[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 111 (Tuesday, July 11, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H6824-H6828]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    THE REVOLUTIONARY 104TH CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Barr). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is 
recognized for 30 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to 
have some of my colleagues join me tonight.
  I first wanted to thank Chairman Zeliff and Vice Chairman Ehrlich for 
the outstanding job that they have conducted, not only tonight the 
colloquy but for the ongoing work they have done in the war against 
drugs. We look forward to working with them on legislative matters that 
are coming up, not only their hearings but the other work that follows. 
We congratulate them for their efforts.


                    in memoriam sister judith cleary

  Mr. Speaker, before beginning or colloquy tonight with the 
gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith] and the gentleman from 
Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht], I did want to discuss just for a moment if I 
could a special part of the order tonight dealing with someone who was 
close to me and I think close to many people in my area, the Delaware 
Valley. This week just suddenly a tragic death, Sister Judith Cleary of 
the St. Joseph Order in Philadelphia who suddenly died.
  She was someone who was 50 years old, did many accomplishments in her 
lifetime, many more than those who may live twice her age. She was a 
great humanitarian, a great teacher, dean of students at Bishop Conwell 
Egan, a great friend to all.
  What was great about Sister Judith Cleary and I think that her life 
is instructive to all of us who are looking for role models and heroes 
and heroines, Sister Judith Cleary would take those students, making 
sure no one was left behind and no one left out, she would look to each 
person to find that which was special about them and to inspire them to 
greatness. I think that is really what made her life and her 
accomplishments a special milestone in the St. Joseph Convent and the 
Bishop Conwell Egan School and, for that matter, in the life of those 
who are in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley.
  She was really the spirit of the St. Joseph Convent where she made 
sure that everything got organized and done in a real humanitarian way. 
The world will not be the same without her but it is richer for her 
contributions. While God will need another angel in heaven to help in 
His works, we will continue remembering Sister Judith Cleary by making 
sure that what we do in our life for many of us whose lives she 
touched, to try to live life a little bit closer to others who need us, 
to do those things that have to be done that could be forgotten but are 
often remembered because we took the time to do them.
  I hope that this one great American is someone that others who hear 
about her and who have seen her will try to carry on her great work. We 
will always miss her. We love her.
  At this time, I would ask the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Gutknecht] and the gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith] to join us 
in this special continued presentation dealing with the 104th Congress 
march to revolution for change, a revolution to be more accountable, a 
revolution to spend less of the public's money and return more to the 
American people.
                              {time}  2130

  In that regard I would ask Congressman Gutknecht to give us an update 
where he thinks we are in the first 6 months of this revolution as a 
new entering freshman; how he thinks we have done to date and where he 
sees us going from this point.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Representative Fox, I want to thank you for reserving 
this time tonight to speak to other Members who are watching in their 
offices, and Americans who may be watching, to talk a little bit about 
what has happened in the last six months. It really has been an 
exciting and historic time to be here in Washington.
  And I think it is important. As I flew home for the 4th of July 
recess, I said to myself, how lucky we are to be a part of this 
important point in history. And more importantly, how much has really 
been accomplished, if you look back in just six short months.
  In fact, I remember when some of our critics and cynics were saying 
in October, ``Well, the Republicans have this Contract With America, 
but they will never be able to pass it.'' And then as we went through 
the contract on the first day, as you will remember, as Representative 
Smith will remember, our very first official act in this congress was 
to pass the Shays Act, H.R. 1, which was to make certain that Congress 
had to play by the same laws and the same rules as everybody else. So 
that process began.
  We also cut the size of Congress itself. We eliminated three full 
committees. We eliminated 25 subcommittees. We cut our committee staff 
by a third. We banned proxy voting, which had become so customary, 
where Members would not even show up for committee meetings anymore. 
Now we have to actually show up to cast our vote.
  Those meetings are open to the public so people can see what actually 
happens. And we also required a three-fifths vote to pass any kind of a 
tax increase. That all happened on the very first day. Then we went 
through the Contract. The Fiscal Responsibility Act, Take Back Our 
Streets Act, Personal Responsibility Act, the Family Reenforcement Act, 
the American Dream Restoration Act, right on down through the list.
  We passed all of those bills with one exception, and that was term 
limits, and the Speaker has promised that that will be H.R. 1 in the 
next Congress. And I would not hesitate to mention that we got 85 
percent of our Members on this side of the aisle to vote for it, while 
approximately 85 percent of the people on the other side voted against 
it. But even with that, the American people I think ultimately will 
prevail.
  We have made tremendous progress in beginning. As Representative 
Neumann said so well, when we came here
 the budget was a serious concern to all of us, the legacy that we are 
going to leave for our kids. And now as the appropriations bills come 
to the floor, we are seeing bill after bill that is actually meeting 
the mark and we are moving on that path toward a balanced budget. I 
think things are happening.
  Let me just mention one other thing. I serve on the Washington, DC, 
subcommittee and when I volunteered to 

