[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 22, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5493-H5499]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         MORE ISSUES OF CONCERN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Collins of Georgia). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. 
Kingston] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to touch on some issues that we 
have not really gone over tonight, but I do want to make sure Mr. 
Hayworth got in his last comment on missile defense.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Well, I thank my good friend from Georgia.
  It is simply this, Mr. Speaker. I believe those watching this debate 
tonight in the United States of America need to take a very clear-eyed, 
sober-minded approach to providing for our common defense and to 
understand that we are vulnerable to intercontinental ballistic missile 
attack. This is not scare tactics. This is something, believe me, we 
wish were otherwise, but we need to take steps today to ensure that we 
provide for the common defense and that we do not always look to that 
legitimate role of the Federal Government, providing for that defense, 
as the place where all the job cuts and the reductions come to reinvent 
government as some would state it.
  With that, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding to me.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California 
[Mr. Hunter].
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, before we totally leave the missile area, I 
just wanted to flesh out the question the gentleman from Arizona asked 
about how we are treating Israel with respect to building a missile 
defense as opposed to our own people. The Israelis are surrounded by 
Arab neighbors who want to launch ballistic missiles at Israel. In 
1987, the Israelis were trying to develop a fighter, a craft called the 
Lavi aircraft. A number of us on the armed services program signed a 
letter that I drafted and Curt Weldon signed it, a number of Members 
who were still, Hal Rogers of Kentucky signed it, a number of members 
who are on the Committee on Armed Services today, and we said to the 
Israelis, do not build a fighter aircraft because a lot of nations make 
fighter aircraft.
  But there is one thing that no western nations build, and that is a 
defense against incoming ballistic missiles. We think that your 
program, your coproduction program with the United States should not be 
fighter aircraft, it should be a defense against missiles. And the 
reason we think that is because we think in the near future, we wrote 
this in 1987 to Mr. Rabin, we said we think in the near future you will 
be attacked with Russian made ballistic missiles coming from a 
neighboring Arab state. And it was somewhat prophetic. We predicted the 
state might be Syria. It ended up instead coming from Saddam Hussein. 
But they were attacked by Russian-made ballistic missiles coming from 
another country.
  The Israelis are very practical people. They live on a little postage 
stamp of land. They are very vulnerable. And they realize that they 
live in an age of missiles. When their Billy Mitchells tell them 
something, they act. So they said, we need a defense.
  So they started, they embarked upon the production of the Arrow 
missile defense program. That is a defensive missile that when an 
incoming missile is launched at one of their cities will go up and 
intercept that missile and destroy it.
  This President has signed on wholeheartedly in speeches to leaders in 
Israel to people that support the existence of the Israeli State, he 
has said, and properly so, I stand foursquare behind your program to 
defend against incoming ballistic missiles that might hurt people in 
Israel.

  All we are asking him to do with the Defend America Act is to sign on 
for the same program for Americans. We want basically the same thing 
that we

[[Page H5494]]

provide and are providing for the people of Israel. Nothing more, 
nothing less.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Again, it begs the question, with all due respect, if 
it is good enough for the nation of Israel, is it not good enough, 
should we not be prudent enough to provide the same sort of missile 
defense for the people of the United States of America?
  Mr. HUNTER. Absolutely.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Now, if the gentlemen would like to stick with me, I 
want to switch gears and talk about a few things.
  First, I do think that it is absolutely appalling that people in St. 
Mary's, GA; Jacksonville, FL; Brunswick, GA are not protected from a 
missile attack to the nuclear submarine in St. Mary's. I am glad that 
the two of you are working on this. I am proud to cosponsor the bill. I 
hope that we can protect, shore up our security so that parents around 
the land do not have to worry about this.
  I do want to switch gears. I have a letter from Mr. George Renshaw 
who ironically lives in St. Mary's. I want to quote him. He said, I 
never felt so strongly about Congress as I do now. All of you have 
amazed me. I see you many times on the House floor. Keep up the good 
work. By the way, I am an ex-Democrat.
  I thought that was just a little good, positive feedback.
  Mr. HUNTER. Is that one of your relatives?
  Mr. KINGSTON. It may be, if not, certainly a friend.
  I also wanted to apologize to the people from New Jersey. The other 
night the gentleman from New Jersey was talking about Medicare cuts. I 
pointed out to him that Medicare was going from $196 to $304 billion 
and if he thought that was a cut, that was a reflection of the 
education system in New Jersey.
  I have a letter here from a Mr. Ron Jones in New Jersey, and he says 
he is offended by that. He agrees with me that the Congressman from New 
Jersey may have missed the point, but when you increase Medicare 
spending from $196 to $304 billion, that is not a cut.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I think the observation to make to the 
good people of New Jersey is the gentleman from New Jersey, who fails 
to understand that, it is not so much that he is a product of New 
Jersey's system of education as much as he has adopted the old math, I 
will call it, the old math of the Washington bureaucracy, where a 
reduction in an anticipated increase is called a cut. Only in this city 
does that transpire.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I am glad the gentleman mentioned that.
  We are also increasing student loans from approximately $27 to $36 
billion. Yet the President of the United States has called that a cut. 
I do not know what school system he went to, but, again, going from $27 
to $36 billion is not a cut.
  On Medicaid, we are doing the same thing, going from approximately 
$90 to $140 billion. Yet the same status quo Washington liberal 
bureaucracy is calling these things a cut. The fact is, we have got to 
get these programs under control.
  I have an article here where the Atlanta Legal Aid Society tried to 
sue the State of Georgia because Medicaid did not pay for a sex change 
operation.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Would you please repeat that? I want to make sure that 
I understand what you just said and I think you owe it to the people 
nationwide who watch us tonight and to the Speaker in the chair, could 
you please repeat this letter?

