[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 193 (Wednesday, December 6, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14148-H14156]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               BALANCING THE BUDGET AND TROOPS IN BOSNIA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to first yield to the gentleman 
from the great State of Pennsylvania, the Keystone State [Mr. Fox]. We 
want to talk a little bit tonight about the budget, and then perhaps 
about the other big issue that I think Americans are concerned with, 
the issue of Bosnia.
  So I welcome Representative Fox, and maybe we can talk a little bit 
about how we got to where we are now and a little bit about the 
Balanced Budget Act.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the leadership the 
gentleman has taken here in the 104th Congress in focusing our 
attention on balancing the budget. Mr. Speaker, this is probably the 
most important issue we have before us, to make sure that we can reduce 
the cost of government, eliminate the waste, the fraud, and the abuse, 
and get down to the services that the Federal Government should be 
taking care of.
  The fact that we have not balanced the budget since 1969 has given us 
approximately a $5 trillion debt, and we are paying for that every day, 
every man, woman, and child in the United States. It has been told to 
us by no less 

[[Page H 14149]]
than Alan Greenspan, Congressman Gutknecht, that if we in fact come to 
a balanced budget within 7 years, we will not only increase the number 
of jobs in the United States by about 200,000 or 300,000, but we will 
as well reduce the cost of home mortgage payments, we will reduce car 
payments and, as well, reduce the cost of college loans. I think that 
is a pretty significant way to helping everyone in America, whether it 
be seniors, working families and children, making sure they can realize 
the American dream.
  I yield back.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think we should talk a little bit about how we got 
to where we are. You and I were both elected last November as members 
of this freshman class, and I think it is important sometimes to 
reflect back on what the American people were saying a little over 12 
months ago. I think what they were really saying is that they 
understand that the Federal Government has grown too big, it spends too 
much, it wastes too much of their tax dollars, and they want the 
Federal Government to be put on a diet.
  I think they fundamentally believe, and that is what my constituents 
still are telling me, that it is time to make the Federal Government do 
what every family has to do, what every business has had to do. In 
fact, if you look at every major corporation, every minor corporation, 
every small corporation, every small business, every single day they 
have to figure out ways to be more efficient. But that is not true of 
the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, the first chart I want to show, and I am sure you are 
familiar with it as well, Representative Fox, is what the President 
originally proposed in terms of his, quote, ``balanced budget plan.'' 
Now, this is what the 10-year balanced budget plan would have produced 
in terms of deficits for as far as the eye could see.
  This is scored by the Congressional Budget Office, and I think that 
is the source that the President recommended a few years ago that we 
use, and the reason is, the CBO has historically been more accurate, 
more conservative, than any of the other sources which score some of 
our budget proposals.
  As you can see, in the year 1996, his proposal would have produced a 
$196 billion deficit; in 1997, $212 billion; in 1998, $199 billion; in 
the year 1999, $213 billion; 2000, $220 billion; 2001, $211 billion; 
2002, $210 billion, and on out to the year 2005, over $209 billion, 
over $200 billion deficits literally for as far as the eye could see.

  That is not what I think the American people wanted when they asked 
us to balance the budget. I do not think they meant a 10-year plan 
which creates almost an additional $2 trillion worth of debt. Perhaps 
you want to talk a little bit about what the American people have said 
and what this plan said.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. I think the American public made it very 
clear, Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike, that in fact 
what they want is a balanced budget. They have to balance their budget, 
the schools do, the States do, as you said earlier.
  Congressman Gutknecht, I know when you were in Minnesota, you had to 
balance the budget in the State government when you served there in the 
State legislature.
  The fact is, on Monday, November 20, Congressman Gutknecht, the 
President finally agreed to balance the budget in 7 years with honest 
numbers from the Congressional Budget Office. The President said at 
that time that he agreed with the Congress to do as follows: The 
President and the Congress shall enact legislation in the first session 
of the 104th Congress to achieve a balanced budget not later than the 
year 2002, as estimated by CBO, and the President and the Congress 
agreed that the balanced budget must protect future generations, ensure 
Medicare solvency, reform welfare, and provide adequate funding for 
Medicaid, education, agriculture, national defense, veterans, and the 
environment.
  Further, the balanced budget shall adopt tax policies to help working 
families and to stimulate future economic growth.
  Yet despite all of that on November 20, today, just 2 weeks later, or 
less than 2 weeks, the President vetoed a balanced budget bill.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Now, Representative Fox, it seemed to me like you were 
reading something there. Was that an actual agreement that was signed?
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Yes, it was.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. More importantly, I think, as I understand that, that 
was actually signed into law. So that is not a campaign promise, that 
is actually a Federal law. Am I correct in that?

  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Yes, you are correct in that, Congressman 
Gutknecht. What he said, his commitment was detailed in a continuing 
resolution to fund the Federal Government to December 15.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. So now we have a law, a Federal law, which is a 
commitment by the President and this Congress to work together to 
produce a 7-year balanced budget plan, scored by CBO. What were some of 
the other things that you mentioned, some language that provides 
adequate funding for what?
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. For Medicare and for welfare, for adequate 
funding for Medicaid, for education, agriculture, veterans programs, 
and the environment.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, we all support that, and I think we can do that 
with the budget we proposed that the President vetoed today that calls 
for spending almost $12.1 trillion over the next 7 years.
  Let me point out something else, Representative Fox, and I think you 
are probably aware of this. But right at the bottom of this chart it 
also points out that the President's plan was offered for a vote in the 
Senate, and it got zero votes. As a matter of fact, it was defeated 96 
to zero.
  To their credit, some of our colleagues here in the House offered 
their own budget alternative, and I do give them credit for that. They 
went to an awful lot of work to put together a budget alternative to 
ours. Unfortunately, it only got 73 votes. As you and I both know, one 
of the critical ingredients in terms of actually structuring a budget 
and putting it together is, you have to get at least 218 votes in the 
House and 51 votes in the Senate; otherwise, you are really just sort 
of whistling in the wind. It really does not make any difference. 
Unfortunately, our colleagues in the coalition in the House only got 73 
votes for theirs.
  What we have put together, and I think it is important that we 
understand this, is not only have we put together a balanced budget 
plan which meets the CBO test, which actually balances the budget in 7 
years or less, but we were able to get 218 votes in the House and 51 
votes in the Senate. So we passed the two most important hurdles.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, the fact is that you have been 
working and struggling and hoping that we can get this bipartisan 
support, and I think we will eventually, because I think the American 
people are now saying, they want a balanced budget. They want the 
Federal services that the Government can provide where the States 
cannot take care of them better. What is surprising under that 
Republican plan that was sent to the President, Medicare spending would 
total $1.6 trillion, $724 billion more than was spent during the 
previous 7 years, a 63-percent increase.

