[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 170 (Tuesday, October 31, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H11579-H11584]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             BUDGET RECONCILIATION IMPORTANT FOR OUR NATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, happy Halloween. What I wanted to talk 
about tonight, and I am joined by the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. 
Gutknecht] and some others perhaps later, this reconciliation process, 
this huge budget, this huge bill that we have been hearing so much 
about in the House and why it is so important. It is a massive bill, it 
is an important bill. It is right that all eyes of the Nation should be 
watching this particular piece of legislation. It is the bill that 
calls for a billion dollar budget, calls for Medicare reform, reforms 
that say protect and preserve Medicare. It changes the way we do our 
Medicaid allocation.
  It has welfare reform in it, it has medical savings accounts and a 
tax cut for the hardworking middle class America. It is a very 
important bill, and it is one that we all have a horse in the race on, 
and so I wanted to talk about that a little bit tonight.
  Let me yield the floor to Mr. Gutknecht. He has been a valuable part 
of this as a freshman Member of this House. He knows that it was the 
freshman class who put the majority agenda forward, starting with the 
Contract With America, 10 items, 9 of which have passed the House, and 
then went to work on the 13 appropriations bills, even after the other 
body voted to end the balanced budget amendment, working on the 13 
appropriations bills, saying that it is clear that the American people 
want a balanced budget.
  That is what your freshman class ran on and that is what you followed 
through on, was a balanced budget. So let me yield the floor to the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht].
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I said to the people of my district that 
it was a very historic day when we passed that reconciliation bill. It 
really is what an awful lot of us came here to do. This is what we 
promised we were going to do when we ran for election, and I am so 
delighted that we finally got the opportunity to keep that promise. My 
sense is that if the President hears from the American people, once 
they understand what really is in this bill and how the bill was put 
together and they begin to tell the President and the administration 
how they feel about it, my sense is that the President will reconsider, 
and he will actually sign this bill or one that looks almost like it.
  If I could say to the gentleman from Georgia, I want to just talk a 
little bit about what we are really doing, because we have heard so 
much demagoguery and so much rhetoric about these draconian cuts and 
how this is going to hurt this group or that group. But the truth of 
the matter is, what we have taken is a fairly simple approach to how we 
are going to balance this budget. It breaks down into, in my opinion, 
three categories. First of all, with defense spending, we have adopted 
essentially a flexible freeze on defense spending.

                              {time}  2015

  On domestic discretionary spending we have made targeted cuts. We 
have eliminated 300 programs, which I think most people would agree 
were not very effective anyway.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me interject quickly. Many of these 
cuts are real cuts. Others are just slowing down of the increase and 
still others are consolidating programs.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, 
he is absolutely correct.
  Then on the entitlement side, and this is where there is so much fear 
mongering going on out there with the senior citizens and other groups, 
for the most part whether we are talking about school lunches or 
talking about Medicare or the other entitlements, what we are really 
talking about is slowing the growth rate to approximately the inflation 
rate.
  The good news is if we do that, if we make targeted cuts in domestic 
discretionary spending, put a flexible freeze on defense and allow the 
entitlements to grow, but at a slower rate than they have in the past, 
the good news is we get to a balanced budget, under the plan that we 
have, scored by the CBO, in 7 years. My own sense is it is going to be 
about 5\1/2\ years, because we will see economic growth at a higher 
rate than is currently expected and we will see interest rates at a 
much lower rate than is currently expected.
  The net of that is we will get to a balanced budget in about 5\1/2\ 
years, not 7 years. But the even better news, for those of us with 
children, is that we will have an opportunity, if we can stick to that 
discipline, which I do not think is a bitter pill to swallow. It is not 
tough medicine we are talking about. But if we can stick to the basic 
budget plan, not only will we balance the budget in 5\1/2\ years, the 
great news is if we stay on that path we will pay off the national debt 
in about 25 years.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to go back to a conversation that 
the gentleman from Minnesota and I had earlier today, and that is the 
basic premise of this whole bill, which is balancing the budget, and 
why should we balance the budget?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield once more, 
the interesting thing is some people have turned this into an 
arithmetic exercise. It is not about arithmetic. It is not about a lot 
of the things that we are reading about. It really is about preserving 
the American dream for our children.
  President Kennedy said we all cherish our children's future. We all 
want our kids to have a little better life than we had. But if we stay 
on the path we are on now at the Federal level, if the Federal 
Government continues to mortgage our children's future, what we do is 
we guarantee that our kids will have a standard of living that will be 
less than ours.
  As a matter of fact, we promised them, or we are promising them under 
the current circumstances, if we do not make changes, that they will 
face sure bankruptcy for the Federal Government and our economy.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, is it not true 
that if a baby is born this year, in fact, I have one, little Walker 
Watson, who is my nephew, he was born in April. Now, I understand his 
share of the national debt, should he live 75 years, which I am hopeful 
that he will and beyond that, he will owe $187,000 on the national debt 
in his lifetime, just interest. Just interest. Not paying down the 
principal but just interest.
  And we also know that the interest on the national debt is almost $20 
billion a month. Does the gentleman happen to know offhand what the 
budget of Minnesota is? The annual budget.