  Mr. KINGSTON. Remember the backdrop here. We are a country that is $5 
trillion in debt. We are a country that has a welfare program that is 
totally out of control. We have spent about $4 trillion on it.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Actually, all told, Government spending at all levels 
in the so-called war on poverty is now in excess of our national debt, 
$5 trillion.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Which is more money than we spent to win World War II. 
And at the time that most of these programs started under the big 
Government expansion programs of Lyndon Johnson, the poverty level was 
14 percent. Today it is about 14 percent. So for all that we have done, 
we have only created great jobs for bureaucrats.
  But here in the backdrop of all this debt, the Atlanta Legal Aid 
Society sued the State of Georgia to try to force it to use Medicaid 
funds, which is welfare insurance, to pay for a sex change operation. 
The case was called Rush versus Parham. Fortunately, it was dismissed. 
But that is the kind of ridiculous thinking that we have got out there.
  Now, the gentleman from California will find this interesting. The 
legal services also sued the State of California because although one 
immigrant did not have, excuse me, very big distinction, these were 
illegal aliens.
  Mr. HUNTER. We have lost several members of the bar in California. 
They were backed over by a van carrying illegal aliens. I am being 
facetious. Actually, they usually wait for the van to stop before they 
get out and offer their services.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman is finished, I will 
continue.
  The legal aid society sued the State of California for not giving 
illegal aliens a driver's license, even though they were in the country 
illegally.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. It is just interesting, because in other States, I 
could be corrected by my friend from California, that is very 
interesting. Legal services wanted to step in for illegal immigrants. 
Illegal aliens here in this country without a passport, without due 
process to come into the country and remain, sued for the right of a 
driver's license. And yet in other States, I believe California has 
been courageous in this regard, because so many States have processed 
motor voter where all one needs to register to vote is to apply for a 
driver's license.
  Mr. KINGSTON. All one needs to get people to vote is drive down the 
street and say, hop in my van, let me take you to the polls because you 
are now registered to vote, because you are on welfare or you have a 
driver's license or you have other forms of public assistance.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. It is stunning. Give us an update on the California 
situation.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Just save us from your jokes.
  Mr. HUNTER. I will not offer any one-liners, but I have to say that 
this situation does beg for some one-liners. You could actually get a 
twofer. If you are an illegal alien and you are driving to vote and you 
are pursued by the Border Patrol, you will not only be able to cast 
your ballot but also enjoy a healthy lawsuit against the Border Patrol 
or a sheriff's department with a good chance for recompense.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me ask you something else.
  Mr. HUNTER. What the gentleman has described is true. As I 
understand, in talking to a member of the State assembly, the bill to 
deny illegal aliens, and this was Jan Goldsmith who represents Poway in 
San Diego County, the bill to deny illegal aliens the right to a 
duplicate driver's license, even though it is obvious that the driver's 
license was fraudulently issued, was passed out of committee. His bill 
to deny them this right was passed out of committee by, I believe, a 
single vote. I believe every member of the Democrat Party voted against 
that.

                              {time}  2230

  Now, I am not positive on the breakdown of the vote, but as I 
understand, it was a very, very narrow vote to pass the ban coming out 
of committee on this activity.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. And is it not amazing that for most commercial 
transactions, when any American citizen wants to go into a major 
retailer or any store, a grocery store, and wants to pay for the items 
purchased with a check, that that shopper must produce two forms of 
identification, quite often, and with the manipulation and the 
usurpation of rights under motor voter, we are setting up a scenario in 
which noncitizens will not be required to show any proof of citizenship 
to have the right to vote in elections that determine the future of the 
United States of America.
  How cynical, how corrupting. What an insult to those hard-working, 
honest immigrants who come here who apply for citizenship, who want to 
be American citizens more than anything else in the world, who want to 
contribute something to this country, who want to have a better future 
for themselves and their families, and whose very citizenship is being 
cheapened by these cynical actions designed to perpetuate a cynical 
welfare state and to