                              {time}  2030

  When it comes to welfare, the Republican plan would have welfare 
spending total $878 billion during the next 7 years, $386 billion more 
than was spent during the last 7 years, a 78 percent increase.
  Under Medicaid, the Republican plan gives States $791 billion in 
grant assistance over the next 7 years. That is $358 billion more than 
was spent during the previous 7 years, a 79 percent increase.
  On education, under our plan the amount of money available for 
student loans increases nearly 50 percent during the next 7 years, 
rising from $24 billion in 1995 to $36 billion in 2002, and the number 
of student loans will increase from 6.6 million in 1995 to 7.1 million 
in 1996, the most ever made available.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I want the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] and I 
to come back to those numbers, but before we do, I want to go back to 
this basic point, the commitment to a 7-year balanced budget plan.
  I want to read this quote again for the Members who are watching in 
their offices and perhaps Americans who are 

[[Page H 14150]]
watching at home: ``The President and the Congress shall.'' It does not 
say ``ought to,'' or ``it would be a good idea'' or ``may.'' It says, 
``The President and the Congress shall enact legislation in the first 
session,'' that means before we start next year, ``of the 104th 
Congress to achieve a balanced budget not later than the fiscal year 
2002 as estimated by the Congressional Budget Office.''
  That is a direct quote. That is what the agreement was. That is what 
the President signed and, most important, that is currently Federal 
law. I guess it is good news and bad news.
  The bad news is the President vetoed our attempt today at that plan. 
We had a plan that we felt very good about, that we felt we could 
defend. It met the CBO test and it met the vote test and we were able 
to get the votes to pass it here in the House. That is the bad news, 
that he vetoed our plan today.
  The good news, though, is I think the President now is serious. I 
think the reason he is serious, as the late Senator from Illinois used 
to say, the late Everett Dirksen, ``The more I feel the heat, the more 
I see the light.'' I think the President is beginning to feel the heat 
and I think the administration understands that the American people 
want us to balance the budget in 7 years.
  There is another important point that I think the American people 
want. The more I hear from the American people, the more I hear them 
saying they also want that tax relief, because they understand very, 
very well what it could mean to them and their families if the $500-
per-child tax credit passes.
  To many families, the average family with almost three children, let 
us say the average family with three kids in my district or your 
district, that is an extra $1,500 in their pockets every year, cash 
that they can spend to do some home improvements, to buy a new 
automobile, to take the kids on a vacation, a fishing vacation of some 
kind, or just to invest and save for the future for the kids' 
education. So that $500 per child tax credit, people understand very, 
very clearly.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. Let me add to that, I agree with the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht]. Beyond that, the tax reform 
that we have adopted in the House, and hopefully will be adopted by the 
President as well and signed into law, a joint bill from the Senate and 
the House, will in fact also give us some other items that are 
important.
  It will give us the opportunity for the first time to have a new IRA 
for $2,000 for individuals, $4,000 for couples, an elder care tax 
credit, a capital gains tax reduction for individuals of 19 percent, 
for businesses 28 percent, which will give the infusion of more 
savings, new jobs, expansion of businesses.
  It will help our seniors by rolling back the 1993 tax increase on 
Social Security benefits, together with the opportunity for seniors to 
earn more. Right now seniors under 70 are capped at $11,280, that they 
will have deductions from Social Security. But with the new law we just 
adopted here in the House, seniors will be able to earn up to $30,000 a 
year without those deductions from their Social Security.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think seniors can understand that. In fact, I met 
with one the other day working at a Wal-Mart store in Mankato. Her name 
is Muriel.
  If you stop and think about it, in effect Muriel is paying among the 
highest tax rates of anybody in the United States. As a matter of fact, 
there is a very good chance that Muriel is paying a higher tax rate 
than Ross Perot and some of the wealthiest Americans.
  The American people are not completely confident that we are going to 
be able to follow through on our promise to balance this budget in 7 
years. They hope we do, they think we should, but the one thing they 
can understand is if next year they actually get this $500 per child 
tax credit.

  Let us talk a little bit, and perhaps the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Fox] wants to talk about this chart as well, where the benefits 
really go, because some of our colleagues on the other side have 
attempted to sort of distort this issue and to explain that, well, this 
is a tax cut for the rich. I wonder if we could talk a little bit about 
this chart and where the benefits really go. Perhaps you want to share 
some of those ideas.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. The fact is there are so many families who 
will benefit if this does get adopted. I wish you would explain to our 
colleagues on the floor tonight and those in their offices just what 
the percentages are, because the poster is closer to you.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me just explain what this chart says. This is 
according to the Heritage Foundation, and they got the information from 
us.
  The truth of the matter is that 89 percent of the benefit will go to 
families earning less than $75,000 a year. Let me repeat that. Eighty-
nine percent of the benefit, of the $500-per-child tax credit, will go 
to families with incomes of less than $75,000 a year. If you look at 
it, only 4 percent will go to families earning more than $100,000 a 
year, and only 7 percent will to families earning between $75,000 and 
$100,000.
  The truth of the matter is when you talk about this per-child family 
tax credit of $500, the overwhelming bulk of the benefit goes to 
average middle-class families, and that is the people we believe 
deserve the relief. As a matter of fact, you may have heard us talk 
about it before, that in 1950 the average family was sending about 3 
percent of their gross income to the Federal Government. Today that 
number is up to 24.5 percent of their gross revenues are going to the 
Federal Government.
  Families are the ones who need the tax relief the most. So what we 
are proposing is saying we believe, and I think the American people 
understand this better than the people here in Washington do, but we 
happen to believe that families can spend that money much more 
efficiently than the Federal Government. Let us allow them to keep more 
of their revenue, let them keep more of their income and spend it 
themselves, because they are the ones who know how to spend it the 
most efficiently.

