[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 23, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H3722-H3728]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
COMPETING PHILOSOPHIES FUEL DEBATE OVER ROLE OF GOVERNMENT
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins of Georgia). Under the Speaker's
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr.
Hayworth] is recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Illinois who
preceded me here in the well. Indeed amidst all the talk of a lack of
civility, amidst all the talk of hostility in this Chamber, Mr.
Speaker, I can personally say without equivocation that one of the
honors of serving in this House in addition to being here representing
the people of the Sixth District of Arizona is to serve alongside my
good friend from Illinois. Because without venom or vitriol, he states
a case, and he makes mention of the fact that, yes, there are two
predominant philosophies at work in the Congress of the United States,
by and large two philosophies represented within the two-
[[Page H3723]]
party system, and I applaud him for his efforts to go beyond mere
accountancy and figures to try and explain what many of us have come
into contact with with various road projects, both at the Federal and
State level, where we have all seen the sign that says, Your Tax
Dollars At Work.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the efforts of my good friend from
Illinois. But, as he says, there are basically two philosophies, and,
indeed, Mr. Speaker, it is not my intent to put words in the mouth of
the gentleman who preceded me here in the well but simply to challenge
his fundamental thesis, the underlying argument, Mr. Speaker, that he
presents tonight to the American people.
My friend seems to say that American citizens laboring from January
through May to account for the huge Federal tax bite, well, that is
money well spent, so my friend says. And, yes, there are problems, but
incremental reform and fine-tuning and some adjustment can give us the
necessary change to confront the next century.
Again I applaud my friend's effort and it is not a spirit of one-
upmanship that brings me to the well of this House tonight, Mr.
Speaker. But again I feel compelled to challenge the assertion nor the
assumption of my dear friend from Illinois. For, you see, Mr. Speaker,
I believe true reform and true effective use of tax dollars stems first
and foremost from this document, the Constitution of the United States.
And while I appreciate my friend's effort to account for your tax
dollars at work, I do not believe that any of us can improve on the
assertions of our Founders who in a beautiful and indeed inspiring
Preamble to the Constitution offered, Mr. Speaker, I suppose in the
buzz phrase of the mid-1990's, their vision statement, if you will, for
this constitutional republic, and I quote:
We the people of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic
tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the
general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to
ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
And indeed, although I am joined on the floor by a dear friend who is
a practicing physician, most of what transpires in this Chamber and
upon this hill does not equate with brain surgery nor complex
accounting. Instead, its most fundamental premise is founded upon the
notions set forth in this document, what one historian, I believe,
rightly called the Miracle at Philadelphia. This document, timeless,
timeless in its ability if not to predict the future but to provide us
with a framework for a free people to determine what should transpire
within this free society. And I cannot help but note the irony of those
who purport to represent the party of Jefferson who all too often
forget his words, and this is something that becomes misunderstanding
given the theatrics and the rhetorical excesses bound to occur in an
election year, but it is worth noting again the Jeffersonian ideal. It
was not for elimination of government but, as Mr. Jefferson pointed
out, the ideal of a limited and effective government with the proper
role for the Federal Government and a far more active role for State
governments, for counties and for urban jurisdictions.
And so that frames the debate as we approach the next century.
Are we to assume that history occurs in a vacuum? Are we to assume
that because at previous junctures in our Nation's history we should
only subscribe to a philosophy that would dictate that power should
reside primarily here in Washington, D.C.? And, further, that that
power be exercised not by those elected but by those appointed or those
who have sought career service within a vast bureaucracy?
That is the crux of the debate. Let me pause here, lest someone
misunderstand.
Mr. Speaker, this is not a diatribe directed toward those who find
themselves in the employ of the Federal Government. Indeed, I would be
the first to say, Mr. Speaker, that there are many hardworking,
dedicated people employed in the service of the Federal Government.
But, Mr. Speaker, it is to say this: At this juncture in our history,
is it preferable for power to be concentrated here on the banks of the
Potomac in the hands of unelected officials accountable really only to
themselves? And is it proper to issue the assertion that, Mr. and Mrs.
America, if you work from January until May to satisfy your Federal
level of taxation, well, well and good, because you are receiving
incredible benefits? Is that really the course we should follow? Or is
instead it more proper to understand that the average family in 1948,
the average family of 4, surrendered 3 percent of its income in taxes
to the Federal Government as opposed to the average family of 4 one
year ago which surrendered almost one-quarter of its income to the
Federal Government? And, mindful of that, is it a good and fair deal
that the families of this Nation now spend more, Mr. Speaker, on taxes
than on food, clothing and shelter combined?
