[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 39 (Thursday, March 2, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2578-H2582]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE REPUBLICAN NUTRITION PLAN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Chambliss] is
recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. Speaker, I have with me today, tonight, my
colleague from the 10th District of Georgia, Mr. Norwood, and also my
distinguished colleague from the First District of Georgia, Mr.
Kingston.
I yield to the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston].
Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman. You know, it is too bad, after
listening to all the last hour, the people of America had to listen to,
and I am sure no one is watching C-SPAN right now, and we cannot
respond. I also will point out to the viewers back home that we had a
room full of Democrats in here about 30 minutes ago, now they are all
gone, now that we have some floor time to talk about some of their
ridiculous and absurd bellyaching about protecting bureaucrats.
All we know is that we are going to cut programs to cut out
bureaucracy, and all the whining and gnashing of teeth over here to
protect bureaucracies, and you know, as you listen to it, everything
works. Every program is a good one, and everyone is efficient, and it
is saving America, and it is doing this, it is doing that. Why, if we
[[Page H2579]] did not have these programs that, you know, America
would just cease to exist. It is funny.
Because there are thousands and thousands of programs in America, and
I'll be doggoned if the Democrat side of the aisle cannot defend every
single one of them.
You two are new up here. You came for change. You came because of the
failed promises of more government, more taxes, more regulations did
not work.
And is that the message? I would ask of maybe our friend from the
10th District, from the Augusta area, is that what the folks in the
10th District want, more
government?
Mr. NORWOOD. I thank the gentleman. I know we gathered here tonight
because we were going to talk a little bit about our first 57 days in
Congress, and, of course, we have to change what we were going to talk
about because we realize everybody on C-SPAN that has been watching for
the last hour has been inundated with a great deal of information.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I can promise you nobody
was watching that for an hour. They have gone on back down. We have got
to win back some people.
Mr. NORWOOD. Presuming there are one or two, I have to tell you, I
wondered tonight, as I listened, has any country, any nation on Earth
ever, ever spent more money for the poor than the United States of
America? And in doing that, what we basically do is we take money from
one human being and give it to another which there is nothing in our
Constitution that suggests that we have to do that. We do that because,
I think, we all do care about those that are less fortunate.
Now, let me just make one other comment about the information. One of
the things we could do in Congress that would really help us is that we
could get factual information, or perhaps make the Members be
responsible for what they say and make sure that what they say is the
truth.
But so much of the information that we have heard tonight comes from
the U.S. Department of Agriculture and their report that they have put
out on the nutritional programs is a report put out by a lot of people
who know that they are going to be out of work.
Mr. KINGSTON. Absolutely. If the gentleman would yield, and those,
many of those appointees, are Clinton administration big government
bureaucrats, political appointees, who are making $70,000-$80,000 a
year, and your committees are cutting that out. The USDA, everybody
complains about the USDA. They are one of the biggest misinformation
bureaus I have ever seen on this school lunch thing. It is absolutely
irresponsible what they are doing. You have got a School Lunch Program
that is going to go up 4\1/2\ percent each year. It is going to cut out
bureaucrats. It is going to consolidate programs. It is going to
streamline the system so you can feed more hungry children.
And who but the Government would complain about that?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. You know, a revolution occurred in this country
November 8, 1994, and the reason that revolution occurred is because
the American people are sick and tired of the bureaucrats in Washington
running their lives on a daily basis from a personal and a business
standpoint.
You know, I am somewhat appalled that the folks on the other side of
the aisle who spent the last, and it was not an hour, gentlemen, it was
an hour and a half, that we had to listen to this berating of starving
children and starving mothers, which is simply misinformation that is
being put out from the other side. But those folks represented a total,
if I counted correctly, somewhere between 15 and 20 States.
You know, what we, as Republicans, are trying to do is we promised
the American people that if you elect a majority of Republicans to the
House of Representatives on November 8, 1994, we are going to return
your government back to you, and that is exactly what we are doing. We
are doing that with this program. We are taking the bureaucrats from
Washington out of the picture, and we are returning
the program to the States.