  As this chart underscores, even more important than anything I have 
seen is that the overwhelming amount of the benefit is going to go to 
middle and lower middle income families. We believe that is a good 
thing and, more importantly, the American people can understand this 
chart even better than the experts here in Washington.
  I would like to welcome the gentleman from Las Vegas, NV [Mr. 
Ensign], the former Speaker of the House, to join us in this debate.
  Mr. ENSIGN. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota for yielding.
  I serve on the Committee on Ways and Means. We had a lot of debate 
this year about tax cuts. I am sure, as many of my colleagues in the 
freshman class, when we were out on the campaign trail last year there 
were a lot of us that were told by the American people that they feel 
this weight and this tremendous burden of the Federal Government, and 
this debt that they feel on them. They feel that more and more the 
working middle class is bearing this tremendous debt load, that career 
politicians that have been unable and unwilling to say no to the 
special interest groups have continued to put on them.
  If we think back to the 1950's, and especially seniors remember this, 
the average family of four back in the 1950's paid about $1 out of $50 
to the Federal Government. Today the average, just the average income 
family of four, pays about $1 out of $4 to the Federal Government.
  The reason is, it has to do with what is happening with your chart, 
and that is that the personal exemption did not keep pace with 
inflation. If you look at virtually everything across the board, 
whether you are talking about a carton of milk or a loaf of bread or 
cars or houses, if you adjust for inflation, they all cost pretty much 
the same. Their earning dollars pretty much buy them the same thing 
they bought back in the 1950's.
  The difference between the 1950's and today is the tax burden. That 
is the reason in a two-parent family that when one of the parents, 
especially when the children are young--and I just had a little girl 
that was born on Saturday.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Have you named her yet?
  Mr. ENSIGN. Yes, her name is Sienna.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Sienna. Did you tell her about the debt she inherited 
when she was born? 

[[Page H 14151]]


  Mr. ENSIGN. It is $187,000 this year. I try not to politicize my 
daughter's birth this year.
  Fortunately, I am in an income category where my wife has chosen to 
stay home with the kids for the first 4 or 5 years of their life. We 
are fortunate to be in an income category to be able to afford that.
  It used to be in the 1950's that the average income family could 
afford, in a two-parent family, if either the husband or the wife 
wanted to stay home and stay with the kids and nurture those kids, 
especially during those formative years, they could afford to do that. 
But today they cannot afford to do it, and it is not that they do not 
earn enough money. It is that the tax burden is too high, and that is 
one of the things that this $500 per child tax credit will do.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is basically what has happened in the last 30 or 
40 years, is the Federal Government has grown in its influence over our 
daily lives and the family has actually diminished. What we are trying 
to do is reinforce families, because we know that the cornerstone of 
the western civilization is strong families.
  So this is something that I feel--and you hate to always speak for 
the freshman class, I know you are a member of the class and the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] is a member of the freshman 
class--but I think this is something we feel very, very strongly about. 
We are willing to negotiate in good faith with the President and the 
administration.
  But in terms of ever giving up on the $500-per-child tax credit, I 
think it is one thing that I hope that our class and members of this 
side of the aisle will fight to the bitter end, because I think this is 
something the American people can understand. It is going to mean cash 
in their pockets. It is going to mean money that they get to spend 
rather than sending it to Washington, and I think that is really what 
the American people want.
  I think they want us to downsize the Federal Government. They know it 
is inefficient, and frankly they are correct. The more I have been 
here, the more I have realized just how incredibly inefficient this 
Federal Government is, and the most efficient spender of resources in 
this country is the American family. Why should we not allow them to 
keep more of their money and spend it themselves?
  Mr. ENSIGN. If the gentleman will yield, one of the things, this $245 
billion number has been just demagogued to death because they talk 
about this huge tax cut.