[[Page H5495]]

return to power those who seek power by any means necessary.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let us talk about this because I think it is very 
important, as we explore welfare reform for the third time, and 
hopefully, maybe because it is an election year, the President will 
vote for it this time, but as we get into the health care benefit and 
the portion of welfare and State grants and so forth, I think it is 
important to know we have worked on health care reform for American 
middle-class families. We have tried to make it more affordable and 
more accessible through the portability clauses and eliminate the 
preexisting-illness conditions of the policies so that middle-class 
Americans can take their health care with them and not be held hostage 
to the insurance company or have a job loss.
  The other thing, which I know the two of you have supported, is 
medical savings accounts. Today I presented to the Speaker and to Denny 
Hastert and the health care conferees a letter signed by 162 Members, 
bipartisan Members, of this Chamber asking that conferees keep the 
medical savings accounts in the health care reform; medical savings 
accounts, basically a high-deductible plan that allows consumers to pay 
for their own first-dollar health care expenses like stitches, x rays, 
routine checkups, and so forth, but they get to save the money, they 
get to pocket what they have saved from the deductible, use it for 
long-term health care or use it for a college education account or, you 
know, use it for Christmas money or whatever they want. The money is 
tax free, though, if it is spent on medical expenses.
  And that is what middle-class America needs, is health care----
  Mr. HUNTER. But, if the gentleman will yield, the liberals in America 
do not want the American people to have the freedom to shop for 
themselves, because it is exactly what you are talking about is 
shopping. Instead of shopping for food, instead of shopping for 
clothes, you get to shop for your own medical care. And if you think 
you have got a good doctor who will take that x ray for $25 or $30 
under the costs of another doctor, you have got an incentive to go out 
and shop for that better buy just like you shop for a better buy in all 
aspects of life.
  Liberals do not like that. They do not like it because it cuts 
dependency, and they do not like it because people exercise freedom. If 
you teach people to exercise freedom enough, pretty soon they are going 
to want to have a lot more freedom, and that is a bad thing from a 
liberal perspective.

  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, the irony is two things, how this can serve, is 
that when American consumers go into an appliance store, they know how 
much a dishwasher costs, a new refrigerator, a stereo, an automobile, 
even a house, and yet if you get a broken arm, we do not have any idea. 
Is it $200, is it $900? How many bills am I going to get? You know, 
what about setting a broken leg? I have no idea.
  I mean American consumers need to know. An amniocentesis, if a woman 
gets an amniocentesis, she gets bills from every lab in America for 6 
months. Should not the women in America be able to know when they go in 
how much it is going to cost them?
  What a medical savings account will do will put her back in charge, 
and then she will know, hey, this is supposed to be a $300 deal, this 
is not going to be a $600 deal, Dr. Jones down the street only charges 
$275.
  Mr. HUNTER. You know, you are talking about that woman who, in so 
many cases today, is the head of household, and the idea that we are so 
cynical in Washington, DC, or liberals are so cynical that they do not 
want that woman who is head of the household to go out and shop for 
medical care, they do not think she is smart enough, they do not think 
she should be trusted with making that choice. So they are going to do 
it for her. And yet if she goes out and shops smart, and she is able to 
shop smart in every other area; there are many households now headed by 
women who are building and, in many cases where there is single women 
raising kids, they have many choices and many challenges to meet with 
respect to education, with respect to buying homes, with respect to 
buying automobiles, with respect to forging the lives and building the 
character of their kids, and the idea that liberals have that somehow 
that a woman is not capable of shopping for a less expensive x-ray or 
she is not capable of finding out how much a medical procedure costs, 
does not make sense.
  In fact the only way that we are going to be able to make health care 
affordable in this country is to rely on the best thing that we have 
got. That is the good common sense of our citizens.
  Mr. KINGSTON. That is exactly right.
  Let me give you another example of how medical savings accounts can 
make a difference and more consumer information. I read an article----
  Mr. HUNTER. Now, what does a medical savings account do? If I have a 
medical savings account, what will I have?
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is basically a high-deductible plan where any money 
that you do not spend you can use for long-term health care or you can 
use for a college education.
  Mr. HUNTER. How much could I save out of the year if I do not spend 
much money on----
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is $2,500, $2,000, $4,000 deductible. So anything 
that you do not spend goes into your pocket.
  There is a woman in Tampa, FL, who had breast cancer. She could not 
get the information she needed through the traditional health care 
provider network. So what she did, she got on the Net. How many of you 
out there have breast cancer? And she formed a network and was able to 
find a support group and a physician who had a new specialty and a new 
drug, and as a result she has been able to deal with her illness a lot 
better.
  Now, there is a doctor in Fort Worth who recommends a system whereby 
we can use our own television to actually one day get on some of those 
blank channels after channel 40 that, you know, we have on every TV, 
and they are all blank, get in there and say, ``Back injury. How much? 
What? Lower back? Upper back,'' and keep pushing your remote and 
concentrate on where your back problems is, and then it would tell you 
the nature of it, which physicians in your area serve it, how much it 
costs to prevent, to spend on it. And think about how, if you tie in 
medical savings accounts in with the information highway, how great it 
will be for the American consumers.
  Mr. HUNTER. You know, if the gentleman will yield on that point, a 
great American conservative, Tom Clancy, the author of ``Hunt for Red 
October'' and so many other best-selling books, has done something 
along the line of what the gentleman is talking about. He had a young 
kid who had cancer, kid named Kyle, young boy, and Tom formed a great 
friendship with this youngster as he was experiencing the trauma of 
cancer, and Kyle ultimately passed away. Well, Tom Clancy formed the 
Kyle Foundation, and the Kyle Foundation is dedicated to linking up 
people who need cancer information: What kind of information can I get 
about this type of cancer or that type of cancer? What types of doctors 
are specialists in this particular type of cancer that my son may have? 
Where do I go to get these doctors? And networking not only the users, 
the moms and the dads with children with cancer, but also networking 
the doctors so that a doctor who is making a breakthrough in one type 
of cancer on the other side of the country can hook up with a doctor on 
the other side of the country and exchange information, and this 
exchange of information and this ability of free people to shop for the 
best ideas and the best innovations in medicine is kind of what the 
gentleman is talking about.
  That is the idea of not being harnessed by government one-size-fits-
all, ``Wait in this line, and we will get to you when we get to you.''
  Mr. KINGSTON. We had a neighbor of mine, unfortunately he passed away 
also, named Julian Bono, and he did the same sort of thing is Savannah, 
GA, networking with other people who had cancer, passing on 
information, passing on treatments about doctors, and they had a list 
of physicians all over the country. Actually, he found a cure or a 
potential cure in Greece and helped some of the people go over there, 
and it is all we are saying to the liberal Washington establishment is 
let the American people do what they are best at: be sharp, smart 
shoppers.

