[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 101 (Wednesday, July 10, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H7247-H7251]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ISSUES OF THE DAY AMONG AMERICANS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May
12, 1995, the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Jones] is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted tonight to ask the gentleman
from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] and the gentleman from Georgia [Mr.
Kingston] to join me in probably about 30 or 35 minutes of a dialog
regarding issues facing the American people today. With that, I have
asked my friend, the gentleman from Minnesota, if he would be the floor
manager of this discussion. With that, I will ask him to initiate the
discussion.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, we have just returned from some time back
in our districts, and I do not know about the rest of my colleagues,
but we have had a chance to hear what some people have had to say on
the issues of the day. I had, I think, eight different town meetings, I
was involved in about nine parades, did one special meeting with
seniors in my district, and so I think I got pretty good feedback, and
[[Page H7248]]
I thought maybe we could talk a little bit about some of the things we
heard during the district break.
But I know that the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] has some
points that he wants to make and so I would like to yield to him for as
much time as he may consume, if that would be all right, then we can
get more into a discussion.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I
wanted to address something that I think is dear to your heart, and
that is the label that Republican freshmen have been getting hit with
about being called extremists. Your class came to Washington with a
spirit of reform and yet the press and the Washington establishment,
who likes the status quo, has called you extremist, mean-spirited,
callous, and so forth. The reason why is because you have tried to do
this thing called the Contract With America. The Contract With America
is a legislative package designed to reduce the size of government, cut
waste, lower taxes, balance the budget, reform welfare and increase
personal freedom.
Now, my friends and neighbors that I see at the grocery store at
checkout lines do not consider those extreme ideas. But let us examine
this in detail. First of all, do you think it is a good idea to balance
the budget? Do you think we should do something about the $20 billion
in interest we pay each month on the national debt? Do you think we
should pass this legacy on to our children? Do you think it is extreme
to try to balance the budget in a 7-year period of time? I think not. I
think that is a responsible legislative agenda, and I am glad that you
are taking it. I applaud the gentleman for it.
What did the Democrats do before when they were in the majority?
Well, they increased domestic spending another $300 billion. They
created over a period of time 163 different Federal jobs training
programs, 26 different food and nutrition programs, 180 education
programs. We may need more than one, but do we need all that
duplication in Washington? Do we need all that bureaucracy?
What did the Democrats do about taxes? Well, in 1993, President
Clinton passed a $245 billion tax increase, which included a four cents
per gallon gas tax, a tax on Social Security, a tax on small businesses
and partnerships.
What do the Republicans want to do? Well, we extremists have been
accused of wanting to give tax breaks for the rich and the elderly. One
of these taxes is a $500 per child tax credit. I ask the Members, is it
extreme to give the working families of America a $500 per child tax
credit so that they can buy a few more tennis shoes, a few more lunch
boxes, a few more books, a few more clothes and so forth? I do not
think that is so extreme.
What about our seniors, shouldn't they be able to work longer without
being penalized on their Social Security? That is one of the tax relief
ideas that we had, allowing seniors to work longer.
What about the capital gains tax cut? Now, will Ted Turner benefit
from a capital gains tax cut, and all the wealthy people? Yes, this he
will. Do you know who else will? All the widows in my district who
bought property in a growth area during the 1960's. They bought a house
that was worth maybe $35,000 at the time, and today it is worth
$200,000, and they can sell that money for long-term personal care home
or a medical emergency and not be taxed at the highest tax bracket
because of this thing called the capital gains tax.
What about the marriage tax penalties? Should we give the same tax
rate to people who are married as we do to the people who live
together? Right now, a couple can live together and they pay less taxes
than a couple that gets married. Is that right? Is it extreme that
Republican freshmen want to change that? And what about welfare?
Members know, we tried to change that.
Mr. JONES. The gentleman from Georgia, I just wanted to further
refine and clarify something he said about working people. Is it not
true in America today that the average working family will spend more
on paying taxes than that same average working family will spend on
clothing, housing or food? Have you heard that?
Mr. KINGSTON. That is absolutely right. Another statistic I have
heard is that the real Independence Day is July 3 instead of July 4th,
because from January 1 to July 3, that is when you are working to pay
for all the cost of the government at every level plus the cost of
regulation at every level, and that is right out of working people's
pocket.
Mr. JONES. Is it not true also, according to the General Accounting
Office, known as the GAO, that in 17 years without a balanced budget,
which the Republican Party is committed to achieving, without a
balanced budget in 17 years, according to the GAO that average working
person will pay 80 cents out of a dollar to taxes? Have your heard
that?
Mr. KINGSTON. I have heard that, and all I can say is that family
will quit working.
Mr. JONES. Absolutely.