  Over the next 7 years, under the Republican proposal, we are going to 
spend about $12.2 trillion. If you think about $1 trillion, to get to 
$1 trillion, if you had a business that lost $1 million a day, 7 days a 
week, 365 days a year, you would have to have that business start at 
the time of Christ, till now, plus another almost 700 years to get to 
$1 trillion.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. So if you spent $1 million a day 365 days a year from 
the time of Christ until now.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Plus 700 years. To get to $1 trillion.
  In the last 7 years, the Federal Government spent a little over $9 
trillion. Under the Republican proposal that you hear about all these 
cuts, we are going to spend a little over $12 trillion. President 
Clinton wants to spend almost $13 trillion. So the difference is not in 
whether we are cutting anything. The difference is whether we are going 
to increase Federal spending by $3 trillion or $4 trillion.
  The reason I bring up those numbers, because they are so staggering 
and they are so hard to think about, is the dollars. These are tax, 
that is all that is, that is money raised from taxes. The $245 billion 
is less than 2 percent of the $12.2 trillion. That is what we are 
talking about. We are only talking about cutting taxes by 2 percent.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. So all of these tax cuts that we are hearing 
demagogued every day on the House floor represents only 2 percent of 
all the Federal spending over the next 7 years?
  Mr. ENSIGN. Staggering numbers. That is why if we could just be 
honest with the American people, and I am sure you heard during your 
campaign, why can they not be honest with what they are telling us from 
Washington. Forget about this political spin, just be honest. If we can 
go to Medicare and tell people, and when you do this, the light bulb 
just goes off, they say, ``Why are they saying that?''
  In Medicare, the total spending in Medicare over the last 7 years was 
a little over $900 billion, almost $1 trillion. The next 7 years under 
the Republican proposal, we will spend a little over $1.6 trillion. It 
is over $700 billion more. Not less. More. I know the educational 
system is not what it once was, but still, when you spend $700 billion 
more we still call that addition, and I still think they call that 
addition today. This is what certain people in this Congress are 
calling a cut, is $700 billion more spending.
  I think the chart you have up there talks about some of the premiums, 
the part B premiums. That is the part that does to doctors. Part A 
trust fund is the part that goes to hospitals. Part B premiums and part 
B of the Medicare part is the part that goes to doctors. Why do you not 
explain a little bit about the differences between the Republican 
proposal and the Clinton proposal.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think it is important and instructive, and one of my 
favorite quotes is from John Adams, one of the Founders of this great 
country, and he said that facts are stubborn things, and that sort of 
is what we have been talking about is let us get the facts out there.
  Interestingly enough, we just got back a rather in-depth poll. I do 
not think you should make public policy based upon polls. I think it 
does confirm instinctively what all of us believe; that is, if the 
American people are given facts, they overwhelmingly support what we 
are doing. As a matter of fact, the interesting thing is there was a 
separate poll we did a couple of weeks ago when they asked the American 
people essentially some of the questions that are being posed by some 
of the other national polling media outlets; for example, do you think 
the Republicans are cutting Medicare too much? Not surprising, a 
majority of Americans said ``yes.'' But when we explain to them in our 
poll what the numbers really were and that we were actually increasing 
total Medicare spending from something like $189 billion a year to $278 
billion a year over only 7 years per year and----
  Mr. ENSIGN. And per person.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. On a per capita basis, per recipient spending actually 
increases from $4,800 a year this year to $7,000 a year.
  The interesting thing is when you tell the American people that, in 
one poll we did a few weeks ago, 63 percent, after they learned that 
information, after they heard the facts, they said you are increasing 
spending too much on Medicare.
  So I think once we get our side of the story told, what this chart 
basically demonstrates is, while the administration has been demagoging 
to a certain degree, our Medicare part B premiums plan, the truth of 
the matter is, if you extend it out to the seventh year, we are really 
only talking about a difference between our plan and the President's 
plan of $4.80 a year. Now, that is almost nothing.
  Mr. ENSIGN. The difference between the President's plan and our plan, 
how many years does that save Medicare? We save Medicare to what year 
versus what?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. With this chart, we are only talking about part B. 
When you are talking about the part A trust funds, when you start 
talking about the trust funds, we are talking about saving the Medicare 
system from imminent bankruptcy, which the trustees of the Medicare 
trust fund came out earlier in April and told us that there is a 
drastic----
  Mr. ENSIGN. The Medicare trustees, who are they appointed by?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Appointed by the President; I think three members of 
his own Cabinet.
  Mr. ENSIGN. He appoints every single member of the trustees, as I 
recall?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I believe that is correct. The point is they have no 
interest in telling us anything than the truth. What they said was, 
unless the Congress gets serious about reforming the Medicare system, 
it is going to go bankrupt in 7 years. It will not be able to make the 
payments.
  I think everyone now acknowledges there is a serious problem. Again, 
we have advanced a plan which uses market-based reforms, which I think 
the American people can understand.

[[Page H 14152]]

  Essentially, one of the reasons they did not like the Clinton health 
care reform plans that came out a year and a half ago was they did not 
really believe the Federal Government could do a much more efficient 
job of running the health delivery system than the private sector. What 
we did was sort of change the whole notion. Let us see if we can use 
the things working so well in the private sector to help control costs 
in Medicare. I am absolutely confident our reform plans are going to 
work.

  More important than that, I am convinced seniors who decide to 
participate in some of these new Medicare-plus programs that we are 
putting together and allowing to operate, I think, in the end of just a 
few years, many of them are going to say, ``Yes, I like this plan much 
better than what we had before,'' because they are going to have 
options, they are going to have choices, they are going to be treated 
like human beings, just like everybody else out there.
  Mr. ENSIGN. You received just recently, like I did, like virtually 
every other Member of Congress and every Federal employee did during 
this enrollment period now, where we decide by January which plan we 
are going to have; I am holding up a card here and this card is a Blue 
Cross/Blue Shield card. You have the same card. Over 90 percent of the 
Members of the House of Representatives have this card. The Speaker of 
the House has this very same card.
  What we are talking about here is something called a PPO. Seniors in 
the United States today do not have the same option to choose the 
health insurance that you and I have to choose, the same as the Speaker 
of the House has to choose. What we are doing, and, by the way, a PPO 
is managed care. The vast majority of Americans do not understand that 
a PPO is actually managed care. It is a very good managed care.
  We are going to give the seniors options to be able to choose a PPO, 
just like you and I have the option each year to choose a PPO, and HMO, 
fee-for-service, medical savings accounts or these new things called 
provider sponsor organizations. Can you imagine, imagine this scenario, 
let us say we had all of those options currently in Medicare, can you 
imagine what would happen, what AARP would say to Members of Congress 
if we took a whole list of options that seniors had and now tried to 
reverse it and say no, no, no, we have got a better system for you; 
instead of having all of those options and all of those things, you can 
choose from each year, we are going to give you fee-for-service; in a 
couple of areas of the country we will give you HMOs. That is all you 
get. Can you imagine the uproar?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. They would not stand for it.
  Mr. ENSIGN. We would have 34 million seniors marching on Washington 
tomorrow. That is exactly, I mean, if people think about it in that 
context, we are giving them more choices, more freedoms.
  The chart you hold up is only people that stay in fee-for-service, 
and the people that choose PPOs, many of them will actually have less 
out-of-pocket expenses because they will not have, or these companies 
will be able to pay their Medicare part B premiums. They may get 
prescription drug coverage.
  I have three grandmothers on Medicare. It is absolutely 
heartbreaking. Luckily, I am able to help some of my grandmothers, with 
different members of our family help, and sometimes if it was not for 
that, they would have to choose between what they ate that month and 
getting prescription drugs. Many seniors are in this same boat.
  What we want to do is be able to offer seniors in all parts of the 
country so many choices they will have that option so they do not have 
to make the choice between what they eat that month and between getting 
prescription drugs.
  So I think we just have to put the politics aside. Who cares whether 
it is Democrats, whether it is Republicans? We have to put the politics 
aside and do what is right for this country.