I have the confidence in the States that were represented here
tonight. I have the confidence in the counties that were represented
here tonight on the other side of the aisle that those folks are much
more capable of determining what is best for North Carolina, for
California, and in our case, for Georgia. They know what is best in
their local States and their local counties than the bureaucrats in
Washington do.
I was interested, in coming up here on Monday of this week, and
looking at the Atlanta Constitution. Our Governor of the State of
Georgia, who is a Democrat, came out in wholehearted support of our
plan to modernize the School Lunch Program.
Mr. KINGSTON. And he has said that, ``Give me the money. I will do a
better job than those bureaucrats in Washington.''
Mr. NORWOOD. Because he knows he will. Our school superintendent
realized that there are 110 Federal employees sitting in Atlanta, GA,
directing the food program in Georgia, the lunch program, and she
realizes full well that if we will block grant this money back to the
States, we are going to cut some bureaucrats out of that group.
Let me mention to the gentlemen, you were talking about earlier, a
lot of countries call what was going on as propaganda. It is spreading
misinformation. For example, when they were talking about, they keep
saying that we are going to cut the money that goes to feed the
children as if this is a contest over who is most compassionate, who
cares most about the WIC Program, who cares most about the School Lunch
Program. But, you know, we are spending $5.9 billion this year on our
food programs, not including, not including food stamps, and it is
going to rise next year. It is going to rise to $6.1 billion. It is
rising 4.5 percent.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I would like you to reemphasize that, because as I
recall, the School Lunch Program came through your committee, did it
not?
Mr. NORWOOD. It did.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. We listened to an hour and a half discussion from
folks on the other side of the aisle tonight, and anybody who watched
that would remember, I hope, that not one single dollar figure was
mentioned. They never mentioned how much money was being spent. All
they talked about was cuts. Would
you just talk about again what you said about the money that is being
spent this year and the amount of money that is going to be spent next
year on the very program they are complaining about?
Mr. NORWOOD. I will be very happy to. I want to make it very clear we
are going to spend in 1995 $5.9 billion. We are going to increase that
spending next year to $6.1 billion, and we have also made absolutely
sure that 80 percent of this money goes to feed low-income families.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I also found it ironic,
serving on the Committee on Appropriations and the subcommittee that
oversees USDA, not one of the people, not one of the speakers who was
whining about some of these cuts have appeared to our committee to
protest it where the work was being done. Now, there were television
cameras on. I think that I have got to say that, but where the work was
being done, not one of them showed up to the committee and came up with
an alternative. But suddenly, you know, after the fact, they are
jumping up there.
I also wanted to point out to you guys, because you talked about some
things, campaign promises that you made and so forth; it is interesting
to note of the previous speakers, I just pulled a list of who voted for
the balanced budget amendment. It just so happened that nine of the
speakers over here, the last ones, and I do not remember all the
speakers, not one of them voted for a balanced budget amendment, and,
you now, you can say what you want, but I think that basically tells a
major philosophical difference here.
Mr. NORWOOD. Well, probably the big difference is that we care more
about the WIC Program than they do, because the greatest threat in the
world to the WIC Program is this county going bankrupt. I mean, I have
wondered for a long time why we have not been able to balance our
budget, and you cannot really tell that from C-SPAN. But sitting on
this floor tonight, I see why in the last 25 years the party in control
of the budget who
[[Page H2580]] writes the checks, the Democratic Party, has not
balanced the budget one time, and I can clearly see tonight why they
will not. That is all we are trying to do so we can save the WIC
Program.
Mr. KINGSTON. How many kids are you going to feed when you are
bankrupt?
Mr. NORWOOD. I do not think any.
Mr. KINGSTON. You cannot do that. That is why we always have to bail
out Somalia, Rwanda, and all the other countries in the world, because
they mismanaged their resources. America has managed it. We have some
food.