[[Page H5496]]

  Mr. HAYWORTH. And it goes a bit further than that, if the gentleman 
would yield. It goes to this question:
  Not just allowing the American people to do so because realistically 
the power resides with the American people. Our system of government, 
our constitutional republic, provides that the power that many of us 
believe comes from a higher authority is bestowed on the people. The 
people in turn bestow it on the government. So it is not the 
government's domain to, quote unquote, allow the people this 
opportunity. Instead it is their fundamental right to pursue treatments 
they believe can help them, and it is their fundamental right, and I 
dare say as we stand poised at the dawn of the next century, we should 
restore the basic element of trust that we who are honored to serve in 
government through the consent of the governed trust the people to make 
decisions.
  And again as I have said many times, I believe what crystallizes the 
debate when we get past the playground talks, when we get past the 
scare tactics, when we get past the deliberate disinformation, what 
characterizes this debate on almost every question of import is this:

  Do you trust the American people, or are you so cynical or disdainful 
of the American people that you place your trust in a centralized 
bureaucracy in Washington?
  I trust the American people, and I believe the people trust 
themselves, and we work to empower the people.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield on that, about the big 
bureaucracy, it is interesting that as we are debating budgets, the 
Democrat budget versus the Republican budget, that the Clinton Democrat 
budget adds 3,000 more Federal employees to the payroll and adds 14 new 
bureaucracies and agencies, and you know that is not what the message 
was. The message from the American people, which was accurately 
mirrored by the President, was the era of big government was over.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I just want to make sure because the gentleman was 
sitting close to me, and I heard in this well in that very unmistakable 
twang of Arkansas speech that the era of big government was over, and 
yet again I would ask the gentleman from Georgia to offer those 
figures, provided by the gentleman who stood here and told us the era 
of big government is over; what is that again?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I will be happy to give you these figures, and I tell 
you one other, but the Clinton budget will cost us 3,000 more Federal 
bureaucrats, it creates 14 new Federal programs, and it claims to have 
$129 billion in tax relief, but it takes back $90 billion in increased 
taxes which were passed under the President, and then, as you probably 
know, the savings are all on the back end.
  Yes, the President's budget balances in the year 2002, but, as the 
gentleman in the well has pointed out it is equivalent of Mr. Hayworth 
saying, and I can get away with kidding him a little better than Mr. 
Hunter, but it is the equivalent of you saying that you are going on a 
diet and lose 30 pounds, but you are not going to in 1 year, but you 
are not going to lose any of it until November.