  Mr. GUTKNECHT. The American people, I think, understand this. In 
fact, when you talk about health care reform, if you look at what has 
happened in the private sector over the last number of years, we have 
literally seen the reforms with the various kinds of managed care and 
much more sophisticated kinds of managed care which are doing an 
incredibly good job of controlling the growth in health care costs. As 
a matter of fact, in the State of Minnesota, where we have probably 
more managed care than virtually any other State in the Union, we have 
seen health care costs over the last 18 months increasing at only about 
1.1 percent.
  If you look at the private or at the public sector side, if you look 
at Medicare or Medicaid, we have had health care inflation at a rate of 
10.5 percent. So the truth of the matter is we absolutely know that 
managed care will work. It will help control costs.
  But more important than that, in the State of Minnesota, we had a 
study that was done where they interviewed over 17,000 recipients of 
health care and asked them about how satisfied they were with their 
health care, and the interesting thing was among seniors who were 
already in some kind of managed care, their satisfaction with the plan 
that they have is 3 times greater than those who were in the standard 
Medicare fee-for-service plan.
  So it is not just about saving costs. It is not just about squeezing 
out some of the waste and mismanagement which we know is there.
  I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Fox] has done more to 
study the whole issue of waste, fraud and abuse in the health care 
system than anybody. I think if you create these managed care systems 
and create competition out there, we are going to attack that waste, 
fraud and abuse so we have more health care for fewer dollars.
  Mr. FOX of Pennsylvania. I appreciate your leadership as well as the 
gentleman from Nevada [Mr. Ensign] as well as the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Cunningham].
  We can achieve savings we want by making sure we attack for the first 
time that health care fraud. Medicare fraud is $30 billion a year. By 
getting that savings, by offering choice, reducing paperwork costs and 
making sure we have an efficient system, health care will be preserved 
for our seniors under Medicare, and we can balance the budget, and I 
know that the gentleman from California [Mr. Cunningham] from his own 
experience can tell us about parts of the balanced budget amendment and 
the Balanced Budget Act that relates to his district, if he could join 
us in this discussion for that purpose.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. He is not a freshman, but we will allow him in on this 
debate, the gentleman from San Diego, CA [Mr. Cunningham].
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. If you remember, it was our freshman class when I 
went aboard 5 years ago that had the gang of 7 that closed down the 
House bank, that found out they were selling cocaine downstairs here, 
and brought the check scandal to fruition. I think it was the first 
radical group to come in to make change, and the sophomore class 
followed, and the 75 young Turks that came in after that have done a 
bang-up job.
  I thank you for yielding, and one of the things I would like to talk 
to is that, you know, some of the more radical Members on the other 
side of the aisle say that, well, we are cutting education, we are 
cutting the environment, we are cutting, hurting senior citizens.

  Unfortunately, this place is about power. It is about the power to be 
reelected. The power to be reelected over the last 40 years means the 
power to disburse money from the Federal Government down to the lower 
ranks so they are going to vote for you so you can get reelected so 
that you have got the power, and to support that you need the big 
bureaucracy to support the flow of the money so you can get reelected 
so you have got the power.
  What we are doing, and I think the American people would have a 
legitimate complaint if this Congress and the Republicans were trying 
to shift that power to the Republican Party, but the whole agenda and a 
balanced budget amendment and the agenda that we are trying to do is 
take that power not to Republicans but to the American people, to the 
States, where it can be more effectively used. We believe that 
government works closest to the people and it works best there.

[[Page H 14153]]

  You will hear over and over and over again by more liberal Members 
from Congress here that this is the only place that those decisions can 
be made. The States cannot make those decisions because in the past 
they have failed and that they are the only ones that can tell the 
American people how to do their business. That is a good issue.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is so important because I think there is sort of 
this argument that if we do not do the spending, if we do not do the 
regulating, if we do not do not the controlling, it will not get done. 
This is not a debate about how much money is going to be spent on 
education, how much money is going to be spent on nutrition or how much 
is going to be spent on health care. This is really a fundamental 
debate about who going to do the spending and who can do it more 
efficiently.
  Wht we are really talking about, as you say, you said it so well, is 
returning more of that decisionmaking back to the States and, more 
importantly, wherever possible and with the $500 per child tax credit, 
giving it back to the families because families are much more efficient 
than local governments, and local governments are much more efficient 
than State governments, and State governments are far more efficient 
than Federal Governments. That is why we are talking about welfare 
reform. We need to talk a little more about that because, again, I 
think the American people are so far out in front of us it is not even 
funny. I think they know the welfare system that has been created, 
controlled, directed, and regulated by the Federal Government has been 
an abysmal failure. They do not have to go very far in any direction, 
particularly if they come to this city, to see the results of 30 years 
of the social welfare state.
  As a matter of fact, here in Washington, DC, if we go 10 blocks 
literally in any direction from this Capitol, you will see the results 
of 30 years of the social welfare state, and the results are 
devastating and not just in terms of the total costs. We all know we 
have spent over $5 trillion over the last 30 years, but the real cost 
is in the human cost because we have replaced self-reliance and 
families with debt, dependency and despair, and that is what the 
American people want changed. They know the real way is to send it back 
to the States through block grants to allow local communities and local 
individuals to help those who need the help.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Let me be very specific. I would like, Mr. Speaker, 
for you to listen to these figures because they are accurate and they 
are important in this debate. The Federal Government only supports 
7 percent of education funding, 7 percent. 93 percent of all education 
is paid for out of State tax dollars.

  Now, of that 7 percent that we send to States, it occupies over 50 
percent of the rules and regulations and burden on the State itself. It 
represents 75 percent of the paperwork that the State and the schools 
have to go through that tie up portions of the 93 cents that comes out 
of the State tax dollars.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Say that again. I think that needs to be repeated. 
That it is a powerful set of statistics.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. It is. It is very accurate. It is accurate for any 
State you go into. We happen to have one in eight Americans lives in 
the State of California. It is the same for any one of the States. The 
Federal Government only provides 7 percent of the funding for 
education. 93 percent, or 93 cents out of every dollar, comes out of 
the State. But yet of that 7 cents, 50 percent of the rules and 
regulations that tie up the State comes out of that 7 percent of 
funding from the Federal Government, 75 percent of the paperwork, and 
by getting back, and for example, my colleague says, well, you look, 
you cut out Goals 2000, you cut out all the funds for Goals 2000, what 
a great program. Well, if I send the money directly to the State and 
the State likes Goal 2000, the Governors have told us they can do a 
Goals 2000 program much more efficiently. They do not have the Federal 
rules and regulations, and they will argue, well, it is all voluntary. 
In the Goals 2000 bill there are 48 instances that say ``States will,'' 
and requires reporting, requires paperwork, and guess what, on the 
other end it takes Federal bureaucrats to take in that information, to 
record it and so on.
  My wife is a principal. She has to write grants for Goals 2000, and 
they receive some of the dollars. Many of the schools set up and hire 
people to write grants. They do not get the dollars, in most cases. 
Even in the cases they do, quite often, if it is not a larger school, 
the amount of dollars they get is not as much as it costs to pay the 
grant writer and to perform the rules and the regulations and the 
paperwork that comes back to Washington, DC.