For, you see, Mr. Speaker, this argument is made not out of avarice
or greed or selfishness or any of those labels so many in this election
year are willing to bandy about akin to playground taunts. No, the
question is asked legitimately because it helps define what type of
future we should have. And indeed as I look beyond the Preamble to this
Constitution, I cannot help but note the first clause in article I,
section 1, which reads as follows, Mr. Speaker:
``All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress
of the United States.''
All legislative powers, Mr. Speaker, vested in this institution and
the other body across this magnificent structure, the Congress of the
United States.
Yet what has transpired in this century? Often for the most noble of
motives, this Congress has established agencies within the executive
branch and those agencies in turn issue regulations.
Let me again pause at this juncture to make sure I am not
misunderstood, Mr. Speaker. I am not saying that regulation in and of
itself is a bad thing. No, quite the contrary. Certainly, Mr. Speaker,
in my profession as a broadcaster, I know firsthand that a modicum of
regulation was necessary to create order out of chaos on the airwaves,
first at the behest of a Secretary of Commerce by the name of Herbert
Hoover, then through a Federal Radio Commission established in the late
1920's, and ultimately within a Federal Communications Commission, and
I think we can all agree with the developments in technology, with the
changes we have seen throughout this Nation with the wonderful
expansion of the economy and opportunity, some modicum of regulation
must continue. But what I am saying and indeed what I propose in H.R.
2727, the Congressional Responsibility Act, is to indeed make sure that
the first section of Article I of the Constitution is followed, that
all legislative powers be vested here. Accordingly, H.R. 2727 would
provide that every proposed regulation return here to the Congress of
the United States for an up-or-down vote before it is printed in the
Federal Register.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HAYWORTH. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia who joins my good
friend the physician from Florida.
Mr. KINGSTON. I do not want to jump in front of the gentleman from
Florida [Mr. Weldon] but on the point of regulation one of the bills
that we have pending now is reauthorization of the Safe Drinking Water
Act. One of the current regulations that water systems have to operate
under requires small systems that use ground water to test for
contaminants that are only found in surface water systems.
{time} 2200
So here we have EPA, taxpayer funded, requiring groundwater systems
to do the same tests as surface water systems. Absolutely absurd.
The same act also requires that EPA post new regulations for 25
contaminants each 3 years, whether the regulations are needed or not.
It is just absurd. It goes under what you are saying, we do need
regulation, but we do need common sense in the regulatory authority.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Even in addition to common sense, which I laud the
gentleman for mentioning, and which many observers would say time and
again seems to be absent not only from this Chamber at times, but also
through the vast bureaucracy, we need a proper reassertion of
constitutional authority. That is why every proposed regulation should
not be enacted by bureaucratic fiat, for as my two colleagues know, Mr.
Speaker, what oft
[[Page H3724]]
times happens is you have a shift in the power. Instead of the power
being conferred by the people on their duly elected representatives to
make laws, the power is bequeathed or ceded to the regulators who can
come up with regulatory expansion, as my friend from Georgia mentions,
that exceeds what the average person would deem to be reasonable. In
doing so, it subverts the whole notion of laws and by the expansion of
what I choose to call the tyranny of the bureaucracy and the power
being conferred on government bureaucrats, what we have done is allowed
those bureaucrats in essence through the issuance of regulation to make
laws, because as my two colleagues know, certainly my physician friend
from Florida understands, those folks with the sanctions of
imprisonment or fine are basically enacting laws.
Of course I yield to my good friend from Florida.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I very
much applaud you in your efforts to reassert the authority of the
Constitution of the United States, because I feel very strongly that
not just for years, but for decades, the language of our Constitution
has been either subverted or totally ignored. There is probably no
better example than the rampant, wanton, overwhelming number of
regulations that have come from Federal bureaucrats that have
tremendous impact on the day-to-day lives of American families who are
very, very often just struggling to make ends meet.
You were talking about tax policy before. What is so amazing to me is
that the callous, casual attitude that many politicians have about
raising taxes, when many families, they are on such a tight margin that
those slight increases in taxes mean a cutback in their ability to plan
for a vacation, to plan for higher education for their children, to
plan for an expansion on their home.
But getting back to the subject you were talking about, regulations,
the other body, their Governmental Affairs Committee recently reported
out that Federal regulations cost the average American household $6,000
annually in higher prices, diminished wages, and increased taxes or
reduced services.
Furthermore, under the Clinton Administration, there has been a
record increase in the number of Federal regulations. They have
increased at 4.6 percent per year during the Clinton administration.
This is a record, it stands at an all time record of now 67,518 pages
of regulations, 18 percent higher than what they were in 1992.
