage
it is doing to our small businesses, going far beyond the basic public
health and safety protection, going far beyond the basic consumer
protection. It reaches out, Government does, to be more and more
intrusive until the point that it kills the patient altogether.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, what we are hearing from
our small businesses in the first district of Georgia, if they have to
pay 80 percent of the health care for their employees they will
eliminate jobs starting with the part-timer, and the lower wage, which
in my opinion are the people who need the work the most and need to
have that opportunity, and they will raise their prices and when you
draw that back one more time what will it do with the family. It will
probably eliminate more, it will reduce the number of jobs available to
the second wage earner and when you go to the grocery store, the
restaurant, the dry cleaners, wherever, your goods and services that
you purchase will be more.
Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. Yes. How will we have served the people
in this country is they lose their job? Then they will have neither
health care nor a job. And I do not see how we move people ahead with
that kind of draconian action.
Mr. HUNTER. If the gentleman will yield on that point. The gentleman
is one of our experts as a successful businessman, one of the real
experts on the cause and effect of Government policies on business. And
you know I have two cents' worth from California. The liberal
leadership in the legislature in the State of California decided that
they were going to do a wonderful thing for working people in
California, and that was to put into place the most expansive, all
encompassing Workmen's Compensation program on the face of the earth. I
am talking about a Workmen's Compensation program that allows you to
sue for stress and has very lenient guidelines in proving stress.
Well let us look at what happened with that Workmen's Compensation
program. It passed. This was supposed to help the workers. Liberals
around the world celebrated when this thing passed and as a result of
that you had a steady exodus of businesses leaving the State of
California, going not just to Mexico, but to Arizona, Nevada, Texas,
all other States which are considered to be business-friendly, and it
is my understanding that now if you rent a U-Haul going back to
California, instead of leaving California, you can get a very good
deal, because no businesses are coming in. And I have talked to
colleagues who serve in this Chamber, who have said to me, ``Duncan, we
hate to say it, but we are on another raid in California; you have so
many businesses out there to whom government has dealt a killing blow
that they cannot wait to come to our States and we are going out with
our chambers of commerce, our city fathers and we are going to go bring
your businesses to our States. So here is an example of the welfare
state attitude, the liberals in Congress doing something that they
thought was good for workers, and in doing so, they deprived the
workers of their most precious possession, their job.''
{time} 2130
Mr. KINGSTON. I want to speak on the State of California and this
whole issue of really mandates on employers, because that is what we
are talking about. It is not the 80/20 split. It is just one more
mandate, more Government intrusion.
But there was a great movie several years ago called Billy Jack, and
I have got to tell you my anecdote, but one of the lines was that Billy
Jack came up to one of the bad guys and said, ``You know what,
Duncan,'' and I am going to pick on you, ``I am going to put my right
foot on your right cheek, and you know something else,'' he said,
``No,'' he said, ``there is nothing you can do about it.'' I will say
this, having studied the fact that you all passed that work comp
allowing stress, the fact that you have a 700-percent increase in
claims and that your permitting process when businesses want to add on,
sometimes they have to go through 25 local agencies and 35 State
agencies and seeing what they have to go through, to raid California
right now as an outsider, it is fruit like California oranges is ready
to pick, because your business climate, in my opinion, has been ruined
by Government taking fish out of the water to keep them from drowning.
Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman is exactly right.
Just one last thing with respect to regulations put together by
Government, we had one company, a great aerospace company that tried,
it took 3 years for them to get a permit to increase their factory size
in San Diego County. They went to Arkadelphia, AR, and they got a
permit to build a 500,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in 3
weeks. What they could not get in their own hometown in 3 years they
were able to get in 3 weeks in another State. That is the story of big
Government ruining California.
Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. You were mentioning California. We are
happy to accept in North Carolina those companies that leave.
Mr. HUNTER. Let us not get too quick to take all of our businesses.
We are going to come back. We are going to elect Republicans and they
are going to slash regulations and bring businesses back to California.
Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. The problem is we in this body
nationally are creating those same problems for every State in the
Union.
Of course, in my district, I see companies going to Mexico for that
reason. We lost Ball Manufacturing. It said, ``We are going to Mexico.
