[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 106 (Thursday, August 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
              A MIXTURE OF BAD AND GOOD IN THE CRIME BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Max Gardner in 
Baxley, GA, are owners of the Baxley News Banner. Mr. Gardner recently 
had a column in his paper which I thought was interesting. He tells a 
story of a little boy who wanted $100 very badly, and his mother said, 
``Well, why don't you pray for it?''
  So, Mr. Speaker, he started praying to the Lord to send him $100, 
and, after a couple of weeks, he did not get his $100.
  So, he was frustrated, and he decided he would write the President 
about it, and let me say parenthetically this is not this President 
necessarily. it is Presidents in general. He wrote the President and 
asked him for $100.
  Mr. Speaker, the President was so amused by this letter that he sent 
the boy $5, and the little boy got it and was glad, and that night when 
he was saying his prayers he thanked the Lord for sending the $100 to 
him, and he said in his prayer:
  ``Dear God, thank you very much for the money, and I understand that 
you had to send it through a middle man, but please next time don't use 
anybody in Washington because they take too much of it out before 
sending it to me.''
  Mr. Speaker, I think that is the case with our taxes in general.
  When we look at the crime bill, which we will be voting on the rule 
for tomorrow, we can see a good bill, a good concept, but with too much 
politics taken out, too much money deducted for non-crime-fighting 
things. The crime bill has lots of good in it. It has many decent 
programs in it that could help for prevention. It aims to put a hundred 
thousand police officers on the street. It contains the Byrne grant 
funding which is very important. It has about $1.8 billion used to 
fight violence against women, and it trains police to help in cases of 
domestic violence, and it has support for battered women shelters and 
promotes rape awareness education.

                              {time}  1610

  It has a national registration for any person convicted of a state 
criminal offense against a minor. It has $8.7 billion for new 
construction of prisons. It funds new Border Patrol agents. It also 
authorizes about $1.8 billion to fight illegal immigration. It contains 
the three-strikes-and-you-are-out.
  All this is good stuff. It is all things that we need in the fight 
against crime.
  However, we get to the Washington portion of the crime bill. When we 
read the fine print we find out that out of the 100,000 officers the 
bill aims to support, only 20,000 are paid for. The rest of them have 
to be funded through State and local governments. We find out that the 
$8.7 billion for new prisons was cut down from about 13 or 14 billion 
that was originally in the House bill. We find out that out of the $33 
billion in the bill, $9 billion goes to social programs such as 
midnight basketball, promoting arts, crafts and dance, and self-esteem 
programs.
  Now, we are already spending about $24 billion on 154 social programs 
aimed at high-risk inner city youth. If this is a way that works, why 
is it not working now, and why will spending $9 billion more on top of 
the $24 billion make a difference?
  I want to repeat that number one more time. We have in place today, 
without additional legislation, 154 different programs. This is ironic, 
considering the Vice President's task force, one of his big things is 
to consolidate. But here we are, adding to it, and these programs are 
ineffective.
  What is worse is the bill does not earmark where this $9 billion in 
social spending is going to go. Seventy-five percent of that is left up 
to the President. How convenient for an election year, because with 
here we go, we have passed this, it is somewhat of a stimulus program, 
and it is a social pork barrel program. And the President can go in, 
and if you are in Congress and you voted with the President on NAFTA, 
you voted for his tax increase, or did whatever, the President can come 
in and say, `'And here today, to my favorite Congress Member sitting on 
the fence with 1 percent margin between his or her opponent, I am going 
to give a new grant or inner-city program.''
  My goodness, is this politics at its worst? We are talking crime 
control. We don't need this kind of thing. This is what is wrong with 
American today. This is why we had 110 new freshmen elected this year.

  Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote ``no'' on the rule. I think we can do 
better than this. I urge my colleagues to do the same. Let us send the 
bill back and get one that is better.
  Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the editorial by Max Gardner.

                   [From the Baxley (GA) News-Banner]

                       Spend, Spend, Spend . . .

                            (By Max Gardner)

       Volumes have been written about government spending and 
     taxation. But the more solutions that are offered the worser 
     the situation seems to get.
       Taxes consume the largest portion of our incomes today, and 
     we do not see any full-fledged efforts by our national 
     leaders to ease the burden.
       I received the following little story that sums it up 
     pretty well:
       A little boy needed $100.00 very badly and his mother told 
     him to pray to God for it. He prayed and prayed for two weeks 
     but nothing turned up. Then he decided to write God a letter 
     requesting the $100.00. When the postal authorities received 
     the letter addressed to God, they opened it up and decided to 
     send it to the President.
       The President was so impressed, touched and amused that he 
     instructed his secretary to send the little boy a check for 
     $5.00. He thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a 
     little boy. The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 and 
     sat down to write a thank you letter to God, which reads as 
     follows:
       ``Dear God, thank you very much for sending me the money. I 
     noticed that you had to send it through Washington. As usual, 
     those characters deducted $95.00.''
       The government certainly gets its generous cut. Now some of 
     those greedy liberals who want to solve every problem by 
     feeding it money are looking goggly-eyed at the nation's 
     Social Security funds.
       Lord help us if they get their mitts into this fund.
       I am really concerned about our younger people who are 
     paying in Social Security today. They could face the 
     possibility of no funds available when they become eligible 
     age.
       And also they are trying to up the age on eligibility. What 
     good will Social Security be to a person if he or she is at 
     death's door?
       Not all in Washington are spend-crazy idiots, however. 
     Thank God we have a few like Congressman Jack Kingston who is 
     fighting hard to cut out liberal, wasteful government 
     spending.
       Let's give him and others like him our full support.

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