                              {time}  2245

  Yes, you will be 30 pounds under by December 31. I would say to the 
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter], if he wants to join in that, it 
might be a good idea.
  Mr. HAYWOOD. Really. It is the equivalent of trying to lose 50 pounds 
and spending all year, the first 50 weeks, losing 2 pounds, and saying 
you are going to lose the other 48 in the final 2 weeks of the diet. 
Mathematically, the operation of subtraction can work when you put 
pencil to paper. Realistically, honestly, it does not work. It does not 
work.
  This is what is especially galling. For when one is selected to serve 
and take the oath of office in this Chamber, as a member of the 
legislative branch, and I daresay, as our Chief Executive at the other 
end of Pennsylvania Avenue, there is a sacred trust, and there is a 
burden, an opportunity of governance that rests upon our shoulders.
  How cynical it is to devise mathematical formulae which would say, 
oh, if I am bestowed with the trust of the American people for a second 
4-year term, 2 to 3 year after I leave we will achieve this; 2 to 3 
years after I give up custodianship of this role, things will come into 
balance.
  It is akin to the shortcut to house cleaning, but it is with far, far 
more dire results, because you can sweep a little bit under the rug. We 
can take those kinds of shortcuts, but what this threatens is the very 
structure and the very foundation of our free society. It is not the 
same as sweeping the dirt under the rug, but it is fundamentally being 
less than candid about the challenge that confronts the American 
people.
  And to some, in a Machiavellian sense, it may be really smart 
politically, but what a tragedy it would be if we would sacrifice 
candor and truthfulness and forthrightness in our governance for the 
sake of political expediency, rather than a call to make changes for 
the better.
  Mr. HUNTER. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, I hope and I 
think that the American people are not going to be taken in by the 
inconsistency that this President has displayed. I remember we were all 
sitting here the night when he said, ``The era of big government is 
over.'' But I recall a few minutes later in the same speech, he 
announced, I believe, three new programs. Only William Clinton could do 
that and get away with it. I notice not a single news station, at least 
the ones that I observed, picked that up.
  Only this President, who said that he loathed the American military 
and deliberately avoided service during Vietnam, could use the Soldiers 
and Sailors Relief Act that is designed for military men and women 
serving overseas to keep them from losing their property while they are 
serving their country. Only he could invoke that Soldiers and Sailors 
Relief Act to protect himself from a civil lawsuit in Arkansas.
  But I think that there is such a thing as being a little too cute and 
underestimating the American people to the point where, ultimately, 
when the people make a judgment with respect to this President, we are 
going to see that they have a lot more wisdom than he attributes to 
them.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, let me get back on the balanced budget. 
There are three reasons we need to keep focus on the balanced budget. 
No. 1, the Federal Reserve says if you have a balanced budget, interest 
rates will fall. If they fall as much as 2 percent, it would make a 
significant savings in your monthly home mortgage and your automobile 
bill, if you own your car.
  No. 2, it will create jobs. Because small businesses can borrow money 
at lower interest rates, they will expand more opportunities which will 
be out there for everybody.
  No. 3, your taxes will go down, because you will not have that huge 
crunch from the Federal Government that is draining the pocketbooks of 
American workers right now. That is one reason why this Congress fought 
so hard for the $500-per-child tax credit.
  The gentleman earlier talked about single women at home. Raising 
children is the most frustrating, the most difficult, the most 
expensive thing that I think I have ever tried to do, or anybody else 
can do. And a $500-per-child tax credit will help the American working 
men and woman afford their family. It will help the middle class like 
no other measure that we could pass in Congress.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, what is especially important, I think of 
the single moms in the Sixth District of Arizona, and imagine if they 
had for their 3 children $1,500 to save, spend, and invest as they see 
fit for those children, to spend that money on those children, to save 
that money for those children, instead of surrendering that money to 
Washington. It is especially galling that we have had a President who 
campaigned, and people talk about political strategies, and, oh, 
members of that reelection team looking at the Ronald Reagan strategy 
of 1984. Nonsense.
  This is the same strategy utilized by the President in 1992. It is, 
simply stated, this: Talk like Ronald Reagan, govern like Michael 
Dukakis. Always talk right, govern left. This same President who said 
that the middle class deserved tax relief gave itself the largest tax 
increase in American history. This same President who said end welfare 
as we know it, has vetoed, not once but twice, the very welfare reform 
he purports in a general sense to champion.

[[Page H5497]]

  This same President who said as a candidate in 1992 that he would 
balance the budget in 5 years, even when given a grace period of an 
extra 2 years, if you will, still uses curious mathematics and said, as 
pointed out by the gentleman from California, even in the same breath 
with yet another Reaganesque utterance: The era of big government is 
over, but here are three more programs. Here is more and more spending 
in Washington, DC. Here is more and more power vested in Washington, 
and here is the preservation of the status quo, even amidst the 
language of change.
  There is, as I said earlier this evening, Mr. Speaker, a credibility 
canyon to go along with the Clinton crunch.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, let us do some 
taxes. I think a lot of single moms out there, a lot of heads of 
households, a lot of folks with kids would like to know what this tax 
cut was that the President kept them from getting. We have all done our 
taxes in April. Most folks realize and remember how much they paid for 
taxes. Let us prepare some income taxes here, and show them what the 
American people lost when President Clinton killed the tax cuts for the 
American family.
  It is very simple. If you are out there and you have two kids, you 
multiply two kids times $500 apiece, and that is $1,000. You deduct 
that from what you paid on April 15, so if you paid $1,000 on April 15 
and you have two children, under the tax cuts that the Republicans 
passed but that President Clinton killed, two times $500 is $1,000. At 
the bottom line on your 1040 you would have deducted $1,000 from the 
$1,000 you owed and you would have paid no taxes.
  That means you would have had $1,000 in your pocket for maybe the 
last half of that mortgage payment you were having trouble making, 
maybe the education fund for your daughter who is 15, who will soon be 
going off to college, maybe $1,000 to put that down payment down on the 
lot outside of Phoenix, AZ, or San Diego, CA, where you want to build a 
house someday. That is the tax cut for the rich.
  If you have four kids, you multiply four times $500 and that is 
$2,000, so everybody should just remember right now, just take a minute 
and remember what you paid in taxes to the Federal Government on April 
15. Look at your family, whether they are in the living room with you 
or in the kitchen or they are out playing Little League or whatever, 
count the number of kids that you have an multiply that times $500, and 
deduct that mentally from what you paid. That is the amount of money 
that you would have saved. Once again, Mr. Speaker, President Clinton 
depicted that tax cut as a tax cut for the wealthy.
  Mr. Speaker, I agree with him in a way. I think everybody in America, 
in this land of opportunity, who has children is wealthy. They are 
rich. They are rich; not rich economically, but they are rich in 
opportunity. But this President killed this tax cut, and he called it a 
tax cut for the rich, so I hope that every American who pays taxes will 
remember that last figure they put down on their 1040, that $1,000 that 
they paid or that $10,000 that they paid, and that $500 per child that 
they could have deducted if President Clinton had not stepped in and 
killed that tax cut.