We are making it a lot cheaper.'' We had Eaton Corp. that announced
much the same thing. We may lose a portion of our Gruber Manufacturing
for the same thing. We are creating more joblessness because of these
regulations.
It is not just the disparity in wages. Our workers can outproduce and
take up that slack of the difference in wages, but the businesses
themselves, nor the workers, can make up the difference for these
onerous regulations that keep piling on and piling on. There is no way
they can make up that difference in cost.
So we are losing outside the country.
I want to cite just two or three areas just to tell people what we
are talking about rather than just talking in generalities.
Let us talk about the Superfund sites. Now, that is up for renewal in
this legislature, in this Congress, this year. It may go over to the
next Congress, but it is up this year to be renewed. It should have
been named the Lawyers' Relief Act, because the study over the last 15
years shows that of the sites that were listed as critical sites to be
cleaned up, only about 20 percent have been cleaned up. There are still
80 percent of the sites that were there 15 years ago.
It also showed that almost 80 percent of the funds went for lawyers'
fees, did not go toward what folks would be talking about cleaning up
actual chemical spills or other problems. It went for litigation, and
it went into a fund, or it went into lawyers, whether they were
defending, whether they were prosecuting. It was strictly a legal
mechanism.
In the legislation itself which totally overlooks the ex post facto
law, in my district I can tell you a story of a situation some 25 years
ago. We all know batteries were being tossed in the creek or on the
side of the road for people to get rid of them. We did not have a
collection process. Some of the local service stations and the
recycling salvage dealers there decided, let us collect these things up
and send them away to be recycled. That takes them out of the creeks,
that takes them out of the public for any damage they would do. They
did it. They would urge people to bring old batteries to their service
stations and they would come by and pick them up.
This was the best environmental move at that time. There was no law
against it at that time. They would ship them to central sites, and
that central site would break them down and salvage the components of
the batteries that could be reused.
In the early 1980's after Superfund passed, they said, ``You know,
the contents of these batteries may create spills.'' Now, there is not
a great deal of scientific evidence that this is a deadly site. It
could pollute in certain circumstances. And so these areas that were
used as breakdown points for those batteries were declared Superfund
sites.
Now, the stations and the recycling centers in my district stopped
when the law said this might be a problem.
Twenty-five years later now in my district one of the central sites,
the gentleman who the site was declared a Superfund site, they first
said it is an $80 million Superfund site, and so they allowed him to
plead to a $15,000 fine if he would list the names of all the people
that had sent in batteries over the last 25 years.
Now small dealers, small salvage companies have fines on them
anywhere from $200 to a million and a quarter dollars for doing what
was legal at the time they did it, for doing what was best for the
environment at the time they did it and totally disregarding the ex
post factor protections in our Constitution, and these people are now
facing, small family companies, small businesses, are facing total ruin
for doing what was best at the time and totally legal at the time.
Now, when Government can reach out and do that, think of the chilling
effect it puts on any business to make any positive move or to try to
do anything in the area of business.
In the area of pesticides, we had in the late 1950's a bill passed in
this Congress, and I think it was 1957, called the Delaney clause. It
said that any technical amount of a carcinogen found on a fruit would
render that fruit out of the market. It would have to be destroyed and
could not be sold in the market.
At that time the detection had large amounts of pesticides were all
that could be detected, and you could not detect small amounts. Today
you can detect up to 1 quadrillionth of an amount.
There is more of the same chemical in the skin of the fruit than
there is pesticide that might be detected on the fruit. And yet now we
have the Delaney clause holding up in my district, and it happens to be
a fungicide, there is a question whether or not it is a carcinogen, but
without the use of it, our Red Delicious apple trees are dying, 60
percent of the crop.
Most of our small farmers will be wiped out unless something is done.
The FDA and the EPA, sitting in my office, both say this is not a
public health and safety question. They recognize there is more danger,
if there is danger at all, in the skin of the fruit than there is on
the pesticide. And yet this onerous bureaucratic regulation is there
now going to destroy thousands of our farmers and take out of
circulation a very valuable commodity, I think, for the American
people, if you follow the old adage that an apple a day keeps the
doctor away. We are not going to be having many Red Delicious coming
out if we do not do something about the Delaney clause.