Some people think this is just an abstract concept. But when you talk
to a small businessman who is trying to start a new business and
discovers that he has to fill out form after form after form
of regulations dealing with multiple different layers of bureaucracy,
and that inability to get himself started in his business frequently
results in lost income for his family, and sometimes in bankruptcy,
businesses not even being started, jobs not created because of the
burden of Federal regulations, this indeed I think is one of the silent
crimes of our government against our people, the fact that there has
just been this endless amount of regulation issuing forth from
Washington, DC.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think my friend from
Florida, indeed on the front lines of not only health care as a
physician, but also on the front lines here representing very capably
the people of this district, again points out something which we should
note with more than curiosity, indeed with widespread concern, for
taking the model offered by our dear friend from Illinois, who preceded
us here in the well, who said well, let us set up the construct, if you
are paying from January to May for the tax bill, it is money well
spent, there is in fact a hidden tax, and this is what the gentleman
from Florida refers to, a hidden tax of overregulation that by many
estimates means that the average American is really in essence working
for governmental entities far beyond May, indeed past the day upon
which we celebrate our independence, and that the true Independcence
Day for the American citizen in terms of taxes and fees levied by
excessive regulation, either through higher costs or other things, does
not come until really mid-July.
So there you have it, more than six months, in reality, six and a
half or almost seven months, where the hard working people of the
United States work and labor essentially to propagate a system of
excessive regulation and a system of centralized control.
What we offer in the new majority is very simple, and this is
something that we need to articulate here once again, free from the
diatribes and the playground taunts and the interesting interpretations
that some of our friends in the media would offer. What we are simply
saying is this: Mr. Speaker, the citizens of the United States of
America work hard for the money they earn. They ought to hand onto more
of that money and send less of it to Washington, and they should have
not only the money in their pockets, but they should ultimately decide
what is best for their families and their futures, instead of ceding
that power and that revenue to a centralized governmental authority.
Let me yield to my friend from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. A story of one of your freshmen colleagues really fits
in there, and that is that of Sonny Bono, one of your better known
freshmen.
He tells the story of leaving Hollywood and going to Palm Springs to
start a restaurant. He needed to make some changes in the building that
he bought and so forth. So he went down to the city hall to get
building permits, thinking that he was going to be creating jobs and
additional tax revenues and all kinds of positive things for the area
that they would say ``Mr. Bono, we are so happy to have you in here, we
need entrepreneurs, employers. This is a great boost for our economy.''
Instead, he was given the runaround. ``Why do you need these permits?
How have you chosen the contractor who is going to do the work?''
They started nickeling and diming him and micromanaging the project.
He thought it was going to take 15 minutes. Six months later he still
had not gotten his permits for his building, the renovation and
building permits, from the city there.
Mr. BONO. tells a great story of walking in one day and saying ``I
have got my permit problem solved.'' The bureaucrat behind the desk
said, ``No you don't.'' Sonny Bono said ``Yes, I do''. The bureaucrat
said ``No, you don't, Mr. Bono. Nobody solves permit problems without
me. I am the one who decides. I represent the government. You can't do
anything on your own without me.''
Sonny Bono looked at him and said, ``Oh, yes, I can. I have solved my
permit problem. I am going to run for mayor, and I am going to fire
you.''
That in essence is a true story of how Sonny Bono got into politics.
He did run for mayor, he was successful. He points out, he is not
inhumane. He did fire the guy, but turned around and let him be his
gardener, so all was not lost.
But the point of the story is you have in the U.S. Congress now
people who have experience with real world bureaucratic red tape. They
have not been raised in the political ranks, where they have chief of
staffs and administrative assistants and directors who protect them
from the dirty world of red tape which the real world has to contend
with.
So as your 73 freshmen Members came to the House floor, you have
fought for less regulation and more individual responsibility and more
indivdual freedom. I think you have made it. You have got a securities
reform litigation signed by the President, the Paperwork Reduction Act
signed by the President. We have stopped the practice of passing local
laws and making local county commissions pay for it after we decide how
to run every county in Arizona and Florida and Georgia. We are trying
to back off that.
So the impact of the 73 freshmen has been tremendous, and yet it is
just a start as to what we need to do to truly get government off the
back and out of the pocketbooks of small businesses all over the
country.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, my friend from Georgia makes an
excellent point, and indeed relating once again to us the real life
experience of our colleague from California and what prompted his entry
into pursuit of elective office I think is especially appropriate.