  Mr. KINGSTON. What is interesting, Mr. Speaker, is that while the 
administration was busy not cutting taxes, they had no problem cutting 
drug awareness money. Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the 
Harris County DARE graduation, and just some statistics that are in my 
mind.
  The average age now nationally that teenagers smoke marijuana is age 
13. Thirty-eight percent of parents think that their kids do not smoke 
or get involved in drugs, and yet, in reality, the percentage is often 
higher than that, depending on where they are. Twelve- and 13-year-olds 
and 14- and 15-year olds have one of the highest increases in marijuana 
use in the Nation, higher than any other age bracket.
  But one of the statistics that I think is very encouraging is that if 
you can keep your child off of drugs until he or she is 19 years old, 
then they have a 90 percent chance of staying drug-free for the rest of 
their lives.
  I think what we really need to do is talk to our teenagers about drug 
abuse. I think it should be drug and alcohol abuse and any other 
substance, legal or illegal, that they can abuse, because we have to 
keep our children drug-free. We have to keep our schools drug-free and 
the workplace drug-free. If we can do that, we are going to have a 
generation that will successfully take the torch on, and we will all be 
able to retire one day and they will pay for our Social Security.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I would say, in fairness, I am glad that 
our friend, General McCaffrey, has been given charge of the war on 
drugs, but that does not excuse the fact that this administration has 
basically been AWOL in that war for the first 2\1/2\ years, almost 3 
years of its time in office. So again, it is a case of too little, too 
late; or a type of ``me too-ism'' that smacks of electioneering, that 
smacks of opportunism, rather than a genuine quest to make the changes 
the gentleman from Georgia mentioned are so necessary.
  It is borne out in other figures in the President's budget. Oh, sure, 
there are modest increases, for example, for the Drug 
Enforcement Agency, for the number of employees; for the Immigration 
and Naturalization Service, for the Border Patrol.

  But yet, but yet, the glaring problem is this: that more and more 
money is put away so that upwards of 115,000 people in Bill Clinton's 
budget would be employed in the Internal Revenue Service; easily, what, 
three times the number of people, or close to that, employed with the 
INS or the Border Patrol. So the message in fact is this: We may not 
have time to fight the war on drugs, we may not have the ability to 
protect the sanctity of our borders, but, by golly, we have the time to 
come and audit you, Mr. and Mrs. America, and your tax returns, because 
we fundamentally do not trust you; and these other problems, well, sure 
they are problems, but you see a lot in the priorities expressed in 
that budget with reference to the Internal Revenue Service.
  Mr. HUNTER. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, let me tell him 
what has happened with the Clinton administration's policy on stopping 
cocaine that is coming across the international border. A border 
patrolman, and as you may know, I represent a great deal of the 
California Mexican border, kind of the southern slice of the State. I 
know the gentleman represents a great deal of Arizona just to the east 
of my district.
  A border patrolman came to us one day and gave us an internal 
memorandum from Doris Meissner, who is the head of INS for the Clinton 
administration. It concerned the border fence, because we have been 
building a border fence made out of landing mats, steel planks like 
those that you used in Desert Storm to build runways, except we turn 
them vertical instead of horizontal, and when we weld them to posts, we 
are making a steel fence 10 feet high and now some 14 miles long, from 
the Pacific Ocean to the coastal hills.