                              {time}  2100

  So when they say we are cutting, we are actually providing more 
dollars and more efficiency to the States. And those savings; guess 
what? Those savings go to balance the budget, and in the case of the 
education bill, Mr. Speaker, some of those savings went up to NIH for 
medical research on AIDS, and heart disease, and some of the things 
that I believe most people in America believe are of national interest 
and that the Federal Government is the one that can host. So I get kind 
of upset when they say that we are cutting education, and they say I 
think the gentleman covered the student finances and the student loans. 
We are providing more money for student loans than ever in the history. 
But guess where the savings come from? The President's bill on direct 
lending, and I would like to give you, Mr. Speaker, some accurate 
figures as well, if I can find them here, that what the costs of the 
President's direct lending costs us.
  The President asks, or the President's costs, cost $1 billion over 
the next 7 years more than private student loans, $1 billion for the 
direct loan period, and guess what? CBO and OMB have not even 
calculated what it costs to collect those loans. That is just the 
distribution of it. So when we say----
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is just the overhead.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Just the overhead, $1 billion more than sending it to 
the private enterprises, but yet our colleagues say, well, that is only 
for the rich, that is for your loan guys, and that is for your banks. 
Well, I can do something cheaper and better and provide more loans to 
the students that really need them, and the Pell grants which have been 
increased higher than any other level in the time of history, then I 
think that is better, instead again of having the Federal Government up 
here being able to dole out the money, and guess what? That direct 
student loan program, the President wanted billions more dollars to 
increase it by fourscore, and that would make the Department of 
Education the biggest lending entity in the world, I mean other than 
the World Bank, and that is what they want. They want that power of the 
Federal dollars to come down so that they can say, well, look at the 
grant that I gave you here.
  But they forget one thing, Mr. Speaker. They forget where the money 
came from in the first place. It is not their money. They take if from 
the very people, send it up here, and let me give you another accurate 
figure, Mr. Speaker, and this is one for my colleague to remember also. 
Only 23 cents out of every dollar that comes to Washington gets back 
into the classroom, 23 cents on every dollar.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is a pretty poor return on the investment.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Only 30 cents in welfare gets down to the recipients 
that really need the welfare check because of all the bureaucracy.
  Now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle or this side of the 
aisle, or the American public, you cannot run a business like that, and 
what the Governors have come to us and said is let us have the dollars, 
you do not want children to go hungry, you want the needy to be taken 
care of, you want the help. But you have got 144-some welfare programs, 
you have got 250 education programs. Let us set our own State 
standards, give us the money, do away with the Federal requirements and 
the bureaucracy, and we can make it more efficient. And guess what? We 
can apply those savings to the deficit and reduce, and what you have 
been talking about, what Alan Greenspan said, is that interest rates 
have already come down 2 percent.
  Why? Because the lending institutions for the first time in over 40 
years believe that Congress is serious about 

[[Page H 14154]]
balancing the budget, and if that expectation goes away, those interest 
rates would not only go back to where they were, they will spiral 
upward and upward, and then look what it costs for a student loan in 
the increased interest. Look what it costs for a home with increased 
interest.

  I do not know about you, but most Americans, when interest rates came 
down, they refinanced their home, and I would encourage you, Mr. 
Speaker, if you have not done it already, take a serious look because 
it is going to be cheaper on your payments, and what does that mean? It 
means more dollars in the pockets of the American people.
  And these are some of the things on education, and I have a special 
order later tonight that I want to go through in depth some of these 
same issues on education and go through grant by grant, loan by loan, 
education bill and education program by education program and show what 
we have really done. If you say cut at a Federal level, yes, I will 
zero out any program I can at a Federal level and pass it on down to 
the State because I think and believe from the bottom of my heart it is 
much more efficient, it is closer to the people, and they can decide 
better where those dollars will be used, and I think that is what we 
are trying to do here.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. The examples you have given, Congressman Cunningham, 
are so good, and frankly I think the American people instinctively 
understand just what you have talked about tonight. They understand 
that what we really need to do is localize, and privatize, and downsize 
this Federal Government, and that is what we are trying to do, and when 
they talk about cuts in education, we are talking about moving more of 
that educational decisionmaking back to the States, local units, and to 
families where they can make their own decisions about what they are 
going to do with their kids and the schools that they have, and frankly 
I think every American family understands this. They care much more 
about their kids' education than some bureaucrat in Washington.
  You know we can all talk about caring, and everybody talks about 
compassion, but real caring and real compassion happens around the 
kitchen table. It is families that care most about their kids' 
education, and that is what we want to get back to, and the waste and 
mismanagement here in this city, as I say, is just awesome, and I know 
you are going to talk a little bit about Bosnia, and I want to hear a 
little more, and I see Congressman Dornan is here tonight as well to 
talk a little bit about military affairs, and I believe in a strong 
defense, but just look at the Defense Department and the amount of 
waste, and duplication, and mismanagement that we see, and I know that 
your other colleague from San Diego once told me, Congressman Hunter, 
about how many buyers they have at the Pentagon.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Congressman who?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Hunter.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Congressman who?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Congressman Duncan Hunter.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Congressman who?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Duncan Hunter.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. He told me to mention his name three times.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Why? The duck comes down and you win 50 bucks?
  But he talked about how may buyers, and it is like 106,000 buyers in 
the Department of Defense. We have 1,646 buyers for every F-16 we buy, 
and we buy 1 or 2 a week, something like that, and it is 
replete throughout the Federal Government. We all know that, the people 
that we serve know that, and the interesting thing, and we talked a 
little bit earlier about the megapoll that we did; it just confirms, I 
think, the common sense we all have, and that is once the American 
people understand what we are doing, once they see how much we are 
actually going to be spending, if anything the criticism is that we are 
still spending too much. Our budget calls for almost $12.1 trillion 
worth of spending over the next 7 years, and if you divide that up, it 
works out to over $46,500 in Federal spending for every man, woman, and 
child in the United States.