[[Page H 6825]]
serve on that subcommittee, I did not realize how serious the problems 
were here in Washington, DC. The more I learned, the more I wished I 
had volunteered for a different subcommittee.x
  But even there, I think there is reason for hope and there is 
progress being made. We have appointed a special oversight board to 
watch over the District, and largely, I have to give a tremendous 
amount of credit to our chairman on the subcommittee, Tom Davis, from 
just across the river in Virginia, who has been a tremendous leader and 
negotiator. But we are on the right path, I think, even in the city of 
Washington to getting the city's fiscal house in order.
  More important than even that, it was announced just last week that 
the Mayor and the chairman of the school board now have come together 
and they are talking about privatizing at least 11 of the most troubled 
schools here in Washington, DC, and if that is not enough, they are 
even going to experiment with vouchers here in Washington, DC.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Whoever thought that we would have such a 
revolution right here in the Capital?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. It is amazing. I am just amazed, and I would like to 
see their voucher plan expanded to nonpublic, private, religious-
related schools. That is not going to be the case, at least for the 
first phase of this.
  But as I said, back in the Midwest we have an expression. When people 
say that will never happen, one of the ways of saying that is ``When 
pigs fly.'' Believe it or not, here in Washington we are seeing 
vouchers and experimentation with privatizing the schools. So I am not 
going to criticize them for not going full scale with a voucher plan, 
because when pigs fly, I do not think we should criticize them for not 
staying up very long. So, we are making tremendous progress.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. I think what you are talking about is what 
the freshman class is working on, and the gentlewoman from Washington, 
Linda Smith, has been a leader on that, when it comes to our Federal 
agencies looking at reducing, privatizing, consolidating and 
eliminating. I know that Congresswoman Smith from Washington State was 
a leader in her own state in making sure that the taxpayers got their 
money's worth and no tax increase got through as long as she was 
around.
  I would like to get her impression on where we are in the reform 
movement now after the first 6 months.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. This was a person who this time last year 
said I was not going to run for Congress because Congress never did 
anything. And then I was a write-in candidate, and in about seven weeks 
I was here.
  I have to say I was wrong. This is a new Congress. Those first votes 
were the most exciting things I have ever done; cutting this place by a 
third. We did not just say we were going to do it. And starting to sell 
a building. How exciting. We are going to cut back the staff, and there 
is not going to be an office if they try to expand it again.
  This is a new place and it is absolutely exciting. One thing that we 
have done that I like a lot, too, is that we are actually going after 
the size of the budget in tangible ways. We have had amendment after 
amendment, on top of the appropriations bills already coming out lower, 
that are trimming them back or peeling back each layer of bureaucracy, 
looking underneath it to see if it is necessary.
  And even today we took out millions of unnecessary bureaucracy that 
just did not need to be there. We passed an amendment today that said 
we will not build sewers and water systems in Egypt. Egypt and Saudi
 Arabia, where the money was going to, have their own money.