{time} 2320
America has managed it, and we have some food. You are talking about
cutting, you are talking about spending the cutting. One of the things
that is amazing to me is, out of the thousands of programs, they are
all efficient, they are all critical, and every one of those programs
has a defender in the U.S. Congress, and, yes, it is bipartisan, it is
Republicans and Democrats. But the thing that we have got to do is say
no.
Now today, as my colleagues all know, the U.S. Senate voted down the
balanced budget amendment. I believe it is a very sad day for America,
because of that, because if we cannot say yes to the balanced budget
amendment, I can promise my colleagues they cannot say no to voluntary
fiscal restraint.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Exactly right, Mr. Kingston, and I could not help
while listening to this looking at these photographs of those children
that they were parading up here for the sole purpose of trying to
arouse the emotion of the people that they are trying to appeal to, but
really those pictures were very appropriate to be here. We should have
had pictures of children here because it is the children of this
country that we need to look out for, and, if we continue to spend
money the way we have spent it for the last 25 years, we are going to
leave a bankrupt country for our children and our grandchildren.
That is what the balanced budget amendment is all about. That is what
we kept hearing during the course of our campaign over the last 2
years. The people in this country are simply tired of the bureaucrats
in Washington spending their money unwisely, and that is what we have
got to stop.
And I agree with the gentleman. One of the greatest moments I have
ever lived was on January 25 in this very Chamber, and I believe it was
about this time of night when we watched the 300 votes add up on the
wall over here that voted for the balanced budget amendment. That was a
great victory for the American people. Today it was a very sad day when
the Senate failed to vote for the balanced budget amendment, and I
certainly hope that we are going to get that amendment called back up
on the Senate side and a very much of a wrong rectified there.
Mr. NORWOOD. Even if they do not call it back up, it is going to tell
the American people who to vote out of the Senate in 1996.
I mean I know the message sent to me was that we want to stop the
spending. The American people know we owe $5 trillion. They know we are
borrowing over $250 billion every year, and they know that math does
not work.
These children in the pictures are in trouble all right, but it is
not because we are not funding WIC, and it is not because they are not
going to get their school lunch program. It is because in 20 years they
are not going to have a way to make a living because we are broke.
Mr. KINGSTON. Well, it is amazing to me that people who say, ``I
don't want to monkey with the Constitution''; the Constitution is so
sacred that to them it seems to preempt the fact that the country is
going bankrupt, and that does not make sense because that kind of
thinking will not work.
Now the balanced budget amendment, welfare reform, is part of the
Contract With America. The other thing which I know both of my
colleagues have been leaders on is deregulation of business because, if
we really want to help the economically disadvantaged, we are going to
create an atmosphere for entrepreneurs because the businessowners
create the jobs, the small
mom and pops, and I know my colleagues have been leaders in getting
business deregulation, and we passed that bill last week.
Can the gentleman tell us something?
Mr. NORWOOD. That is in my Committee on Commerce, and I want make
very clear that when we hear some Members here talking, talking about
business, they are talking about Amoco, and they are talking about G.M.
When I talk about business, I am talking about the mom and pops, the 5
employees, the 3 employees or 10 employees. The small business people
are the ones that have been killed with the rules and regulations that
just continue to grow.
I mean I think the stack now is about 14 feet tall with all the rules
and regulations, and what we are basically doing is we are saying to
Federal Government, ``No longer can you run roughshod over us with
people not elected to office, meaning bureaucrats,'' and they are going
to have to do a risk analysis, and they are going to have to do a cost-
benefit analysis on each rule and regulation before they pass them down
to us.