  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, the annual budget for the State of 
Minnesota is about $10 billion.

[[Page H11580]]

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the same for Georgia, it is about 10, a 
little over $10 billion a year. So each month we spend on interest, the 
budget of Minnesota plus the----
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman that is the 
total budget.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The total budget of Minnesota, plus the total budget of 
Georgia, we spend their annual budgets, combined together, just on 
interest on the debt. All that money that could be going to health 
care, that could be going to Medicare, that could be going to 
education, or, best of all, back to the taxpayers. But it is going 
straight to the creditors.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, the interesting thing, and I use this 
example sometimes in my district, because my district borders the 
Mississippi River. We are just a little west of the Mississippi River. 
I tell people this, and this gets their attention. I say if they forget 
everything else that I say they should remember this. Every dollar in 
personal income taxes collected west of the Mississippi River now goes 
to pay the interest on the national debt.
  That is an amazing statistic. And when the gentleman used the other 
one, the one he just mentioned, $187,000 in interest for every baby 
born in America today, that is disgraceful, and I think we all know it 
is morally wrong.
  Mr. KINGSTON. So, Mr. Speaker, if we are building the case, then, we 
need to balance the budget, the gentleman mentioned a minute ago about 
the interest. Alan Greenspan, before I think a Senate committee and I 
believe a House committee as well, said that if we balanced the budget, 
because the Federal Government would not have to borrow as much, then, 
as a big fish in the lending marketplace, it would ease up the drive to 
increase interest rates to the private sector and the interest rates 
would actually fall 1 to 2 percent.
  If that is the case, then the American taxpayers, who are paying 
monthly car installments, mortgages each month on their home, credit 
card, or whatever else they are borrowing on, their interest rates will 
in turn go down, will they not?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Oh, absolutely. The interesting thing is, when we look 
at the benefits long term of a balanced budget, and they accrue to 
everybody. It is not going to benefit just the rich or benefit just the 
old or the young. I think some of the biggest beneficiary factors, and 
we have heard a lot of complaints about what will happen to student 
loans.
  The truth of the matter is, the changes we have made in student 
loans, if someone borrows the maximum, work out to about $7 a month. 
But let us talk about that college student. They are better able to 
find a job because the economy will be stronger according to all the 
leading economists we have heard from. But if they borrow money to buy 
a car, a $15,000 car loan, annually, the difference in interest rates 
because we have a balanced budget, will work out to about $180.
  That is good, but what gets great is the difference on a $100,000 
mortgage. If that college student goes out and gets a $100,000 
mortgage, and if interest rates drop by 2 percentage points, that will 
save that college student $2,162 a year. On a 30-year mortgage we are 
talking lots and lots of money.
  So, Mr. Speaker, for what we are doing with college loans and some of 
the other targeted cuts we are making in this budget, it seems to me 
that long term those benefits to those college students are going to be 
absolutely astronomical. The people who should be leading the debate or 
leading the fight for this budget ought to be young people. They should 
be saying, ``this is the kind of thing we need to save our future.''
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the gentleman.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, we are delighted to be joined by some of 
our colleagues.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I see we have the distinguished president 
and chairman of the ``theme team,'' the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke], 
and the distinguished freshman gentleman from South Carolina [Mr. 
Graham] and then we have the guy from Arizona that shows up regardless.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I really 
appreciate the fact that he treats me with such respect when we come to 
these things.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I do not remember anyone yielding.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I wonder if the gentleman from Minnesota might 
yield for a moment.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Actually, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] 
controls the time.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I will yield.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to ask the gentleman. Actually, I 
thought I heard the gentleman say that there were going to be cuts in 
spending on education. Is that what the gentleman said?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. No, what I said is we are going to change the way 
student loans are administered, and the absolute maximum that it will 
cost the average college student is $7 a month.
  Mr. HOKE. That is the amount more. I think it is really important. We 
keep hearing this language over and over and over again about cuts. The 
amount of money that we are spending on the student loan programs and 
education goes from $24 billion in fiscal year 1995 to $36 billion in 
fiscal year 2002, which everywhere in the world, except within the 
Federal City, is clearly an increase of $12 billion. $12 billion out of 
$24 billion is a 50 percent increase. We are increasing spending on 
college loans 50 percent over the next 7 years.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And, Mr. Speaker, we are spending more on Pell grants 
that we ever have and keeping historically black colleges at a level 
amount. Those are not being cut.
  We have also level funded the TRIO program, which includes the 
important Talent Search Education Program and Upward Bound.
  So the gentleman is absolutely correct. There will be more students 
participating in student loan programs than ever before in history. And 
yet I hope they are smart enough to maybe tell some of our Democratic 
colleagues that that does not constitute a cut.
  Mr. HOKE. What is disturbing, Mr. Speaker, with all the student 
loans, one would hope there is more arithmetic being taught than what 
is apparently being taught around here.
  The only thing I wanted to point out about the idea of cuts is there 
has been a cut in the Federal budget. There absolutely has been a cut, 
and that is in the area of international aid. Of foreign aid.
  We voted on this conference report today. We have cut $1.5 billion 
from 1995 to fiscal year 1996.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And we voted on the legislative branch. The U.S. 
Congress has taken a cut. We have reduced our staff one-third.