  So we are just marching on, but I think there is something that we 
have not done and something that keeps getting shuffled around, because 
it is so difficult, and that is clean house. We still have things that 
are old ways, because they have always gone that way, that we have to 
fix, and one of those is any fund-raising in Washington, DC.
  There is a little bit of trouble when you have to explain that to 
people and they say, ``Why don't you do that at home?'' A lot of good 
people are elected here. They come here, often running against, like 
one man in our state had to run against a woman called the ``PAC 
Queen.'' She was an incumbent. She raised millions from PACs. So he ran 
against her, ended up with a debt, came here and has to raise money all 
the time to try to pay off his debt. Good man; bad system. We need to 
go to and change that system.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Do you not have legislation to try to 
address some of these reforms?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Yes, there is a package coming out with a 
group of people, freshmen and old-timers too, that will literally stop 
fund-raising in Washington, DC. It also abolishes all gifts and all 
trips.
  You know, good people do things because the system is the way it is. 
In our State of Washington in 1992, we passed a package of legislation 
in an initiative that literally changed Washington, and we just got the 
1994 reports out. When we abolished all these big groups' ability to 
give a lot of money, it dropped the cost of campaigns down by over a 
third and it increased individual involvement.
  We literally had an explosion of grassroots activity. And people 
would have never thought they could run because they were not running 
against these big groups. If they could get a grassroots group 
together, then they could run.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Do not you think these kinds of reforms that 
Congressman Gutknecht is talking about, and the ones you are talking 
about, are going to restore the confidence of the public in the 
institution so that more people will want to run? We will have the term 
limits, so we will have the infusion of new ideas and we will be more 
accountable back home about spending less?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Yes.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Do you see that already happening in your 
district?
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Yes, and when people see that they are not 
going to have to be running a campaign against every big special 
interest group in the Nation, it kind of encourages them to get 
involved.
  And I am encouraged because I believe that there is enough guts in 
this area now to make this big change. But can you just imagine just 
running your election in your district, not having to worry about 
tobacco money from the South or Jane Fonda or actors from California?
  I had to run against all the PAC's in the Nation, including most of 
the money from outside my district. But I want to tell you, you can do 
it. My race was so short, but it was mostly people, and it shows you 
can do it.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. The power of the individuals over the 
special interests.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. That is right. I was an incumbent in our 
State. I had an 88 percent name ID, and so that gave me a help. But 
what if you were just some good person that wanted to run and you were 
going to have to run against an incumbent called the ``PAC Queen,'' 
would you have much of a chance?
  I think when we change the selection system to where you put the 
elections back in the States, you take good people and allow them to 
run good, clean campaigns, and you do not put them here, having to 
work, I consider it like swimming around in a polluted pond. It would 
be a lot more fun to swim in a clean structure. And we put good people 
here under a system that just needs to be changed.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. It is certainly true. One of the items that 
I would like to get the Congressman from Minnesota to talk about.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Before you could, Congressman Kingston, 
reglatory reform was an area that I wanted to touch on.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I just wanted one second. I never would have accused 
the gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith] of being concerned about 
Jane Fonda. And I was curious about that, because I see her pawing the 
ground each night in the House Chamber looking for somebody to debate. 
So, I just could not let that go by, and I yield back.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Congressman Kingston, thank you. I would 
like you to join us in this colloquy. We do want to see the 
continuation, I believe, of what Congressman Gutknecht has 

[[Page H 6826]]
been working on; that is, the regulatory reform.
  Many of the businesses and individuals in this country have been 
stifled in their individual effort to try to start a business, to in 
fact have the quality of life they want, because regulations and 
taxation have been so heavy that they cannot move forward. And the 
problem has been the Federal Government.
  Gil, if you could take a moment to reflect on where you think we are 
on that war against over-regulation, burdensome rules, and over-
taxation, I am sure the American people would like to hear, and my 
colleagues, where you think we are on that issue.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. I would just, 
in follow-up to what Representative Smith was talking about, I think 
the key component of what is happening here in Washington today is 
something, it is a line from Representative Pat Roberts, he said, ``The 
status quo doesn't live here anymore.''
  And we were talking about this earlier today and one of our 
colleagues used the example of Cortez, when he came to the New World, 
he had his people burn their ships because there was no turning back. 
And hopefully we have come to a new world here in Washington. And there 
is going to be no turning back.
  In fact, the Vikings when they would invade the foreign country, 
Vikings are more popular in the neighborhood where I come from, they 
would do the same thing. They would burn their ships so they understood 
that there was no turning back and there was only one way they were 
going to leave and that was victorious.
  And the battles that we have in front of us, whether it be on 
regulatory reform, ethics reform, campaign finance reform, downsizing 
the Federal Government, bringing real sanity to the way the
 Federal Government spends our tax dollars, and more importantly our 
grandchildren's tax dollars, I think we have to keep that reformist 
attitude that there is no turning back. We cannot go back. There is 
only one way that we can leave.