But, Mr. Kingston, the really exciting part about that is that people
will now have a way to voice their concern with this Government because
there will be a process of petition, there will be a process of peer
review, where we can say, ``Wait a minute, that rule makes no sense,
that rule is not smart, and it ruins my business,'' and if they do not
listen to that, then we will have legal standing, and I am excited
about that because we are going to get this crowd of bureaucrats inside
the Beltway to listen to us unless we do have----
Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Norwood] on the
subject of Government regulations and Government knows best. I know
that as a dentist he practices dentistry, and I asked my dentist the
last time I was there how many rubber gloves his office used today. One
hundred, and he said they never did a cost-benefit analysis on it.
Mr. NORWOOD. That is a hundred for each hand.
Mr. KINGSTON. But he says, ``You know, we would not deny that it's
good, but there's never been a proven case of a dentist giving somebody
a disease from the hand.''
Mr. NORWOOD. Of course, thanks to the Federal Government, we cannot
ask anybody if they have AIDS. If the gentleman can make sense out of
that, tell me after the program. But I will tell the gentleman the
dentists in this country are paying now somewhere in the neighborhood
of $30,000 a year in extra costs thanks to OSHA.
Mr. KINGSTON. And the dentists have to pass on to their consumers.
I know the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Chambliss] is a small
businessman in Moultrie, GA, and I know, running a small business as he
does down there, the Government is all over him even though he is not a
Fortune 500 that I know of.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. There is no question about it. I happen to be part
owner of a motel in Moultrie, GA, and unfortunately my motel has to
comply with exactly the same rules and regulations as General Motors
does. We are not nearly as equipped to do that as General Motors, but
OSHA demands the same from us that they demand from General Motors.
As the gentleman knows, one thing about my district is it is
primarily rural, primarily agricultural, and there is no group of
individuals in this country or no segment of the business of this
country that is more overregulated than our farmers. Those guys have to
spend more time in ASCS offices
today complying with rules and regulations that come down from
Washington than they do on their tractors, and unfortunately they are
not allowed to do what they do best for the most part, and that is
produce the world's finest crops and agricultural products.
So we have got to put some common sense back into regulations that
are issued out of Washington, and that is exactly what we did last week
and this week. We have been dealing with regulatory reform, and we are
putting common sense back into the daily lives of folks from a
regulatory standpoint.
Mr. NORWOOD. I am afraid--I do not want us to miss a couple of more
details about the nutritional programs before we get off that. But one
of the things that will make this work is that the amount of increase
is 4.5 percent a
[[Page H2581]] year for the next 5 years which gives the school lunch
program more money to work with, but the administrative costs will come
down. In fact we capped them at 2 percent. That is all of that money
that they can spend for administrative costs, and what we really truly
believe is that we are going to have more food for the children and
their lunch programs, and that is what it is all about, that is what
the whole purpose of the program is, not to pay bureaucrats.
And I want to talk about WIC one more time because I have had a visit
with a lot of people in my hometown who worked within the WIC programs,
and they are absolutely excited about the possibility of them deciding
a little bit how their program might work best, but, as my colleagues
know, there were about 80 programs in this country for nutrition, and
we have block granted them and brought them down, and the WIC program,
the money that we have got for the family nutrition block grant, we
have guaranteed that 80 percent of that goes to WIC.
And I think the gentleman told me just today that WIC is not using
all the money we are sending them now. Did I hear the gentleman say
that?
Mr. KINGSTON. That is correct. What actually is happening on WIC,
there is $25 million in the budget that is a carryover. They are not
using that. It is money left over. It represents 2 percent.
Now we got a deficit of over $200 billion. Each year we spend $200
billion more than we bring in. Under the President's recently
introduced budget just 3 weeks ago that deficit goes on for 5 years and
increases the debt another $1 trillion, and our national debt is about
$4.8 trillion right now.
{time} 2330
So here is a 2-percent cut in a program on money that they are not
using, and you would think that the sky is falling.
Mr. NORWOOD. Are we being bad because we are cutting money that they
cannot spend because they have got so much they are spending it all up?
What is going on with that?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Isn't that what November 8 was all about? Didn't the
American people tell us on November 8 that we want you doing a better
job of spending our tax money? Make cuts where cuts are necessary;
where cuts aren't necessary, don't make the cuts. But please do a
better job of spending our tax money wisely. I think that is a classic
example.
Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask you this. You are both freshmen, closer to
the people than people that have been here a long time.
Mr. NORWOOD. I have been working with the people for the last 30
years. I am a lot closer.
Mr. KINGSTON. You already made the statement one of your surprises
was the propaganda you get, and we have to admit it comes from both
sides of the aisle. Do you feel that way too, Mr. Chambliss?
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Absolutely. I will tell you about one other
interesting fact that occurred to me shortly after I got here, and it
was somewhat of a surprise. I was somewhat idealistic when I came here.
I thought coming in with 72 other freshmen Republicans, that we would
be able to have a real impact upon what is done in this very Chamber.
And I think we are having an impact. But the problem that I saw very
quickly is that the bureaucracy in Washington is layer after layer
after layer of bureaucracy. And exactly what we are doing by block
granting money back to the States is doing away with that bureaucracy.
That is the way you cut spending. That is way you cut Government
intervention. And we are making those inroads in cutting that
bureaucracy.
Mr. NORWOOD. It is called cutting bureaucrats and cutting paperwork
and spending our money on what we are trying to do, which is to feed
children.
Mr. KINGSTON. I think the gentleman raises a good point. Let me ask
you this: Balanced budget amendment, you both support it; line item
veto, you both support it; strengthening America's military, and a very
difficult decision on cutting the military budget some, you both
support it. We are going to have a tax bill coming up today, another
$17 billion cut. It will have to be probably passed on the backs of
freshmen like you because we will not get any support from the more
liberal Members who want to defend every program.
That is going to be hard on you, because you are going to have your
constituents coming up and saying don't cut this or that. Are you ready
for it? Is that what you heard that your mission is from the people
back home?
Mr. NORWOOD. It is going to be a lot harder on us if we don't. I know
they told me in that election that they want this budget balanced, they
want us to deal with this debt, and they want it done by cutting
spending. The important thing I believe is that we do it fairly. You
have to take a little bit from everywhere across the board. Yes, you
are right we do gets visits, you know that, every 15 minutes all day
long, with somebody saying you got to balance that budget, but leave my
program alone.
Well, that will not work, and everybody knows that will not work. But
we must do this very, very fairly and intelligently and across the
board. Again, I point out in the nutritional programs, feeding the
children, we didn't cut. We increased it 4.5 percent.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. The gentleman makes a very good point, that everybody
who comes to talk to us about their program has a good program. There
are a lot of good programs up here. But those same people will also
tell you that we understand you got to balance the budget, and we want
you to treat us fairly.
That is the message that we were given on November 8, the message
being that look, we know there are good programs out there. We know you
have got to continue spending in some of those programs. But we know
also that unless wholesale cuts are made, and those cuts go to reduce
the deficit, we are never going to balance the budget in this country,
and we are never going to get rid of that $4.5 trillion. What we have
been assigned to do by the people of this country is to not single out
any segment of the country or industry or any segment of people. We
have got to be equal in our cuts, we have got to treat everybody
fairly, and, most importantly, the cuts that we make have got to go
toward reduction of the deficit and not toward funding other social
programs out there.
Mr. NORWOOD. Earlier today when we were listening to this litany of
half-truths, one of the statements that kept coming up is that well, we
want a capital gains tax so we can give it to our rich friends, and
that will keep us from funding the nutritional programs. Well, first, I
think we have already decided that we are funding the nutritional
programs.
But I think it is pretty important to understand that a cut in
capital gains very well will help reduce the deficit, not add to the
deficit. But our friends from the other side who have been there so
long, I think 40 years or so, they have been there so long they do not
realize that a cut in capital gains tax is not for the rich, it is for
many, many average Americans.