  Mr. HOKE. That is absolutely right.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Now, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from North Carolina 
[Mr. Graham] better get more aggressive, because if you want floor 
time, we do not yield readily.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I tell my colleagues that I come from a very 
quiet polite district, and if my friends want me to talk, I will be 
glad to.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Hayworth, it is your turn.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Well, I simply wanted to say in defense of the 
gentleman from South Carolina, knowing his district well, and the 
golden corner from Pickens and Oconee County, on down through Aiken and 
down to North Augusta, I know that he, beneath that calm, cool 
exterior, has a rather tenacious trait and is one who stands up for the 
working people of his district.
  Indeed, I think that is the point we want to make tonight, that we 
are foursquare behind the working people.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Does the gentleman see why we do not yield to him?
  Mr. GRAHAM. If the gentleman would yield, I will go over the $10.08 
billion in savings we achieved in the student loan program, because I 
am on the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities.
  It goes back to the student lunch program. That was the biggest lie 
in this Congress. We put more money in the lunch program, the federally 
funded lunch program, than the President did, but we got accused of 
cutting.
  The student loan savings entail the following: We save $1.2 billion 
of the $10 billion from doing away with direct lending. Direct lending 
is the best opportunity to recreate the great society 

[[Page H11581]]

that I have seen since we have been in Congress. Direct lending has the 
Federal Government borrowing the money, allowing the Department of 
Education to lend it out and become bankers.
  The opportunity for the Department of Education to grow under direct 
lending is unbelievably large. We are in debt. We are having to borrow 
money we do not have and lend it to replace private capital. We save 
$1.2 billion by reducing the bureaucracy of the Department of Education 
by getting rid of direct lending.
  Mr. HOKE. If the gentleman would yield for one point on that. It 
might be helpful to point out to the Speaker, because I see the Speaker 
was not here when this law was made, when that direct lending program 
was entered into.
  I suppose, being on the committee, the gentleman could probably could 
tell us that. If he cannot, I can help out.
  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, direct lending is a Bill Clinton program 
that is trying to replace private sector capital. There are literally 
hundreds of banks in America that provide money that the Federal 
Government guarantees to provide access to student loans.
  Bill Clinton wants to get rid of the guaranteed loan program and 
replace it with direct lending, where the Federal Government becomes 
the bank. They have to borrow the money to replace the capital in the 
private sector. And the bankers will be people who run the Department 
of Education.
  I do not know about my colleagues, but if I was to start a bank, I 
would not go to the Department of Education to hire people to run the 
bank.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman obviously knows his history. He 
is absolutely right: 1993 budget resolution.