                              {time}  2300

  When we built that fence, my staff went out and searched the 
inventories of every military base from Guam from Guantanamo and found 
179,000 surplus steel planks to build this fence with. But when we 
built the fence, we increased cocaine interdiction by 1,000 percent 
because the drug runners, who were just driving their cars and trucks 
across the border, not at the regular crossings but just right across 
the sagebrush landscape, now could not get across because of the steel 
fence, so they had to go through very channelized areas and we were 
catching them.
  Now, in a number of places we had fence that was made out of chain 
link, and these chain link fences, the drug pushers and the drug 
smugglers would just take their clippers, clip that chain link, roll it 
back and drive their van or heavy-duty truck through it with cocaine 
for America's children.
  The Government of Mexico asked Doris Meissner to meet with them 
because they did not like the idea that we were replacing these chain 
link fences with steel fences that nobody could drive through, made out 
of steel landing mat. As a result, she circulated a memorandum. I am 
going to bring it out to the floor next time we have a special order 
because I have got a copy of it.

[[Page H5498]]

  It tells every Border Patrol chief, ``You are no longer allowed to 
replace this flimsy chain link fence with steel landing mat.'' I call 
that the drug smuggler provision. Because the Government of Mexico has 
complained about it, from now on you can only repair a chain link fence 
with chain link.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. If the gentleman would yield for a question, since when 
does an official of this Government change policy for the protection 
and the edification of the citizens of this country to please 
representatives of a foreign government? Where on Earth and why in this 
Nation has that taken root? What is the explanation or the rationale 
for this?
  Mr. HUNTER. The gentleman is asking me to explain a President who has 
sent our Government to the United Nations, our marines to Bosnia, and 
our jobs to Mexico. The answer is that this President is an 
internationalist. He believes very strongly in listening to people on 
other sides of the border. Now, that can be good, but it is not good 
when it conflicts with the thoughts of people on his side of the 
border.
  We have an absolute right to maintain a border with integrity, tell 
people when they come across, come through the front door. Do not come 
through our back door. Do not drive cocaine across the hillsides into 
the southern reaches of California and Arizona.
  But this administration has been dragged kicking and screaming to the 
border, and they have been a little disingenuous with us, while they 
are doing press conferences. They fought us on the 6,000 Border Patrol 
increase that we put in the crime bill and on the 600 Border Patrol 
increase that we put in the appropriations bill in fiscal year 1994. 
They fought us on that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. And, I want to point out, vetoed the provision in 
welfare reform that said no permanent welfare benefits for illegal 
aliens, and that then was vetoed by the President.
  Mr. HUNTER. Precisely. When the President vetoed that welfare 
provision for illegal aliens, when he allowed that welfare provision to 
keep being paid out, that kept the magnet alive. That kept the magnet 
that told people that if they came to the United States, as several 
Social Security ladies showed me when they came in my office, they 
said:

       Congressman, here are some illegal alien families making 
     more money on welfare than we are making as GS-11's working 
     for the Federal Government, and they have discovered the joys 
     of daytime television, they are not working.

  That is a magnet that this President has allowed to keep turned on at 
full power, that brings people into this country illegally, because he 
is paying them more in welfare payments than they can make working in 
their native country.
  But the point that I am making is this President and Doris Meissner, 
his INS Commissioner, who is a nice person, have testified against and 
fought against every Border Patrol increase that we have passed in this 
Congress, that Republicans have passed.
  Yet when we bring those newly trained Border Patrolmen that the 
Republican Congress passed down to the Boarder Patrol headquarters at 
San Ysidro, who is there to do a press conference and greet them but 
the very same Clinton administration officials who fought their funding 
in the first place. You know something? They do not even crack a smile.
  You know something else? If we took all those Clinton officials who 
do press conferences at the border in San Diego and we simply had them 
touch hands, just link arms, they would stretch across the 
entire border between San Diego and the gentleman's great State of 
Arizona. We would not need a Border Patrol because we have more public 
relations people there than we have illegal aliens.

  Mr. HAYWORTH. Well, it bring to mind really the definition of 
politics, I suppose, here in the late 20th century, at least as 
practiced by our campaigner in chief. I would have to say it is 
politics at its most cynical, the mission being, accept credit for 
those things you have absolutely nothing to do with and divert the 
blame for those projects and those objects, I might add, that cause 
problems that you literally may have your fingerprints all over. That 
has come to define politics here in the late 20th century as practiced 
by our friend at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.
  Mr. HUNTER. Well, if the gentleman is talking about those documents 
that they found in the White House after months and months of not being 
available, I know where they were. They were right underneath the TV 
Guide all the time. That is where they were.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Maybe underneath the Constitution. I know that is not 
read over there.
  The question that some of you just mentioned, and I think it is about 
time we need to close, but the other day I was speaking to a chamber of 
commerce for the gentleman from Columbus, Mr. Collins, and he was kind 
enough to get a good bipartisan group of speakers. He had somebody from 
the administration talking, and he was talking about the wonderfulness 
of Government partnerships.
  A small business, independent business person raised his hand and 
said:

       I tell you what. I do not want the government to be my 
     partner. In fact, the less I see, the less I have to do with 
     the government, the better for me and for my business.