Mr. KINGSTON. I think it is important to point out that the last
round of serious tax cuts took place in the early 1980's under the
Reagan administration. As a result of that, 18 million new jobs were
created, we had the longest peacetime prosperity that America has ever
had, and revenues doubled from 1980 to 1990. Now, unfortunately,
revenues were outpaced by spending.
Mr. NORWOOD. By a Democratic Congress who had control of the
checkbook.
Mr. KINGSTON. The Democrats did have the Congress, but the
Republicans had the Senate for a while and the Republicans had the
White House. So I think that we can take the blame equally. Both
parties are to be blamed. But the fact is if we know it is going to
happen, shame on us to let it happen again. We know we are going to get
increased tax revenues because of capital gains tax, because less
regulations on business will create more jobs, but it will also create
more revenues. Shame on us for not holding the line on spending.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. The gentleman makes a very good point, that every time
we have had a tax cut in this country, tax revenues have gone up. That
is what tax cuts are all about. When we make tax cuts, we give tax
incentives to the business community to expand their businesses. And
when
[[Page H2582]] they expand their businesses, they create jobs. When
they create jobs, they add taxpayers to the roles. Those taxpayers are
new sources of revenue for this country that we have never had before.
And when we increase those revenues, that more than offsets the tax
cuts that are given out there.
Mr. NORWOOD. You would sort of think that the other side, after 40
years, would catch on that you sort of got to take care of the goose
that lays the golden egg, and the goose is free enterprise, people that
work out there using their own money, not sending it up here to
Washington.
Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask you something now. I know both of you guys
started out your morning at least at 9 o'clock, because that is when I
saw you at your first meeting, although you probably had three more by
then. Many mornings by 9 o'clock we have been to two or three different
meetings. It is now 11:30 and we need to wrap it up. We have folks
still waiting to talk.
Was one of your surprises the long hours, how many hours you work?
Speaking as newcomers, what have been your surprises? Then I think we
better say good-night before we get run out of here.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I was used to working long hours practicing law in
south Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. He ain't going to tell the truth. I got a lawyer and
doctor telling me how hard they work.
Mr. NORWOOD. One of the things I have been thinking about doing, Mr.
Kingston, is see if you drop a bill to get us paid by the hour up here.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Minimum wage.
Mr. NORWOOD. I start my day everyday at 6:30, and generally it ends
at midnight. I think that is wonderful, because I was sent here to do a
job, and I was sent here to win, and there is just not too many hours
in the day I am not willing to give to it, particularly as long as we
are winning. I have never seen Americans with as big a smile as on
their faces as I have in the last 6 weeks going home.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. Absolutely. Let me just say, Mr. Kingston, I started
my morning at the prayer breakfast on the House side, and you weren't
there. We missed you this morning.
Mr. NORWOOD. We prayed for you.
Mr. KINGSTON. You prayed for me. I appreciate it.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I just want to echo what my good colleague, Dr.
Norwood, says there, that the people in my district are really excited
about what is going on up here right now. We took an unprecedented step
on September 27, 1994, when we signed the Contract With America. Never
before had a political party promised in writing what it was going to
deliver to the American people.
We have lived up to what we said we were going to do in that
contract. The people in my district are excited about what is going on
up here. They are telling me every time I go home ``keep it up. Keep
doing what you are doing.'' That is what we are going to do. We are
going to do what we said we were going to do in that contract, and we
are going to do it within that 100 days.
Mr. NORWOOD. I think we are going to do what we were told do. The
Contract With America is not Newt Gingrich's contract, it is a contract
taken from the people of this country when they told us last summer
what they wanted to do. We are going to do it, too.
Mr. KINGSTON. I think you are right, I think this is not about Newt
Gingrich, it is not even about the Contract With America, or the
Republican majority. It is about a change and challenge in the status
quo.
We, the American people, want less Government, less regulations, more
personal freedom. We want a Government that works. I think that has a
momentum all by itself right now.
Mr. Speaker, I have enjoyed being with the gentleman.
Mr. CHAMBLISS. I enjoyed this colloquy, Mr. Speaker.
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