  Mr. GRAHAM. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue yielding, we 
have not even warmed up yet, $5 billion of the $10 billion came from 
the banking institutions.
  I will readily admit that the guaranteed loan program in this country 
needs to be reworked. It was a deal negotiated by our brethren on the 
other side who built the Great Society.
  Listen to this. Under the guaranteed loan program, the Federal 
Government was reimbursing 100 percent of any default prior to this 
Congress. Excuse me, two Congresses ago. Now it was at 98. We have come 
into 95. We have doubled the amount of risk that the private sector has 
in the student loan program.
  Do the other gentleman think they would spend much time on a 
defaulted loan if they knew somebody was to pay them 100 percent of the 
default? We have doubled the amount of risk that banks have, we have 
doubled the amount of money we charge for them to participate in the 
student loan program. We have $5 billion by renegotiating a deal for 
the American taxpayer with the banking institution. Sixty percent of 
the savings came away from reducing government and renegotiating a bad 
deal with the banking world that our brethren on the other side 
negotiated.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, the bottom line is we save taxpayer money 
and we get more student scholarships out there. What could be better?
  Mr. GRAHAM. Absolutely. And let us get where the students become 
involved.
  The gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] hit it right on the head 
there. What we have done from the student aspect is that, from the time 
a student graduates until 6 months after he graduates, there is a grace 
period where we forgive the interest. What we have done is we have 
allowed the interest to run during that 6-month period and saved $3.5 
billion for the American taxpayer.
  If an individual borrowed the most money there is to borrow for the 
longest period of time, his payment would be affected, at the most, $9. 
The average student will have to increase payments by an average of $4 
per month, but it saves $3.5 billion to the American taxpayer.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would repeat that, 
because I think it is the central part of our debate. I think it is 
very important. If the gentleman would repeat the terms that we have 
changed here.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. GRAHAM. The only thing we done to a student participating in the 
student loan program is the 6-month grace period where we have forgiven 
the interest in the past, the interest will continue to run. You do not 
have to pay the interest if you cannot afford it, but it will run in 
that 6-month period. And when we look at all the loans out there, it 
adds up to $3.5 billion savings for the American taxpayer and no one 
student will be affected over $9 a month.
  If we have gotten to where students cannot afford to help $4, $5, $9 
a month to help balance the budget and lower the interest rate 2 
percent, we are hopelessly lost in this country. Two-thirds of the high 
school students go into the workforce. What about their families?
  I got a student loan and my sister got Pell Grants when my parents 
died. We paid the loans back. I am thankful for the Pell grants, but 
what we have done is put more money in the Pell grants, but we focused 
to the target population. We have reduced the income level so that we 
are really helping people that need it the most. We have stopped being 
everything to everybody. That is what has happened in the last 40 
years. We are giving away government money faster than we could print 
it.
  The last $500 million savings comes in this fashion. Every parent in 
America can go and borrow money under the PLUS Program. What that does 
is if your child, because of your income, is ineligible for student 
loans, you can go to the Federal Government and borrow money for a 
college education yourself. We have increased the interest rates from 
3.1 to 3.9 percent above the Treasury rate, which is still better than 
anything you can get on the open market. That saves $500 million. That 
will affect the average payment of a family $3.
  That is the $10.08 billion. Sixty percent of it came from the banking 
institutions and reducing the Department of Education. No one student 
will pay over $9 a month more. The average student will pay $4 a month 
more to save $3.5 billion to help balance the budget.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I have to salute the gentleman from South Carolina, 
because even on this All Hallows Eve, he again demonstrates that facts 
will overcome fear. And how sad it is that our liberal friends, so 
bereft of ideas, so divorced from a reasonable discussion on different 
philosophies of policy, only turn time and again to fear mongering and 
scare tactics.
  I think the fact that our friend from South Carolina has brought 
forth these items of information in a reasonable, rational way, really 
befits the entire revolution that is going on here. Because it is 
revolution, as we know, built not on anything more than what is 
reasonable and rational and long overdue for the hard-working men and 
women of this country who are paying the bills. Government does not 
supply this; taxpayers supply this.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman touched on a point about working versus 
not working, and I have often heard someone say the difference between 
a Republican and Democrat is that a Democrat gets money from Washington 
and Republicans send money to Washington.
  We have earlier in the day been talking about welfare reform, big 
welfare reform legislation tied up into the reconciliation bill. You 
gentlemen have been involved in that. There are four basic components: 
No money for illegal aliens; State block grants for flexibility; 
discouraging teenage pregnancy; and work requirements.
  Let us just talk about that for a few minutes. There are some other 
things in her that we want to talk about. Mr. Gutknecht?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I would just say the byword of the welfare reform, and 
perhaps the byword or the expression of this whole Congress, is how do 
we convert this welfare State that has been created over the last 
number of years into an opportunity society?
  I think that is what we really trying to do. The real issue is how do 
we get away from government responsibility for everything, where 
everybody is blaming the government and everybody is going to the 
government for more funding and more programs and so forth, and how do 
we get more personal responsibility?
  At the end of the day I think we all know that we cannot have a 
system that relies on the government for all of 