But there is something that undergirds it entirely, Mr. Speaker,
[[Page H3725]]
and that is the notion of those who put together this document, the
notion of our Founders, which was unique in human history. For in
contrast to our English forbearers, or our British cousins, as some of
us affectionately refer to our friends across the Atlantic, in this new
Nation, in this constitutional republic, we did not choose to recognize
one person or one family as sovereign or as sovereigns.
Instead, in this Nation we operate from the assumption that, first,
power is conferred upon us by a creator, and that in this Nation, the
people are sovereign and they in turn confer their power, or political
power, if you will, on governmental institutions. Yet, as our friend
from Georgia relates the story, what all too often happens is that
notion is twisted or turned to where American citizens are suddenly
accountable to unelected career Washington bureaucrats, instead, Mr.
Speaker, of what was intended, and that is for government to be
accountable to the people.
So, indeed, this so-called revolution, which, by the way, can only be
defined as extreme in terms of the context of making extremely good
sense, what is in fact a resolution not born of something radical but
something entirely reasonable, simply says that the power, indeed, Mr.
Speaker, it is reminiscent of a popular slogan in the 1960's, that
power belongs to the people, and that power goes to the people.
Let me yield to my friend from Florida.
Mr. WELDON of Florida. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. I just
want to add to your comments about the so-called revolution. In my
opinion, the revolution that people talk about here in Washington is
nothing more than a dose of common sense coming from the people that
you talk about, which is where the power truly lies with, a dose of
common sense coming to the people of this city.
This city is insulated from the people that put them here. This so-
called revolution is nothing more in my opinion than the people that
work in Washington at the bidding of the governed who elect them and
put them here, finally having to start acting on some of these things
that people have been crying out for for years and years and years and
years, like reforming the Congress itself, making the Congress live
under the laws that they have been passing on to the people.
Madison, in Federalist Paper Number 37, which I am sure as a student
of history as you are, J.D., you would know that he said in that
federalist paper that the Congress should not be allowed to pass any
law that does not have its full operation on themselves or on their
friends. In reality, as we know from the past 25 or 30 years, they have
repeatedly passed major pieces of legislation, including the Civil
Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family Leave Act,
even the labor laws themselves and OSHA regulations they exempted
themselves from.
And OSHA regulations, they have exempted themselves from it. As I
understand it, the people from OSHA right now are beginning to do their
audits on all these buildings here on Capitol Hill, and that some of
them have some very, very serious problems. And those problems would
have never been recognized if it had not been for the fact that this
so-called revolution, which I think is nothing more than common sense
reform coming to this body and coming to this city, and it is something
that the American people have been asking for for years and years.
{time} 2215
Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank my friend from Florida and I would be happy to
yield to my good friend from Georgia after I offer this parenthetical
note to quantify what the gentleman from Florida just said.
Indeed, if we were to define this, Mr. Speaker, despite the
sensationalistic notion of revolution, what in essence we have here is
rather than revolution, a reclamation, a reclaiming of this government
for its rightful role in society, and that is what is at stake here and
a reevaluation of the role of government.
I thank our good friend from Florida for joining us, making those
points, and once again I am happy to yield to my friend from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman from Florida had mentioned OSHA, the
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and for years this has
been the group that was kind of the government watchdog on health and
safety in the workplace. Certainly it came into being under the Nixon
administration. It was a pro-worker law, but it was not an anti-
business law either. It just had some common sense.
And yet we are now in a situation where over 60 percent of the OSHA
fines are for paperwork violations. You have to list such hazardous
substances as that of the ink that you use in a Xerox machine. If you
store that, you have to have a material safety and data sheet. And if
you do not fill that out properly, you are fined. There have been cases
of OSHA coming in and laying a heavy hand on small businesses and
putting them in some cases almost out of business because of the
financial crunch, litigation, and so forth. Yet in the agriculture side
of our economy, there is the Soil Conservation Service which gives
farmers technical assistance to prevent erosion, which is a pro-
environment type agency, but giving technical assistance to farmers,
which they need, a very good working relationship between soil
conservation and farmers.
And here you have the same type relationship between OSHA and
businesses, only it is an antagonistic one. What we would like to do is
have OSHA be more like Soil Conservation is to the farmer, helping the
businesses make their worker environment safer, because one of the
things I learned when I sold workers compensation insurance is that the
price of the accident, a hundred dollars for stitching up somebody's
thumb, is four times when you consider the time lost and the problems
with worker morale and so forth. Businesses have every motivation in
the world besides government to take care of their employees; if
nothing else, just from the production standpoint.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming the time, I thank my friend
from Georgia for making this fundamental point, for as certain as the
sun rises in the morning, there are those who will willfully distort or
mischaracterize what we are saying here tonight.