Mr. KINGSTON. There comes a point when the mule cannot pull the load
anymore.
Mr. Speaker, let us talk about welfare. The President promised to end
welfare as we know it, never introduced a bill when the Democrats held
the Senate and the House, and yet when the Republicans did, what were
we accused of? And these were quotes, actual quotes that I got out of
the Congressional Record that we were accused of by our Democrat
colleagues: These people, the Republicans, are practicing genocide with
a smile. They are worse than Hitler.
And here is another quote: There is a similarity between Newt and
Hitler; Hitler started getting rid of the poor and those he said were a
drag on society, and Newt is starting out the same way.
Here is another quote: But not since the biblical day of King Herod
have our children been in such grave danger. But unlike King Herod, who
went only at the male child, the Republicans are going after all
children.
Now, what is it that we were doing that was so extreme, so hard for
the Democrats to take, so that they were accusing us of declaring war
on the children? Well, the main thing we are trying to do is say able-
bodied people who are on welfare who can work are required to work. Is
that extreme? Is it fair for a guy who is out there working 40, 50, 60
hours a week paying for somebody to stay at home, is it extreme to say
to the guy who is able to get to work and join him to be required to
work? I do not think it is.
What about illegal immigrations? We said no more permanent benefits
for illegal aliens, people who are not American citizens. Is that
extreme? I would say it isn't. That was part and that was one of the
things the President vetoed.
Mr. JONES. I would like to ask the gentleman from Georgia [Mr.
Kingston] or the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht], we recently,
as you were talking about welfare reform, if my colleagues remember,
the House of Representatives passed a bill, and I am going a little bit
off your subject but it does tie in, about we are talking about late-
term abortions, and the President of the United States, the highest
office in this land, when the majority of people in America said, even
women and men that were pro-choice said, that late-term abortions are
wrong when a child in the 7th and 8th month of life in the womb of a
mother, is murdered, and yet the President vetoed a bill that Democrats
on that side and Republicans on this side said that we need to ban
late-term abortions in America.
{time} 2230
And yet the President vetoed it. Now, I want to ask the gentleman
from Minnesota how his people in Minnesota feel about that issue.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, I think it ties together with what we are
talking about, because when we are advancing what I think is a
commonsense agenda, and I think it is commonsense whether you are from
North Carolina or Georgia or Minnesota, of putting the Federal
Government on a diet, making the Federal Government live within its
means in advancing policies, whether it is the Defense of Marriage Act
or eliminating or making illegal these diabolical late-term abortions
where the baby is literally pulled from the mother's womb, all except
the head, the head is left in, scissors are inserted in the back of the
baby's brain and literally the baby's brains are sucked out
[[Page H7249]]
with a suction device, I think everywhere outside this Beltway that is
considered extreme.
The agenda we have advanced is commonsense. The extremism, if there
is any here in Washington, DC, is I think confined to our liberal
friends.
Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not true that two of the most liberal Democrat
leaders, the gentleman from Missouri, Dick Gephardt, and the gentleman
from Michigan, David Bonior, voted to ban these partial birth
abortions?
Mr. JONES. Absolutely.
Mr. KINGSTON. Yet the President still vetoed it.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is a good point. Many of our friends on the other
side, who you would consider liberal, joined us in that particular
vote, and hopefully this Congress is going to have another opportunity
to revisit that issue and we are going to have a chance to override
that veto.
Because I do not know about you, and we have talked about going home
over the Fourth of July, I was at one county fair, and I must tell you
that was the number one issue that people wanted to talk to me about,
because they had learned the facts about this procedure and they said
you have to do everything in your power to override that veto, to make
certain that that stops.
Mr. KINGSTON. Is it not true this procedure is so gruesome that the
extremists who are against the legislation did not want to allow the
sponsor to have a postor, a chart that actually showed the procedure,
and they tried to vote not to allow it on the floor? Is that not the
case?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is exactly right. And it was a very simple
medical type diagram to demonstrate exactly what happens in this
procedure. But again it comes back to what the gentleman has been
talking about what we have been advancing, whether we are talking about
regulatory reform, balancing the budget, or allowing families to keep
more of what they earn. And your point was made as well that back in
the 1950's when we were growing up, I am not sure about you, Mr.
Kingston, you are quite a bit younger than us, but when we were growing
up, my parents, and we talked a little too about working families, my
dad worked in a factory all his life, union man, member of the AFL-CIO,
and my folks raised three boys and my mother did not work. She stayed
home.
Now, we did not have a lot of the things that people think that they
have to have today, I am sure, but we never considered ourselves poor.
But there was a big difference back in the fifties. Most of the
families raised their kids on one income. And why couldn't they? They
got to keep 95 percent of what they earned. The average family today
has to raise their kids on less than 60 percent of what they earn. Huge
difference.