[[Page H11582]]

the answers. The government has done such a poor job. When we look at 
the welfare system, and the welfare State if you will, the war on 
poverty has spent something like $5.3 trillion over the last 30 years. 
And the real tragedy of our welfare system and the tragedy of the 
failure of the welfare State is not that its cost $5.3 trillion. The 
real tragedy is that it has denied so many human beings of the dignity 
of work and responsibility.

  What we are really trying to do is convert the welfare State into an 
opportunity society and rebuild those basic values and those basic 
principles of faith, family, work, and personal responsibility. That is 
what we have got to have. That is what we want. That is what the 
American people want.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Hayworth has been a champion of the working man and 
that this is the working man's Congress. Does that fit into this?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. As the gentleman from Georgia knows, because he hears 
it from his constituents, I will point out what I hear time and again 
from the people of the Sixth District of Arizona. From people who are 
working hard to set up their own businesses; people who are working 
hard in the private sector to create more jobs; people who are working 
hard to put food on the table and build a future for their families. 
They are absolutely enthused that with this new Congress, we see the 
end of business as usual in Washington.
  Oh, the protestations from the other side are sometimes cacophonous, 
that is, loud. But, that central truth remains very prevalent. When we 
consider the fact that in 1948, the average American family of four 
sent 3 percent of its income in the form of taxes to Uncle Sam. Then to 
have that accelerate for an average family of four in 1994 to almost 
one-quarter of that family's income, almost 25 percent, 24 percent, is 
absolutely unconscionable.
  What I am hearing from the people of the Sixth District is this 
simple fact: They work hard for the money they earn. They are patriotic 
Americans. They believe in this country. They are not upset about doing 
their fair share, but that is exactly the point. What is their fair 
share?
  I think as the gentleman knows, again, a lot of disinformation 
bandied about by our friends on the other side, and indeed some in the 
fourth estate who seem to be almost in complicity with them, repeating 
what can only be described as falsehoods. The gentleman at the other 
end of Pennsylvania Avenue characterizes our welfare reform package as, 
quote, ``Cutting off benefits to teenage mothers.''
  Well, there is one 4-letter word that the President forgets, and it 
is not a bad word. It is an important word. C-A-S-H, cash benefits, for 
mothers under the age of 18. We have not moved to eliminate the Women, 
Infants and Children's program. We have not moved to eliminate those 
things that truly provide a safety net. But what we have sought to do 
is to end what appears to be an endless subsidization of illegitimacy 
in this country.
  Not to demonize any young lady, not to demonize any particular group, 
but simply to say, as my friend from Minnesota points out, over $5 
trillion on the war on poverty. That eclipses our national debt. 
Clearly it has not worked and there is another route to take is that is 
what we are doing.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman from South Carolina actually has been on 
the Committee on Economic and Educational Opportunities. The gentleman 
has been involved in this debate. Is it moving in the right direction? 
Are we helping the working man?
  Mr. GRAHAM. I think the most complaints I get about welfare come from 
the recipients themselves. We have created a system somehow over the 
last 40 years that if recipients want to live together as man and wife 
under the same roof, they get punished because the income levels may go 
up a dollar too much and the dad or the mom have to live separate and 
apart to maintain their benefit package.
  If recipients want to work part-time, they are trying to get off of 
welfare and create a resume, a job portfolio, they go to work part-time 
and they make a dollar too much, they lose their Medicaid. The number 
one reason people stay on welfare is the Medicaid, the health 
insurance.
  We have created a system where recipients have to pick and choose 
between working. In Aiken, South Carolina, two weeks ago I went to a 
housing project to listen to people about the reforms that we are 
engaging in. There was a young woman on the front row who was going to 
college part-time. She had a young child. She was receiving AFDC. She 
was living in the public housing unit. She was very proud of the job 
she was doing working part-time. She told me she made $20 over the 
guidelines and they were going to take her house away and her Medicaid, 
so she quit her job.
  Never should she ever have to do that again. Our bill allows 
recipients to work part-time, get in the job market, and receive some 
benefits so they do not have to pick and choose.
  What we did in the Committee on Economic and Educational 
Opportunities with the WIC, Women Infants and Children's program, many 
States like South Carolina, we have one of the highest infant mortality 
rates in the country. We have a lot of low-weight babies born. We have 
a large population of nutritionally disadvantaged children. But 
categorical grants limit the way we you can use the money.