  I want to share a couple of things, because we talked about the six-
month anniversary that we celebrated last week of coming here as the 
new Members of the 104th Congress. But we also celebrated a couple of 
special holidays last week.
  One was, of course, Independence Day, the Fourth of July. But most 
Americans do not know that we celebrated on July 9th Independence from 
Government Day. Most people know that we work for the Federal and State 
government for a long, long time, but what most people do not know is 
if you add the total cost of regulations, regulatory reform has got to 
be on our list and certainly is, but the average American will work 
this year through Sunday, July 9th to pay all the costs of Federal, 
State, and local taxes and regulations.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Will the gentleman yield? Average?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. July 9th. The average American will work this year 
until July 9th to pay all of the costs of government.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Regulations and taxes and all fees?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Regulations and taxes. The average American, and this 
is according to some research done, and most of the numbers I think 
originally came from CBO, the average American will work 190 days this 
year to pay his or her share of government.
  That is 13 days to pay interest on the national debt, 15 days to pay 
for national defense, 29 days to pay for Social Security and Medicare, 
36 days to pay for all other Federal programs, 42 days to pay for 
Federal regulations, and 55 days to pay for State and local taxes and 
other local regulations. The remaining 175 days, they get to work for 
themselves.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would be happy to yield to the gentleman from 
Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. You know, one of the tax statistics we do hear over and 
over again is that in the 1950's a middle-class family paid as a 
percentage of their income tax on the Federal level 2 percent. In 1972, 
that was 16 percent. In 1995, on an average, that is 24 percent.
                              {time}  2145

  So you can imagine the middle-class tax squeeze. The Secretary of the 
Treasury says often that we are not gaining. Of course, we are not. Any 
gains we make the Federal Government takes, and they are just taking it 
right off the plate.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. I thank the gentleman from Georgia. We 
appreciate your leadership, being an honorary freshman and keeping your 
enthusiasm for the positive things we do.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Does that mean I get paid what Rush Limbaugh is getting 
paid? He is an honorary freshman.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. I do not think so. You would not want the 
money anyhow.
  The gentleman from Florida [Mr. Foley] has been a leader on another 
reform, and I would like him to join our colloquy, if he would, on the 
idea of having a lockbox to make sure when we have savings achieved 
they actually go to deficit reduction. I think you should share with 
the colleagues what you did this morning on the Government Reform and 
Oversight Committee and joint committee with Rules, and if you would 
share that with us now, we would appreciate hearing about it.
  Mr. FOLEY. I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania. You have been a 
leader of the freshmen, and I really enjoy working with you.
  The thing that is so exciting, as the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Gutknecht] and the gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith] and the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] mentioned, is the fact that the 
new Congress is about change. It is about proving to the American 
public we did not come to Washington to be a part of a system. We came 
from the communities. We love our communities. We want to go back to 
our communities. More importantly, we want to go back to our 
communities with the respect that we asked them to send us here in 
Washington.
  The lockbox will provide us the opportunity for monies we save in the 
budget; if members of the freshman class or Members of Congress in 
general find $5 million or $10 million, the concept basically is to put 
that money in a reserve account, a lockbox, to pay off the Federal debt 
and deficit of this country.
  For too long, if somebody found a savings, if somebody found $10 
million, and around here that is small money, I am sad to say to the 
American public, and $10 million to me is a fortune, so much money I 
cannot even envision, but up here they talk about billions as if it is, 
Do not worry about it, America, that is not a lot of money. The lockbox 
provides us an opportunity to put that money aside, take it away from 
the hands of the politicians and say you cannot have access to that $25 
million, $50 million, $100 million, $1 billion. It is in a lockbox for 
deficit reduction.
  Now, we testified before the Committee on Rules, because they are 
finally getting serious about it. For the longest time, the Committee 
on Rules said, no, we cannot use a lockbox; that takes away the power 
of the appropriators, that really ruins the system of Congress being 
able to negotiate, you know, you hear all the terms around here, 
negotiate, satisfy, placate, work it out, conference. The American 
public did not send us here for happy games, Here, you take care of me 
this week, I will take care of you next week.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. If the gentleman will yield, I think I get 
this, it just simply means when my amendment passed today, when we got 
rid of money going to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, I could have put that 
against the deficit.
  Mr. FOLEY. Absolutely; absolutely.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. Instead of maybe somewhere along the lien 
somebody says, ``Oh, she saved $500,000, let's use it over there.'' We 
have to do this. I totally agree.
  Mr. FOLEY. A greater tragedy was the other day in the Science 
Committee I saved $25 million on one project. I did not commit it to 
anything else. I said that money should be saved.
  The next day, a colleague on the other side of the aisle found that 
$25 million, fully committed it to another program. So after my efforts 
to save $25 million, they were all in vain. Today, you had that 
excellent amendment on the foreign operations budget. That money 
represents savings for the American public for the first time if 

[[Page H 6827]]
we, in fact, have a lockbox, and Linda Smith can say to her 
constituents, ``I saved millions of dollars, and it is tucked away, no 
longer available for pork projects.''
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. If the gentleman will yield, see, I do not 
look at it as savings to people right now. I look at it and look at my 
five
 grandchildren and I say it is not charging that to your future, 
because we are spending $200 billion a year, and it is like the charge 
card with my grandchildren's picture on it. We are charging away their 
future, and so for me it is just like every time I find something, I 
want to make sure that it goes to reducing the deficit, the debt, and 
establishes a future for my grandkids. They are just tiny little tikes, 
but I do not know how we can face them after a while if we do not do 
something serious now.