And the gentleman is quite right, Mr. Speaker, for he talks of
regulation that is there to establish order and also there to offer a
helping hand, not in terms of money or tax dollars allocated to
business, that is not what we are talking about, but to work in a
cooperative fashion with business and industry as opposed to an
adversarial relationship, or a game that is ofttimes played in the
Nation's press, in the common vernacular it is called a game of
``gotcha''. So that we pass so many regulations, so cumbersome, so out
of touch with what is reality or in any way, shape or form reasonable
so that those responsible for enforcement can come in and say, ``Ah,
`gotcha'.'' Part B of subparagraph 1 of section 325 states this. You
made an effort but you did not quite reach what I believe, as the
regulator, as the arbiter of this, to be the right decision.
It comes back not only to this document, our Constitution, but also
to the simple notion I mentioned earlier, Mr. Speaker. And it is this
question. What is reasonable? What would a reasonable person do?
As my friend from Georgia mentioned a second ago, even if we accept
the notions that some in our society seem to adopt, that business, by
its very existence is greedy or motivated out of avarice; even if we
were to accept that notion wholeheartedly, we would have to understand
that it is in the best interest of business to make sure that employees
are productive. And to be productive they need to work in a safe
environment.
So even if we were to proffer the notion, as some in this Chamber do
from time to time, that the profit motive is inherently evil or selfish
or somehow misguided, even if we were to accept that notion, there
would be the corollary offered by my friend from Georgia, which is
this: Those folks owning the business would like to keep it productive,
and to do so there has to be a modicum of worker safety.
I want to yield to my friend from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. The other thing is that if we want to help workers, we
do want to have a safe work environment.
[[Page H3726]]
Everybody, an employer, government employees, everybody will agree on
that. But if we want to help the workers across America, the key thing
we have to do is honor why they are working, and that is to make money
and make a better society.
Now, if we want to help those workers, let us let them keep more of
their own paycheck. And the President has vetoed a $500 per child tax
credit. He has vetoed an earned income tax credit that would have
helped America's working poor. He has vetoed a balanced budget
amendment which would have brought down interest rates so that they
could borrow money less expensively for their cars, for their homes and
so forth. But I think one of the things that really adds insult to the
American workers is his veto of a bipartisan welfare reform bill, a
welfare reform bill which would have only required people to work 20
hours a week.
Now, I ask the gentleman from Arizona, is there anybody in Arizona
who can provide for their families working 20 hours a week?
Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I know of no one who
works from dawn to dusk to provide for their families who could do that
for 20 hours a week.
Mr. KINGSTON. I want to make sure the American people know this,
because here we are talking about workers' safety and we are talking
about the quality of the job done, allowing workers to keep more of
their paycheck, and the President of the United States says it is not
good enough to require able-bodied people on welfare to work 20 hours a
week.
The working men and women in Georgia and Arizona are working 40, 50,
60 hours a week. They are in debt. They are barely getting by, and the
President says I am not going to make people work 20 hours a week for
their welfare benefit.
Now, for crying out loud, here it is an election year and he is
saying 20 hours a week is too much? I think that is absurd, and I think
the people of Arizona are probably just as outraged as the people in
Georgia are about it.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, and again I thank the gentleman
from Georgia for bringing forth this very cogent observation. And
again, Mr. Speaker, we should note this is not said with venom nor
vitriol, not in the form of a playground taunt, but, really, Mr.
Speaker, just to examine the record of the gentleman who resides at the
big White House at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, for if words
are to mean something, actions should correspond to the words.
And, indeed, as my friend from Georgia points out, we have a
President who campaigned in 1992 on balancing the Federal budget in 5
years. Yet when confronted with a realistic plan that actually gave him
a 2-year grace period, if you will, a balanced budget plan which was
introduced by the new majority, back I believe last October, the
President chose to veto that; instead putting in its place a document
of suspicious foundation from this standpoint, Mr. Speaker.
It would be akin, and I will use a personal example, I am fighting
the battle of the bulge around my waistline, it would be akin to saying
to someone we are going to give you a year to lose 50 pounds. We ask
you to lose two pounds in the first 50 weeks of the year, and in the
final 2 weeks of the year we ask you to lose the remaining 48 pounds.
On paper the mathematical operation can work, in real life that would
be very difficult.
That is what we are dealing with. And as my friend knows full well,
we have, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a President elected
by saying that middle class taxes were too high and that people should
hang on to more of the money they earned, yet adopting the philosophy
upon his inauguration of those proponents of big government who said,
oh, no, no, no, more of your money should come here to Washington.
Thus, the largest tax increase in American history.