  We have school breakfast programs required by the Federal Government, 
but we do not have enough participation in many counties to justify the 
school breakfast. It would be nice to take that pot of money that was 
going to school breakfast where there was no need and move it over to 
help children where there is a need.
  That is exactly what we have done in this Congress. We have given the 
people at the local level more discretion to move money from one 
account to the other to help the target population. They have to report 
back to us that the target population is being served. It is good 
common sense. Categorical granting is wasteful. It is bureaucratic 
approach.
  What we have done in our block grant is look at a target population 
of nutritionally disadvantaged children, collapsed the money into one 
block grant, require reporting back from the State level, but allowing 
money to be used where it can best be used in South Carolina, because 
Georgia may be a different situation; Arizona may be different; it may 
be different in Ohio. Every State has different needs. We are allowing 
States to be more flexible, and to me that is the best thing to improve 
the quality.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let us hear from the gentleman from Ohio. I also wanted 
to recognize the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler] next. He has an 
interesting tale. We want to talk about another thing in this 
reconciliation, which is the abolishment of the Department of Commerce.
  I wanted to let Mr. Hoke talk about Ohio and welfare quickly.
  Mr. HOKE. When I have talked to folks in Ohio about what we are doing 
with the welfare reform bill, I talk about my own children. And I have 
a daughter who is 17. She is going to go to college next year. It is a 
though I were to say, the way that the current welfare program is that 
Uncle Sam works, it would be as if I were to say, Sweetheart, you know 
that I will always there for you. I am always going to support you and 
you can go out and I will take care of finding a place for you to stay. 
You can have a place to stay and I will make sure that you have medical 
treatment. If you want to have children, you can have children and I 
will be there for you and I will support that. But I have a couple of 
conditions. The first condition is that you cannot get married, and the 
second condition is that you cannot get a job. As long as you do not 
get a job and do not get married, I will be there for you. I will 
continue to support you. As many kids as you want to have, that is 
fine, and I will continue to do that for you.
  And if I were to say to my sons, I have two sons, one 13 and one 15, 
but when they get a little older I were to say to them, Listen, boys, 
now that you are young men, I am going to take care of you and you can 
go out and have as many kids as you want. Father as many kids as you 
want, but I have a couple of conditions for you too. Number one is you 
cannot get married and I do not want you to take care of these kids. 
You are not going to be financially responsible. Second of all, I do 
not want you to get a job. As long as 

[[Page H11583]]

you do not get a job and you are not financially responsible for the 
kids that you father, I will take care of you.
  What do you think you get out of that if that were the way that you 
were going to treat your children? I can guarantee we would get a lot 
of illegitimate babies. That is what we have gotten in this country 
right now. There are a lot of people that seem to think that this is 
only a problem that exists in the minority community, and they are 
absolutely wrong.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The illegitimacy among whites is going up faster than 
the blacks' illegitimacy rate.
  Mr. HOKE. That is exactly right. Right now overall in the country one 
out of four Caucasian babies is born out of wedlock and two out of 
three babies in the minority community are born out of wedlock. Fully 
one-third of all the babies in this country are born illegitimate.
  In my opinion, that is, A, exactly what we have bargained for with 
respect to the Federal programs that we have created; and B, and I will 
not say that the Federal programs have done this solely. I think it 
would be silly and simplistic to suggest that Federal programs are the 
sole reason for that, but it is a piece of the puzzle. It is part of 
why this has happened. But the other thing is I honestly believe that 
going into the 21st century the largest problem that we have to face as 
a Nation and community and society is the problem that comes along with 
these incredible numbers of illegitimate births.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Generally, the children who are born to mothers who are 
children, not age-appropriate to be mothers, these kids go on to be 
dependent, to be school dropouts and drug users. That is statistically 
a fact and something we have to deal with.
  I want to recognize the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler]. I 
wanted to say this about him, and stop me if I am incorrect on this. 
Mr. Chrysler did not go to college and started immediately after high 
school working for an automobile customizing company. Within a number 
of years of hard work, he ended up buying the company from his 
employer, selling it, and reselling it, and going on and owning other 
businesses and has certainly lived the American dream.
  Along the way, had no help from the Department of Commerce, which is 
there to help businessmen like Mr. Chrysler somewhere out there, 
hypothetically, to become entrepreneurs. He did it somehow without 
their help. Now his number one goal is to abolish the Department of 
Commerce. He has succeeded in that. We passed that in the 
reconciliation bill in the House.