  Mr. FOLEY. It is important you mention that. But you have to think of 
your families. The wonderful wife of the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
Judy, is home in Pennsylvania talking to the constituents that sent her 
husband here. She has to explain the work he is doing while we are in 
session. We come to Washington.
  We get caught up in that beltway mentality; this charge card, this 
card we vote with, is the largest credit card in the world, unlimited 
expenditures.
  We have got to be able to once and for all explain to our 
constituents we are serious about saving their money.
  I suggested the other day on a radio show maybe some Members of 
Congress need to go on Oprah Winfrey, have a therapist there, and talk 
about working it out.
  They are so hungry and hell bent on spending money that does not 
belong to them.
  If this was my Master Card or your Visa----
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. I would be maxed out. They would not let me 
charge more.
  Mr. FOLEY. You would be very cautious about charging on that account.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. No, the difference is they would tap me 
somewhere.
  Mr. FOLEY. This is phony.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I had an interesting experience the other day. A friend 
of mine from Savannah, where I am from, asked me, he has a son up here, 
he said, ``Would you mind taking an engagement ring up to them?'' They 
did not want to mail a diamond ring at the Post Office. I could not 
imagine why. They did not want to trust this family heirloom, and they 
wanted me to take it up there, so I said I would be glad to take it up 
tomorrow. So I picked up the ring, and I started, and, you know, in the 
airplane, I started thinking, you know, I have got a $5,000 or $10,000 
diamond ring here in my briefcase. I pulled the briefcase up closer to 
my chest, put a bear hug around it. I started getting a little nervous. 
I went through the Charlotte airport on the way. I did not go to the 
bathroom. I did not want to part with my briefcase and the diamond 
ring. I got real nervous about it. I came up here, and I think within 
30 minutes of being here, I voted, as you said, on $2 billion or $3 
billion of appropriations. I thought how silly I am, getting worked up 
and paranoid, about this diamond ring, and yet with that same voting 
card, I have got one, too, readily vote for billions and billions of 
appropriations, and as the gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. Smith] was 
saying about that $25 million from Egypt or your amendment on $25 
million, what we have been doing is we cut it, but we really just non-
earmark it. We free it up, and then the bill goes to the Senate. Your 
$25 million is sitting there, and some Senator says, ``Ah-hah, I have 
got a new water project in my district. I am going to get that $25 
million,'' and if for some reason it goes through the Senate and that 
$25 million is setting there, then it comes back to the House, and then 
the conference committee, they see that $25 million, and you can bet 
every single dollar ends up being earmarked. So these hours and hours 
we have debating, cutting the budget, we are not really cutting the 
budget. We are just not earmarking it.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania, I think the fact is that we are all saying, 
we are talking about accountability, whether it is lockbox legislation, 
which the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Foley] and the gentlewomen from 
Washington [Mrs. Smith] and the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] 
were talking about, which is going to force the Congress to spend less 
and make sure we worry about our children and grandchildren and to make 
sure we actually spend money on things that help people, not more 
bureaucrats, more bureaucracies. That is what it comes down to. I call 
on, if I can, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] to talk 
about leading by example, because, frankly, if we do not continue the 
same kind of verve and spirit this next 6 months and the next year and 
a half in this Congress that we have in the first 6 months, then the 
public will not be supporting us with the new reforms we are going for.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I thank the gentleman. I would just share, you know, 
in any football game, there are 60 minutes. If you look in the box 
scores, it will show time of possession, and you either are on offense
 or you are on defense. The games are almost always won by teams on 
offense most of the time.