  Let me say that again. Over the next 7 years, Mr. Speaker, our budget 
plan, which the President vetoed today as cutting too much, will spend 
$46,500 for every man, woman, and child in the United States.
  Now what we are saying, I think in very simple language, we believe 
the $12.2 trillion is more than enough to fund the legitimate needs of 
this Federal Government and to take care of those people who depend on 
the Federal Government for various services; $12.1 trillion is more 
than enough. $13 trillion will bust the bank, and it will bust the 
taxpayers. In fact I think, if we can get the American people to look 
more at the facts of our budget, I think they will come to the same 
conclusion that we have come to, and that is that our budget is fair, 
it is reasonable, it is responsible, and it is long overdue.
  And so I think the budget that we are talking about is one that is 
good for the American people. As you said, long term it is going to 
bring interest rates down even more so Americans will have more of 
their own money to spend. They will not have to spend so much in 
interest. It will make student loans more available and more 
affordable. In fact the average family, according to Alan Greenspan, if 
we can stay on this balanced-budget plan over the next 7 years, the 
average family with a $100,000 mortgage--in fact the average mortgage 
in the State of Minnesota is $93,600--they will save almost $3,000 a 
year in interest as opposed to what they would have spent or will spend 
if we do not really get serious about----
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. They can use it for their child's education, for 
medical bills, first-time home buyers, or they can even put it away for 
an IRA to save for when they become chronologically gifted folks.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. It is about the difference between government 
responsibility and Federal responsibility and getting back more 
personal responsibility. Let the people make their own decisions, let 
them spend their own money, because we think they can spend it more 
efficiently than this Federal Government.
  As I say, I think the American people, once they know the facts, will 
again conclude that our budget spends more than enough to meet the 
legitimate needs of this Federal Government and that the target numbers 
we are working with, they are fair, they are reasonable, they are 
responsible, and, as I say, they are long overdue.
  I want to yield some time to you and talk about the other major issue 
that is confronting this Congress, and this Government, this country, 
and this world, and that is about Bosnia, and it has been particularly 
frustrating for me as a freshman Member because things happen pretty 
fast around here, but I would suspect that most of America, I know all 
of our colleagues know, that you were one of the most decorated Navy 
pilots in the Vietnam war, and I think when you talk about military 
issues and particularly about brushfire wars, and political wars, of 
civil wars around the world, you speak with a special degree of 
expertise, and so I want to yield some time to you, and so I welcome 
one of the other world experts on foreign policy and military affairs.

  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Do we have to give time to that Air Force guy?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. The gentleman from the Air Force, flew F-100's at one 
time and perhaps maybe he still does, but I would yield first to 
Congressman Cunningham.
  Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and like I said, 
I have got an hour special order after this, and I will take up 
afterward. But what I would like to go through, Mr. Speaker, is what I 
found is many of the Members on the other side of the aisle, as well as 
Members on this side of the aisle, are concerned about the other issues 
that we have talked about, budget debate and across the board. They do 
not serve on National Security. They are not directly involved with the 
Bosnia issue, but it is of great concern to them, and they do not have 
the time to really go out and find out the information.
  What I would like to do first is kind of set the stage, if my friend, 
the gentleman from California [Mr. Dornan] would allow me, to just kind 
of go through and name the players. Later on in the evening I would 
like to go through the history of the portions of the world that we are 
talking about going into in Bosnia, from over 600 

[[Page H 14155]]
years ago on the Field of Flowers and the time of Hugo through the 
revolution where Nazis invaded Yugoslavia, the former Yugoslavia, back 
in the 1940's. First of all I would like to go through the players, Mr. 
Speaker, because, as I said, many people do not associate names, 
places, religions, with individual groups.
  For example, Alija Izetbegovic; he is a Bosnian Muslim, but when 
someone talks about talking about Sarajevo or Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
they do not necessarily tie the two together. So Izetbegovic is a 
Bosnian Muslim that is primarily responsible in the Bosnia and 
Herzegovina area, and primarily Sarajevo, which is where there are 
headquarters. Now Izetbegovic, like Tudjman, who is a Croatian, is of 
Roman Catholic descent, and you talk about Zagreb when you talk about 
that particular portion of their Croatian nationalism. They also during 
World War II, if you take a look at the two groups, their Croatians 
fought alongside with Nazi Germany, and they were called the Ustase. 
They formed the only Nazi concentration camp outside of Germany where 
they executed and ethnically cleansed over a million and a half Serbs, 
Jews, and gypsies at one time, and if you take a look also at Franjo 
Tudjman, Croatian, Roman Catholic, Zagreb, the World War II association 
was with the Ustase in Nazi Germany. If you look at Slobodan Milosevic, 
we talk about he is the head of Serbia, not Bosnian Serb, but Serbia, 
greater Serbia itself. That is a group of Orthodox Catholics. The 
difference between the two groups; one is Orthodox Catholic, the other 
is Roman Catholic in the religious affiliations, and of course 
Milosevic is in Belgrade, and if you look at that portion of the world 
during World War II, there were three basic groups: the Chetniks which 
fought under Mihailovic, the Ustase, which were associated with the 
Nazi Germans, and then you had a well-known man named Tito. He was with 
the partisans, which was a group of people that fought with the greater 
Russian Communists. Mihailovic fought for greater Yugoslavia, Tito 
fought for communism and a greater Russia, so that there is a big 
conflict, not a conflict but a misunderstanding, of the players and 
where they really came from.