                              {time}  2045

  We have got some problems in the Senate, but Mr. Chrysler, we are 
delighted to have you here and delighted to have people like you in 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Chrysler].
  Mr. CHRYSLER. Certainly, it is a story that you only can hear in 
America. Certainly that is why I am here in Congress, because I want to 
make sure that my kids and certainly your kids and Marty's kids all 
have that same opportunity, because when it is their turn, they at 
least deserve the opportunity.
  Marty, when he was talking about his daughter, we really have changed 
this system and it has been a tremendous bill that the House passed. 
Because we have given the opportunity now to people to get on that 
bottom rung of that economic ladder, start climbing up out of that 
dependency on welfare and getting there and not have to lose their 
child or day care, not losing their health care and not losing their 
educational opportunities while they are doing that. So it is a 
dramatic change, and I think it is something that 88 percent of the 
American people are saying, please change this welfare system from a 
system that has trapped people on dependency to where we are going 
today.
  It is interesting to note, by the way, that last May we heard a huge 
hue and cry about the school lunch program. The Republicans were going 
to eliminate the school lunch program. We are going to take the food 
out of the children's mouth. But, in fact, guess what happened in 
August? We started another school year, did we not? Not one story about 
a school lunch program or a child going without a lunch.
  So I guess, digressing a little bit, and going back to the Commerce 
Department, I did business in 52 countries around the world, never 
called the Commerce Department. They never called me. That was fine. 
And I am proud to say that these freshmen that we have here tonight, 
J.D. and Lindsey and certainly Marty and yourself, Jack, all helped us 
to put a bill through this House that gave us welfare reform, gave us 
Medicare reform, gave us tax cuts, gave us a balanced budget in 7 years 
and gave us medical savings accounts in this country and dismantled a 
complete cabinet level position for the first time in the history of 
this country.
  The legislation went through 11 committees in this House. I testified 
in front of those committees. It was unprecedented to be able to bring 
legislation through there. But it was a very simple and easy story. If 
the Department of Commerce was in fact the voice of business, as you 
alluded to, Jack, then they would be right now supporting the balanced 
budget, the capital gains tax cut, the tort reform, the regulatory 
reform, because that is what American businesses need. They need to 
have the government get off of their backs and let them produce their 
products, quality products at a good price for the American public. In 
fact, just the opposite, they are diametrically opposed to all of those 
things.
  The Commerce Department was made up of 100 different programs; 71 of 
them duplicated someplace else within the Federal Government. And we 
took it one program at a time. We looked at them and we said, we are 
going to eliminate the programs that we do not need; we are going to 
consolidate the duplicative programs. We are going to privatize 
programs that can be better done by the private sector. And we are 
going to streamline the operations that we needed to keep.
  Mr. KINGSTON. What was the bottom line savings on this dismantling of 
the cabinet?