But especially galling, as my friend from Georgia points out, and
this is something that happened on my watch, if you will, after I was
elected to the Congress of the United States to represent the good
people of the 6th District of Arizona, we provided this President, Mr.
Speaker, with a welfare reform plan, taking him at his word when he
said we should end welfare as we know it, and as my friend pointed out,
with a modest work requirement.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield.
Mr. HAYWORTH. He chose to veto it not once but twice. And I yield to
my friend from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield. What is interesting is,
last September, I think it was September 15, 1995, it was on Larry King
Live, the President said about the Republican welfare bill, I like it,
it would end welfare as we know it.
And that welfare bill passed the U.S. Senate, which certainly is not
an activist conservative body. It passed the U.S. Senate by a vote of
87 to 12. We had all the liberals voting for this one, and the
President indicated he was going to sign it and he vetoed it. Vetoed
that tough requirement for 20 hours a week work. Vetoed that tough
requirement saying illegal aliens could not get taxpayer dollars. And
vetoed that tough requirement saying that teenagers need to identify
the dads so that they could participate in the uprearing of that baby
financially, if nothing else.
But you know what? I think it is probably our fault, and I will tell
you why, Mr. Hayworth. When the President said I am going to end
welfare as we know it, we were not listening. He said I am going to
extend welfare as we know it. We missed the E-X-T. I think what he
really meant was not end welfare but extend welfare. Because in the 3
years that his watch has taken place on Pennsylvania Avenue, all that
we have seen is an extension of welfare, more folks who are able-bodied
staying home than ever before.
The poverty rate is up 2 percent higher than when Ronald Reagan was
President, and we have now spent $5 trillion on welfare since 1965 and
we are not bringing down the poverty rate.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, little wonder, then, that the so-
called credibility gap of the 1960s, Mr. Speaker, has expanded to this
credibility canyon involving the President of the United States who
says one thing and then has actions totally, totally in opposition to
his rhetoric.
And, Mr. Speaker, again this is not said to score partisan points.
Indeed, the irony of what has transpired in the last year and a half is
that this new majority has moved to enact many of the programs that our
current President championed on the hustings only to abandon once he
moved in to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But it is especially galling to have this situation. And now, in
addition to the credibility canyon, now in addition to the reality of
this President extending welfare as we know it rather than ending it,
you have the whole new wrinkle known as the Clinton crunch. For, yes,
Mr. Speaker, there will be a day of reckoning.
{time} 2230
When this President has the audacity to come back to this Chamber,
after standing here at this podium a few short months ago telling us
the era of big government is over, and insist that this government,
already in arrears to the tune of $5 trillion with the national debt,
should expend yet $8 billion more of those dollars which we do not
have, it is an incredible assertion, not something to be championed or
applauded, but something to be questioned for its very absurdity.
It is indeed frustrating to find those who would give lip service to
reform and think not of the next generation but instead of the next
election. That is something that my friend from Georgia and I are not
here to do, for we are not career politicians.
Let me yield to my friend from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. As the gentleman pointed out, with the veto of the
balanced budget and not offering an alternative, what you have done is
you said no to lower interest rates because a balanced budget would
have lowered interest rates 2 percent. Businesses would have been able
to expand. Jobs would have been created. Therefore, you are saying no
to lower interest rates, no to new jobs. And also, you are saying no to
the $500 per child tax credit, the much-needed tax relief to the middle
class in America. That is what we need so desperately.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, when you talk about that $500 per
child tax credit, I cannot help but
[[Page H3727]]
think of the people of the Sixth District of Arizona who send me here
to represent them. I cannot help but think of a single mother who may
have three children, whose spouse may have deserted her, who is working
hard, playing by the rules, trying to provide for her family and yes,
seeking outside educational skills to heighten her earning potential,
despite the trauma that has most assuredly occurred in her personal
life.
By denying the $500 per child tax credit, the champions of big
government, the champions of expansive and excessive bureaucracy are
saying to that single mother, ``No, indeed, ma'am. You do not need that
$1,500 to spend or save for your family as you see fit. That money
instead should be taken from you and given to the bureaucracy in
Washington, D.C.''
How fundamentally cynical, how philosophically bankrupt, how
essentially immoral that notion is. For what we do here is to establish
the primacy of the State, the primacy of the bureaucracy instead of the
power of the people. In a free society, that young lady struggling to
provide for those three children should have that money to spend on
those children as she sees fit.
