[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 8, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2889-H2890]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                    DISCUSSION ON NEWSPAPER STORIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, earlier today it was my privilege to 
appear on C-SPAN with one of our colleagues on the other side of the 
aisle from Illinois to discuss the morning newspapers, and a rather 
lively discussion ensued, and it was very interesting to go over many 
different articles in the Nation's press.
  One article, however, we failed to get to, and I would bring to your 
attention, Mr. Speaker, and indeed the attention of the American 
people, on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, an article 
entitled ``Protest, Washington Style.'' Quoting from the article now:

       Newt Gingrich and other speakers were prevented from 
     addressing the National Association of Counties in Washington 
     on Monday after 500 shouting protesters invaded the hotel 
     ballroom and used megaphones to call for higher school lunch 
     funding. Many of the protesters had been bused in from out of 
     town, prompting Mr. Gingrich to ask some pointed questions. 
     Why weren't they at work? Who are they? Who paid them? Well, 
     it turns out the protest was organized by the left wing 
     activist group, ACORN, a frequent recipient of Federal and 
     state grants.
       The Washington Times reports that 42 participants in 
     President Clinton's new national service program are working 
     for ACRON at a cost to taxpayers of more than $1.1 million. 
     Several operate out of ACORN's Washington, D.C. offices. We 
     may never know if federally funded `volunteers' helped ruin 
     meetings for 2,000 county officials, but we hope Congress 
     plans some oversight hearings on the groups involved in Mr. 
     Clinton's service program.

                              {time}  2300

  It was interesting today, Mr. Speaker, to see yet more protesters 
arrive here on Capitol Hill. And I find it especially interesting that 
it appears that some of these protesters are subsidized with tax money 
from you and me and from the American people, so now we have really 
reached a new low in the concept of protest.
  And please don't misunderstand. I uphold the first amendment and 
applaud the first amendment, and certainly people have a right to 
peaceably assemble and petition the Government for redress of 
grievances. But the problem comes as certainly there is a cloud of 
suspicion that what we have now are protesters subsidized with tax 
money here to champion
 the tired old policies of the past.

  And what is even more true, and I will come back to this fact until 
the American people have it clear in their minds, all this talk about 
cutting the school lunch programs, about cutting the Federal nutrition 
programs, can only be characterized as false.
  Again, the numbers speak for themselves. This new Republican majority 
is willing to fund these programs $200 million in excess of what 
President Clinton has called for this year. And moreover, we called for 
increases of 4.5 percent.
  Now the guardians of the old order bankrupt of any new ideas come 
here and march to the will of this House and say, No, no, those are 
cuts. Again, only in Washington can it be considered a cut when you 
reduce a future planned increase.
  My friends on the other side are upset because the increase will not 
be 5.1 percent. Instead, the increase is 
[[Page H2890]] only 4.5 percent. But I would ask, amidst all of these 
allegations, amidst the misreading of numbers, amidst this phantom 
number of $7 billion with imaginary money that is not even there, who 
has been harmed?
  We know who has been scared. Name for me the school children, show me 
the schools that are being deprived of lunches. They are not there. 
Again, it is the policy of this new majority to empower people, to 
enfranchise people and not to hold down people in the form of a 
permanent underclass but to truly feed the needy and to give the 
opportunities to feed the needy in the classrooms, the people who 
really need it, to have that opportunity at the local level. But the 
money is not being taken away.
  And with reference to people coming to lobby us, to come to see us, I 
thought it was very interesting that in previous weeks folks would come 
bringing cut-out dolls of this nature and they would list names of 
very, very small children. Now, look, it is obvious a 3-year-old, 
precocious though she might be, did not assemble this doll. This was 
something done by adults, from government bureaucrats who have paid 
money into political action committees that have funded the tired old 
order 10 to 1 over Republicans. That is part of the problem. That is 
the real story. That is what we will move to correct.


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