  Mr. CHRYSLER. About $6 to $47 billion, but more importantly, the 
Commerce Department is set up to give away about $1 billion a year, 
corporate welfare it is called, Robert Reich calls it corporate 
welfare. So if we do not have a Commerce Department for 50 years, we 
just do not give away $50 billion. That is the real savings to the 
American public. They get a better bang, certainly, for their buck.
  We need to have a little less government, lower taxes, we need to let 
people keep more of what they earn and save. And we need to let people 
make their own decisions about how they spend their money.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I think the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Hoke, and I are 
curious because our freshman class had some reforms. How did your 
freshman class, how did you decide to dismantle the Department of 
Commerce, how do 72 Members come together on an idea like this? Because 
it is certainly revolutionary.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. First of all, we have to tip our caps rhetorically, at 
least, to you gentlemen who preceded us. There were too few of you to 
have a majority. As our friend from Michigan supplied, we all wore pins 
for a good deal of time during the transition that called us the 
majority makers. As the late Walter Brennan used to say on the western 
show, this is no brag, just fact. I will spare the vocal intonations.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thought that was Jack Webb who said, just the facts.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. This is no brag, just facts.
  This is a major story in American history. The fact is that a class 
of 73 coming in to change and help symbolize and really do more than 
symbolize a historic shift in the balance of power simply rested upon 
the power of ideas. And it is a tribute to the gentleman from Michigan, 
who, as you very gratefully and very articulately detailed, worked his 
way up. Let us also pause here, despite his last name, his benefactor 
is not the Chrysler Corp. Am I right about that?
  Mr. CHRYSLER. The gentleman is right.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. So those sitting at home saying, oh, sure, he had Lee 
Iacocca helping him every step of the way, are sorely mistaken. His 
business was a home grown business. But he took that same type of drive 
and discipline and working with other Members of the freshman class 
through a 

[[Page H11584]]

group known as the New Federalists did the heavy lifting. And when 
people said it could not be done and when it got bogged down in 
institutional inertia, the fact is that Members of this new majority, 
including several of you folks who have been here for awhile, stepped 
forward to say this is too important to leave to the institutional 
business as usual.
  And the important thing to note is that, several Presidents have come 
to that podium here in this Chamber during joint sessions of Congress, 
during the respective State of the Union Message, talking about 
reducing the Cabinet-level agencies. And yet, because there was an 
unwilling majority on this hill that always believed in the growth of 
big government, those best laid plans were put aside. They were put on 
the table. And now, ironically, it is the legislative branch serving as 
the catalyst to reform and downsize the executive branch and actually 
all of Government. So my friend from Michigan is to be commended.
  Mr. CHRYSLER. It is important, because the freshman class set our 
actually looking at four different departments: Departments of HUD, 
Energy, Education, and Commerce. Three of those, I am proud to say, 
passed and went into the budget resolution act by the Commerce on the 
Budget: Education, Energy, and Commerce. Unfortunately, we could only 
get the Senate to pass the Commerce. And now we are having a problem 
with the Senate getting that one in reconciliation because of a thing 
known over in the Senate as the Byrd rule. I think there is a little 
difference between running for reelection every 2 years rather than 6 
years.
  Mr. KINGSTON. That bird is an ostrich, I have come to the conclusion.
  Mr. GRAHAM. I remember when we first got together as a class, I did a 
survey, I think it was in Baltimore. Would you be in favor of 
abolishing the following departments, and the four that you named are 
about 85-percent agreement on those issues.
  Our class as a whole drank the same water, from South Carolina to 
Maine to California to all over this country. We could have taken our 
campaign literature and I think made overlays. It was remarkable to me 
how much consensus there was among 73 people from different parts of 
the country who viewed the problems in Washington, DC, very similar.
  Most of us have limited our own terms. Over half of us have never 
been in politics. When we add our class with your class, there is about 
100 votes in this institution to really change the way you define 
compassion.
  To me compassion is not how much money you can spend or how many 
agencies you create in Washington. At the end of the day, how many 
people have you helped? If that is the standard, we have done pretty 
poor with this model of government.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I know Mr. Hoke and I, if you remember when we were 
sworn in 3 years ago, we had all these great hopes. I think we have 
pushed some things through. But we really did need to merge our 
fighting 48.
  Mr. HOKE. The reality is that this is a winner takes all institution 
and that if you are going to change things, you have to have the 
majority on the opening day.
  You get to name the Speaker. The Speaker, names the committee chairs. 
And to be in the minority in this institution is to be certainly about 
to do things and to help constituents, but it is to be largely 
marginalized. The fact is that you could, it would be very difficult to 
overstate the importance of taking over the majority in the House of 
Representatives.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me modify that. I know that the gentleman is 
saying. The majority is the party in here who agrees with the American 
people. One party in here does not make the majority. One party plus 
the American people. And I believe that is what we had when we defeated 
the socialized medicine plan last year.

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