Let me yield to my friend from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, as things go, had our
bill passed into law instead of been vetoed by the President, your
constituent would have in her pocket today $1,500 extra which she could
use for clothes, for textbooks, for college education accounts and so
forth. Instead, that $1,500 did not go to deficit reduction, it went to
welfare expansion, other programs such as the AmeriCorps program which
pays ``volunteers'' $26,000 a year, and most of them who end up going
through the program end up working for the government, and just
countless other bureaucratic, Washington-based command and control
programs. You know, I have a lot of faith in the people of Arizona. I
have never lived there. I have not visited your fine State as much as I
want to.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, we absolutely invite you to the
great State of Arizona, Mr. Kingston. I hope you will visit often.
Mr. KINGSTON. I would like to do that.
Mr. HAYWORTH. You will be back.
Mr. KINGSTON. But I have just as much faith in your folks as I do in
mine, and my people would do fine without Washington command and
control bureaucrats telling them how they need to run education,
telling them how to run the environment, telling them how to run health
care, telling them how to run welfare. We have ideas of our own in the
First District of Georgia, and we can do fine without Washington
bureaucrats.
Just think about what we are doing. We send our money to bureaucrats
and then they tell us how to spend it. They get their cut and they send
part of it back to us to run programs, and we know these people better
than they do. We can do a better job on poverty, right down the street,
than people in Washington can.
I often think about that story, and you have heard it, ``The Star
Tosser.'' I do not remember the author, do not even remember the name,
but the guy walks up and down the beach picking up starfish and he
throws them in the water. Every morning he does that after high tide.
He throws these starfish back in the water.
Somebody came up to him one day and said, ``What are you doing? You
cannot save all these washed ashore starfish. There are thousands of
them. On a good day, you maybe get 150 of them back in the ocean. What
difference could you possibly make?''
The man picked up a starfish and said, ``I do not know what
difference I make, but I am going to make a heck of a difference to
this one right here,'' and he threw it in the ocean.
Now, the point is, I cannot clear up poverty in Arizona or in
California or all over the country. I might not even be able to do it
in my own hometown, but I know this: I am going to have a heck of a lot
better shot at taking care of poverty in my hometown than I will in
your hometown.
Mr. BILBRAY. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. KINGSTON. What the bureaucrats in Washington are telling us is
they are so smart, they can do it in all of our hometowns.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, I will be happy to yield to my
friend from California.
Mr. BILBRAY. The gentleman from Georgia was just pointing out that
the people in the community know how to serve their poor the best and
that Washington does not know best.
Let me tell you, as somebody who was a county supervisor in a county
of 2.5 million plus people, that we operated a welfare system larger
than 32 States. When we ran into welfare fraud, we actually ran into a
situation where we realized we did not have pictures on the
identification cards that welfare recipients use.
Maybe being a little naive, I, as an administrator of a large welfare
system, decided that it was time that we brought the system into the
20th century and put pictures on welfare cards. That is all we were
saying, the ability to try to reduce fraud. Washington, D.C. said, ``We
are not so sure we can allow you to do that because it might violate
the privacy of the welfare recipients.''
Now I want you to remember that every time you look at your driver's
license, and think about the fact that do you honestly think your
government is violating your privacy by having you take a photo? I
think that common sense approach that we fought so hard for in San
Diego, in trying to get the Federal Government off our back and allow
us to administer these programs in a reasonable, logical way, just
really has to ring true here of saying guys, it has gotten out of
control.
Washington is not the only well of wisdom and compassion, and we have
got to allow people to address the problems they see in their community
and in the programs. As a past administrator, I sure hope this city
learns to finally understand to trust the people with freedom and trust
them to do the right thing. The American people are good people, and if
Washington would just give them enough latitude to do the right thing,
American people will do the right thing.
I appreciate the time. I would just like to point out and to say to
the gentleman from Georgia, I would like to offer him happy birthday
tomorrow. I hear it is the gentleman's 41st birthday.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. BILBRAY. Go ahead.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Forty-one for the youthful visage of the gentleman from
Georgia, it is truly amazing.
Mr. KINGSTON. Yes, but I still like rock and roll and do so any
chance I get. I just do not want my 13-year-old daughter to know about
it.
Mr. BILBRAY. Well, I would just like to say congratulations, and I
would like to say it must be the fact they do not get as much sun in
the West, so they are better preserved for a while, right?
Mr. HAYWORTH. It could be that, reclaiming my time, or the fact that
our dear friend, as my friend from California knows, is just the
perfection of physical fitness, as you are, spending time as I know
that you do, surfing. I also know that my colleague from California and
my friend from Georgia----
Mr. KINGSTON. I hear people laughing through the camera at this
point, but I just want to say one think you two could do is eat a
little more Vidalia onions.
Mr. HAYWORTH. We would be happy to. I thank my friend for the offer
and I am expecting those Vidalia onions, providing they do not violate
the gift ban any day now.