Here again, it is one of a long list of ways that we have piled on
regulations. It seems to operate along the candy theory. You know, if a
piece of candy is good, a pound will be better, and a ton will be
wonderful. We all know that a piece may be good, a pound will make you
sick, and a ton will kill you, and that is what happens with the
regulations. Jefferson said that Government is best that governs least,
not that it does not govern at all.
There are needs in our product safety and our food laws and other
areas for certain regulations, but as they continue to spread and
become counterproductive, it kills our small businesses, and that is
what is happening.
I think both of you gentlemen are on a piece of legislation that we
have that would require regulations that are promulgated after a bill
is passed to come back to Congress for those regulations to be approved
by the Congress before they go out to the public.
We had 70,000 pages of those regulations come out of this body last
year that small business is now having to live under and having to try
to survive under, and I cannot imagine that anyone in this body, nor
anyone with a small business, nor anyone else out there, knows what
those 70,000 pages of regulations say.
I was on the plane coming in this morning, and two lawyers were going
to the regulators today, because they said the regulators did not even
know; that the numbers of regulations had so surpassed them they did
not even know what the regulations were anymore, and here lawyers were
having to go down, and they will be sitting there talking about what is
coming out in such abundance that they cannot be kept up with.
Mr. KINGSTON. On the subject of regulation and Government overkill, I
understand right now the average family pays about $4,000 a year more
in all total goods and services purchased simply because of the
additional cost of regulation, anywhere from, you know, filling out
forms to putting in new guardrails on machinery. Some of it is good.
Some of it is simply overkill and bureaucracy.
One of the things in the health care bill that people need to know
about in this 1,342-page document is that if you have a friend who is a
physician and you go straight to that physician because, say, they are
in the same Sunday school class or kindergarten, you know the
physician, and you say, ``Tell me, Johnny has got a little sore throat.
What can you do about it?
{time} 2140
And right now this situation happens all over America. The physician
says, ``Look, here is a prescription. Go get it,'' or, ``I have some
stuff in my office. Have him take 2 or 3 of these and it will be
okay.'' Now, that becomes a Federal law under this new health care
program. That leaves you subject to a fine of up to $10,000. That is an
example of more regulation, more Government coming into your life and
destroying, once again, the family because the bureaucracy is now in
the formula. The bureaucracy has now entered this kindergarten, and the
bureaucracy is standing between little Johnny and that friendly doctor.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Georgia
[Mr. Kingston] for having this special order and talking about this
threat. I think the health care bill that is before us represents a
struggle between Government and freedom. I hope Government does not win
this struggle, because I think that the health care bill is going to
produce more $300 ashtrays--remember the $300 ashtray that the Defense
Department produced; and the $600 hammer--they are going to produce
more of those, more $300 health care ashtrays and hammers than the
Defense Department ever thought of. We will end up with high-priced
medicine. We will end up with very high-priced medicine. I think we
will end up a lot like the Canadians. The Canadian system was
ballyhooed for months in this Chamber by many Members of the House.
They have kind of quieted down now because over December the biggest
hospital in Ontario had to shut down because they ran out of money. I
think that is the trademark of socialist system, they find out in the
end people who do not care, Government bureaucrats, will never be able
to produce systems as efficiently as people who do care, free
individuals.
Mr. TAYLOR of North Carolina. In a health care forum I had a nurse
from Canada stand up and testify as to how horrible the system was, how
that she could not stand the fact that they could not take care of
patients, could not apply medicine as she had been taught, they did not
have the resources to do it. They had to watch people wait and die, in
my cases, because of the rash nature of that system.
The gentleman said it--I think both the gentleman from California
[Mr. Hunter] and from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] have hit the right thing.
The McDermott, the Clinton, the Cooper bill, are all bills that believe
that more Government, more of your tax money, more regulations, will do
for health care a better system that what we have and an improved
system in the world. On the other hand, there are those of us who
recognize that there are problems in our health care system.
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