  I think that said so much, because people do not want the Government 
in their lives setting up, as you just mentioned, these obstacles and 
then coming up and saying, ``But I will get you through them.''
  ``Well, why do you not just remove the obstacles and get out of my 
life, too, and that would be better.''
  But it is about time to wrap up, so let me yield to the gentleman 
from California first for a closing comment.
  Mr. Hunter. Let me just say I appreciate the gentleman from Georgia, 
whose tenacity and eloquence has really kept these very educational 
sessions alive, and also my great friend from Arizona, who is so 
articulate and who is so concerned about this country.
  I have got one thing I would like to ask you both. Speaking of single 
moms, we did a Boy Scout hike from sea to shining sea, from the Salton 
Sea to the Pacific Ocean, a couple months ago. We are going to take 
this walk. We had a lot of single moms, and there were Cub Scouts and 
Boy Scouts on this walk. 100 miles. We are going to take this walk 
literally from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic ocean, from the real 
sea to shining sea next year. I want the gentleman who has so much of 
Arizona, and the gentleman who has so much of Georgia to get their 
Scout troops to participate in this sea to shining sea walk.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I cannot pause or hesitate to say as an Eagle Scout, 
and I search out my card here in my pocket, as an Eagle Scout, I am 
happy to take that challenge. Goodness knows I need the walk for my own 
physical fitness. But having just participated in the Grand Canyon 
Council Scout-a-rama at Papago Peaks, I am happy to do that. I trust 
during our time in San Diego this summer we might have an opportunity 
to involve some of the youth groups in San Diego to see what is 
transpiring in your city and again to reinforce this notion that we 
trust the American people, and it is not so much a case of being 
hostile toward Government but instead embracing that Jeffersonian ideal 
of a limited but effective Government, not as a partner, not as a 
mechanism to be reinvented, but simply as the fabric of our 
constitutional Republic that enables us and empowers us to provide for 
the common defense and in the classical true sense, to promote the 
general welfare of everyone.
  That is the challenge we confront as we face the next century, 
whether arm in arm with the Boy Scouts or other members of every 
generation in this country, to work together to trust one another, to 
understand it is our people who lead us and our Government which exists 
to help empower people, rather than partner with them or simply be 
reinvented to grow ever larger, to grow ever more intrusive, and to 
require ever more of the hard-earned money the people of the United 
States of America richly earn and richly deserve.
  Mr. HUNTER. As a second class Scout, I salute my Eagle leader.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. You far eclipse me my friend, in other endeavors.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me say this to the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. 
Hayworth], the gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter], I am looking 
forward to your west coast boy scouts coming our way and we will show 
them what a real ocean and a real beach looks like. I just want you to 
remember that since I control the time, I can say that last.

[[Page H5499]]

  Mr. Speaker, what we are trying to do, what we have been talking 
about tonight is having a good welfare system, one that helps those who 
need a helping hand but puts able-bodied recipients to work; a criminal 
justice system that gets the thugs off the streets so that American 
families can walk down the streets without having to look over their 
shoulder and be scared; having a budget that is balanced so that 
interest rates go down, having the waste cut out of it. Above all, 
changing this Washington bureaucracy, rocking it, changing it 
permanently so that we can have a government that is limited and one 
that responds.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the following material for the Record:

                               Jobs Lost

       The following is a very conservative State-by-State 
     estimate of the number of jobs lost if the minimum wage is 
     raised to $5.15:

                                                              Number of
        State                                                 jobs lost
Alabama..........................................................15,300
Alaska..............................................................300
Arizona...........................................................8,900
Arkansas..........................................................8,800
California.......................................................63,100
Colorado..........................................................8,000
Connecticut.......................................................4,000
Delaware..........................................................1,300
District of Columbia................................................600
Florida..........................................................35,500
Georgia..........................................................18,000
Hawaii..........................................................( \1\ )
Idaho.............................................................3,200
Illinois.........................................................29,200
Indiana..........................................................16,400
Iowa..............................................................4,200
Kansas............................................................7,300
Kentucky.........................................................12,100
Louisiana........................................................15,400
Maine.............................................................2,800
Maryland..........................................................7,400
Massachusetts.....................................................4,000
Michigan.........................................................23,000
Minnesota........................................................10,100
Mississippi......................................................10,500
Missouri.........................................................16,200
Montana...........................................................2,800
Nebraska..........................................................5,100
Nevada............................................................2,500
New Hampshire.....................................................2,200
New Jersey..........................................................900
New Mexico........................................................4,600
New York.........................................................29,900
North Carolina...................................................19,100
North Dakota......................................................2,400
Ohio.............................................................28,000
Oklahoma.........................................................10,800
Oregon............................................................2,100
Pennsylvania.....................................................27,400
Rhode Island......................................................1,300
South Carolina...................................................11,900
South Dakota......................................................2,400
Tennessee........................................................17,700
Texas............................................................60,600
Utah..............................................................5,400
Vermont.............................................................400
Virginia.........................................................15,000
Washington........................................................1,700
West Virginia.....................................................5,800
Wisconsin........................................................11,800
Wyoming...........................................................1,700
                                                             __________

  National total................................................621,000

\1\ $5.25 is minimum wage.

Prepared by: The Employment Policies Institute.

                          ____________________