Mr. BILBRAY. We will make that ambition our goal.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Let me say, Mr. Speaker, to my friend from California
and also my friend from Georgia, as we talked about what in essence has
become the act of extending welfare as we know it, and my friend from
California especially knows this, we are not only extending welfare
benefits to American citizens. No, indeed. We have extended those
benefits to folks who are not United States citizens, to those who
commonly cross our borders in illegal fashion. I know that is a problem
within the State of Arizona and also within the area my friend from
California represents.
Mr. BILBRAY. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. HAYWORTH. I gladly yield to my friend.
[[Page H3728]]
Mr. BILBRAY. As somebody who grew up on the border, the absurdity of
the way local governments are required to handle these situations, to
give you an example, you have the mother of a person born here in the
United States, but she is an illegal alien. She will get the check for
that child. But the law says that while she is here in the United
States, she cannot work and she cannot spend one cent of that money on
herself.
Then we wonder why the studies in Los Angeles show that over 70
percent of the recipients that are receiving welfare checks that are
illegal aliens are committing welfare fraud. It is because the law is
absurd, and I want to point this out.
I think the one thing we do is, we focus on the illegal alien issue
or the immigrant issue. It is the absurdity of the rules we make in
Washington and that they do not apply in the real world. This is a
situation where we may be called mean-spirited, but the fact in
Washington is stupid and it is irresponsible. We need to change these
things and do something that is maybe a little radical to somebody, and
that is do the reasonable thing in Washington, so those of us in
California and Arizona and Georgia and across this country can do the
reasonable thing.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, what is radical within this beltway
is reasonable to the people of the United States. I thank my good
friend from California for mentioning that fact, and I thank my friend
from Georgia for offering real-life experiences of his constituents and
the challenges they face.
Indeed, Mr. Speaker, that brings me back to H.R. 2727, the
Congressional Responsibility Act, which I sponsor, which simply again
redesignates and reemphasizes what Article 1, Section 1 of our
Constitution says: All legislative powers herein granted shall be
vested in a Congress of the United States.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 272 does not outlaw executive agencies enacted by
this very Congress which now exist within the executive branch. All it
does is say that all of those proposed regulations, before they become
in essence law published in the Federal Register, should come here to
the Congress of the United States in expedited fashion for an up or
down vote.
Now, the government experts say, ``My goodness, that would require
too much time on the part of the Congress of the United States.'' But,
Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, as has been my honor on several
occasions of preside as Speaker Pro Tem of this house, I have presided
on at least two occasions where this body was engaged in largely
ceremonial debate for a ceremonial vote to name Federal installations
after noteworthy Americans. Now, I do not criticize that process, but
instead I ask this simple question, Mr. Speaker: If this Congress, in
the wake of over the last year having cast more votes than any other
Congress before it, still can find the time to expend hours of its
energy on largely ceremonial votes, cannot this same Congress take the
time to fulfill its constitutional obligation as stated in Article 1,
Section 1 of the sacred document we call the Constitution of the United
States?
Mr. Speaker, it is about this: Reclaiming this government for the
American people. As my friend from California pointed out earlier, it
is nothing radical; instead, it is reasonable. Indeed, the only way it
can be called extreme is in the fashion of making extremely good sense.
Let me yield to my friend from Georgia.
Mr. KINGSTON. I wanted to get back to the gentleman's statement and
also Mr. BILBRAY's. He said the Washington bureaucracy is stupid and
irresponsible. I do not think anybody paying taxes back home would
disagree with that. It is also inefficient.
What really happens, though, I know there are a lot of good people
involved in government, elected and unelected. A lot of good folks are
called bureaucrats. But you know what I think of having been around a
lot of teenagers? I know a lot of teenagers who individually are fine
folks, but when you get a pack of them in your living room or a pack of
them in your kitchen, strange things happen and all those individual
good people turn out to do some pretty stupid things as a pack.
{time} 2245
That is what happens in Washington. These folks need to go back home
so they can continue to be good folks, because when they get together
the association causes some real inefficient and irresponsible results.
Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman,
who fast approaches his 45th birthday tomorrow, and again provides the
wisdom of his age in the interaction of the teenagers in his household.
Mr. Speaker, I simply thank my good friend, the gentleman from
California [Mr. Bilbray] and my good friend, the gentleman from Georgia
[Mr. Kingston], who joined us during our special hour.
Mr. Speaker, it is all about this document, the Constitution of the
United States, and people being free to decide what is best for
themselves and their families, instead of relinquishing that power to a
centralized authority in Washington, DC.
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