  The good news about this freshman class, and we are happy to have the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] as an honorary member, is we are 
staying on offense, whether we are talking about campaign finance 
reform, lockbox reform, budget reform, and we are leading by example. 
As you say, we actually cut our own franking privileges by one-third in 
this Congress.
  We cut total legislative appropriations by $155 million, and again, 
you know, in a place where we talk about billions, that may not seem 
like a lot of money, but if we would reduce the entire Federal budget 
by that same percentage point, we would pay off the debt or we would 
get to a zero deficit within about 5 years rather than 7 years, and let 
me also say that we are contributing more to our pensions. We are 
reducing congressional pensions. I have a bill, and I hope you will all 
help me get it passed, which will limit pension accrual for Members of 
Congress to 12 years, which will mean the end of $100,000 pensions. It 
will mean the maximum pension a Member could collect would be $27,000. 
The good news about the 104th Congress and particularly the freshman 
class, and I thank you again for reserving this time, is we are staying 
on offense. We are pressing reforms, and I think as long as we do that, 
I think we are going to win. We are going to get more points on the 
board. I think that is the key. I think that is what the American 
people want.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, since I am only an 
honorary member, I wanted to say this, what I say about the freshman 
class, when I go back home, on a bumper sticker, the freshman class is 
a group of normal people who do not want to be President, they do not 
want to be in the U.S. Senate, they do not want to be here forever, but 
some of that may happen. But for the time being, they want this, and 
that is to cut the budget and go home, and you are a class of business 
people, of homemakers, of lawyers, of teachers, of entrepreneurs, you 
have all kinds of different people there, but, again, you want less 
regulation, less government, less micromanagement out of Washington, 
more personal freedom. I think because of that that is why you are on 
the offense, because the American people are with you 100 percent.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. One of the other items we are embracing, I 
think, is the idea of Corrections Day, whether it is the gentleman from 
Florida [Mr. Foley], yourself, the gentlewoman from Washington [Mrs. 
Smith], the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht], we are trying to 
make sure we get through those special reforms to make this institution 
be more accountable, now that we are working closely with the Speaker, 
Newt Gingrich, to make sure that when we have noncontroversial items, 
we can bypass the committee system so we get the changes the American 
people want, not get it to the next Congress or next year.
  Mr. FOLEY. I think it is appropriate at this point to talk about 
leadership of this Chamber. You know, past Congresses, many freshman 
Members came to Congress with the idea of reform, and they were told by 
the leadership, ``Listen, sit in the back row, be quiet, you will get a 
chance to participate, wait 4, 5, 6 years, you, too, may be vice 

[[Page H 6828]]
chairman of a committee. Don't rock the boat.''
  What I found in the leadership here with the gentleman from Georgia 
[Mr. Gingrich], the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DeLay], the gentleman 
from Texas [Mr. Armey], is the fact they said, ``Listen, you were sent 
here by your constituents. You are equal to us. We are not any higher 
than you are in the electoral
 process. We are all Members of the House of Representatives. We each 
have constituents to answer for. Give it your best shot.'' I have never 
once been called down to the office, as happened in the past, for a 
scolding or a lecture or being told, ``You know, Mark, you are going 
out on a limb. You are embarrassing the Congress,'' or, you know, 
``That is not appropriate, you are a freshman, let a senior Member 
lead.'' I have got to tell you, I am gratified in this process that I 
have been able, as a freshman, a new Member coming here from the very 
first day to speak on the floor, I have been given the opportunity to 
be in the chair, as I know the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] 
has, and I believe the others have, that is a unique opportunity to 
participate fully in this democracy.

  So I have to tip my hat to our leadership for giving us the chance to 
participate fully.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I would only say if they had not given you the chance, 
you would have made it or taken it.
  Mrs. SMITH of Washington. I just want to make a comment on what the 
gentleman from Florida [Mr. Foley] said, not only is this freshman 
class anxious but we are able to fully join. I did not even think about 
being a freshman. In fact, you do not remember who freshman are.
  Have you ever seen a time in history, I am chairing a subcommittee. 
Now, that is not a major job, but it used to take you 20 years to get 
there. I do not think there is any woman on the other side, as well as 
most men, who have had an opportunity to chair unless they have 10, 20 
years under their belt. I had 10-20 minutes under my belt and was 
chairing the Subcommittee on Taxation and Finance for Small Business. 
They have taken the energies and the talents of all Members, taken a 
look at them, whether they have been here 1 minute, 2 years or 20 
years, and they said, ``Let us use them for the people instead of let 
us let them wait until they have become ripe,'' and that is just 
different, and I appreciate the leadership, too, and the other 
freshman, because this freshman class has just been fantastic at 
working together. It has been competitive, but competitive for the 
people, and the American people are really winning by this.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. I think all the Members who joined me for 
this special colloquy. I hope we can continue a report back to the 
American people on a regular basis.


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