                              {time}  2115

  Let me go into also the number of troops under this agreement that 
will be placed into Bosnia. Great Britain has come up with 13,000 
troops, France 7,500 troops, Spain 4,000, Italy 2,000, Germany 4,000, 
other NATO countries 2,500, Russia 2,000 troops; and the United States, 
where they say 20,000 troops, the actual number of troops there, and 
that will be deployed, will be 32,000 troops, not 20,300 troops.
  Let me go through, and then I would yield back over to my friend, if 
he likes, let me go over some of the history perspectives of the area, 
Mr. Speaker. As I said, many people that are not historians, that have 
not looked at the issues, have not read the books, they have not gone 
through the list of that portion of the world.
  As early as 1389, and let me repeat that so there is no confusion, 
1389 on the Field of Blackbirds, some call it the Field of Flowers, saw 
the Serbian Empire defeated by the Turks. By the end of June, the time 
of Yugo, former Yugoslavia was dominated by the Turkish Moslems. June 
28 today is celebrated much like our Fourth of July in Bosnia, as 
Independence Day, because it was 600 years of domination of the Ottoman 
Turks. That is how the same basic ethnic group changed from Serbian to 
Croatian to Moslem, and the Moslem came from the Turkish Moslem, the 
Suni Moslem.
  Mr. DORNAN. If the gentleman will yield for a 1-minute elaboration, 
Duke, I found out that no matter how good I am or you are, some of our 
supporters out there have said sometimes a dialog is good. It gets the 
juices going. We cannot tell the colonel in the chair there, our good 
Marine Speaker pro tem, to get a cup of coffee or tea, but I am telling 
people if they want to continue to listen to you, they are going to 
learn something from you and from me tonight, as they just learned a 
lot from the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht].
  I want to flesh this out. This is not a movie, they must listen to 
us. Let me flesh out why Serbians treat as though it were 2 years ago 
the battle in the Field of Blackbirds at Kosovo Poije. Here is what 
happened. Prince Lazar, a tall, handsome Serbian knight, sets up to do 
battle with the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. He had 400 concubines in 
Topkapi; interesting place when people go to Istanbul to visit the blue 
mosque, hundreds of years old, and Hagia Sofia, built by, oh, my gosh, 
Justinian up here in the corner in 532.

  The Sultan had reigned for 29 years. Roosevelt got a fourth term, and 
about 82 days into a 13th year. Thirty-nine years, Sultan Murad, sounds 
like something for the eyes, Murad I ruled for 29 years. The Serbs were 
winning, and a Serbian noble, Miloc, that is why so many children are 
named Milo or Milan or Miloc, Miloc Kobolic pretends to be a deserter--
what you guys in Vietnam called the chu hoi program, come over to our 
side--in all his knightly armor and garb, a swashbuckling figure, for 
the mind to conjure this up and know that it is better than anything 
they do in Hollywood with their fake violence and untrue stories, just 
a will to fiction.
  He works his way into the tent of a 29-year ruling Sultan and stabs 
him to death with a poison dagger. He dies a violent death of torture, 
and for a while it was pandemonium. It looked like the Serbs had won 
the day, yet again to save Christendom from the Islamic forces that had 
gone all the way across North Africa, across the Strait of Gibraltar 
and conquered most of Spain, driving out, if they would not convert, 
and killing the Christians and ending the Christendom of St. Augustine 
in all of North Africa. His son, Sultan Murad's son Bayezid, rallies 
his forces and inflicts a crushing defeat on the Serbs. They capture 
and torture to death the leader, Prince Lazar.
  The Serbs are then forced to pay tribute for decades, turn over many 
of their women, and promise to do military service in now young Sultan 
Bayezid's forces for decades.
  Then the second Battle of Kosovo is fought 59 years later, and the 
Serbs again almost win. The old date is 15 June, like Waterloo, but you 
are right, 28 June. And where have we heard that date on this floor 
before? 28 June 1914 caused George M. Cohen to write ``Over There,'' 
``And we won't be back till it's over over there,'' and my dad gets 
three Purple Hearts, then wound chevrons, poison gas, 11 million of the 
flower of European youth killed.
  That started not too far from Kosovo, to the west a little bit, in 
the city of Sarajevo where a 19-year-old knowing that if he was going 
to be hit man, he had to move fast, because if he turned 20 he would 
have gotten capital punishment. And Gavrilo Princip at 19, in Sarajevo, 
on a street much narrower than the distance between the gentleman and 
me, he shoots to death the Archduke Ferdinand of the Austral-Hungarian 
Empire, the heir-apparent, his beautiful wife Sofia, nicks the driver 
of this big car. And the killing is on, and it has not stopped for this 
whole bloody era.

  That is why, when you speak for the Serbs, and you jumped on me a 
little bit yesterday because in the abbreviated time I'm trying to be 
fair to Serbs, Croatians, and Moslems here, but the Serbs saved 
Christendom, as did the Hungarians, as did the Austrians, as did a 
whole area of southern Europe, held the line, saved Vienna, saved 
Malta, won the Battle of Leponto in 1571, that is almost two centuries 
later. This went on for half of this millenium we are ending in 4 
years. Just wanted to know, fact is better than fiction.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, if I could reclaim my time, my hour is 
going to expire quickly and then you guys are going to have at it for 
another hour. But I just want to say that I think this is important.
  I said earlier that facts are stubborn things. And I think it was 
Patrick Henry who said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. 
The American people need to get plugged into this discussion, whether 
we are talking about Bosnia or the budget, because I think the American 
people in many respects are going to be the final arbiters of this 
debate. I thank you so much for sharing with us the history, because 
the more you learn about that region, the more you learn about this 
agreement, the more you learn about what is going on over there, the 
more troubling this whole story becomes.
  The real trouble is they are going to be our kids, and they are just 
kids for 

[[Page H 14156]]
the most part. You see them out here exercising with the various honor 
guards and color guards and so forth, and you cannot help but feel 
proud of them. But many of those kids are going to get hurt, they are 
going to get killed, they are going to get wounded. The American people 
need to tune into this debate because facts are stubborn things, and 
the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The American people, I hope, 
will be tuned into your discussion as you go on for the next hour.

                          ____________________