Mr. JONES. In my district, as a candidate for Congress and now as an
elected Member of Congress, and going back in my district every weekend
since I have been here 17, 18 months, except for about four, the people
keep telling me, Congressman, we are tired, we are working harder, we
are working longer, but we are taking home less money, what can you do
to help us?
I think the Congresses of the past that have been the Democratic
controlled Congresses kept increasing programs, increasing the size of
government, and when we increase the size of government programs we are
taking more money out of working people's pockets.
What has happened in America is that frustration. That is why I think
we are the majority now. People are looking for us to reduce programs,
particularly those that do not work, which there are plenty, and they
are looking to us to say please give us a chance, let us work harder
but let us keep more of our money.
I see this frustration every time, every weekend I go home, because I
see people at the grocery stores, I see people at church, I see people
down the street and they say to me, Congressman, we like what you all
are doing, please give us a chance to earn and to have a chance to do
for our families what we think we should have a chance to do.
Mr. KINGSTON. One of the examples I like to point out in terms of the
Federal registration, which is the book of all the Federal regulations,
and so forth, it has grown from 41,000 pages 10 years ago to 68,000
pages today, and we have over 130,000 Federal bureaucrats that
basically just look over your shoulder to make sure that you are
behaving right and telling you how to do things from educating kids,
running a poverty program, to health care, to running your business, to
your home. Everything.
Some of it is good. I certainly want to have a safe and sound
government, but I want to have a commonsense government, one that is
balanced. And is that not what we are saying? Is it not that we want to
give the people back home more decisionmaking power and more personal
freedom, and is that an extreme position?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. I think the two fundamental questions, and this comes
up in my town meetings as well, and I am sure you hear it, and it comes
down to two very important questions. The first question is who
decides? Is it going to be the Federal Government or is it going to be
decided by local units of government and, more importantly, by
families?
And second, and I think it is almost the same question, but who knows
best? And I think an attitude has developed here in Washington, and I
agree that is one of the reasons they sent so many of us here in the
last election cycle, was that the attitude that had developed here in
Washington that Washington knows best, whether you are talking about
raising broccoli or raising kids, there is this attitude that somehow
Washington knows best.
I think it was exemplified a few months ago in a hearing in the
Senate when one of the education experts ultimately said to one of the
Senators that he really felt that he cared more about children than the
average parent. And the Senator finally stopped him and he said, well,
if you care more about my kids than I do, then please tell me their
names.
And when you get right down to it, the truth of the matter is parents
care more about kids than bureaucrats and it really is a question of
who decides and who knows best. And we have tried to say that we think
families know best. We think we ought to allow them to keep more of
their own money, to make more of their own decisions so that they can
do more for their kids, so that they can save more, so that they can
take mom out for supper on Saturday night and leave a little more in
the collection plate on Sunday morning.
That is what this is all about. This is not some mean-spirited
accounting exercise; it is about renewing the American dream. And for
too many Americans that dream is dying today.
Mr. KINGSTON. I had a town meet in the little town of Darien, GA. A
teacher came there and she said, you know, each week, or each day I
spend 2 to 3 hours on paperwork, most of it for the Federal Government.
Now, that is 2 to 3 hours a day, equaling 10 to 15 hours each week, 10
to 15 hours a week she is not teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic
to the kids.
Now, the question is, who do you think best knows how to educate the
kids in Darien, GA, that teacher or Washington bureaucrats down the
street from where we stand right now? And as you have pointed out, as
much as these bureaucrats love children all over America, I still think
because they are in Washington they might not be able to teach them as
well as the teacher who is right there in Darien, GA.
And I do not know why everybody outside of Washington, DC,
understands that, but the bureaucrats here just do not get it.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. But the story gets twisted. The unfortunate thing is
the story gets twisted somehow between what we are trying to do and as
it goes through this cycle here and as it gets filtered through
sometimes the dominant media culture out there that somehow if we
decide to reduce the size of the bureaucracy, the educational
bureaucracy, for example, to follow up your point, that if we vote to
reduce the size of the educational bureaucracy then we are hurting
kids, when in fact there is no real proof that what we are doing right
now is helping kids. Test scores have gone down as we have increased
the size of the educational bureaucracy here in Washington.
Mr. JONES. During the week at home during July Fourth, just like I am
sure you as well as the gentleman
[[Page H7250]]
from Georgia, I attend four or five church services that were called
God and Country Day.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I am glad to hear that
now. You deserve it. You need that.
Mr. JONES. I am going to give this back to you in a moment.
Mr. KINGSTON. I did 15 services myself.
Mr. JONES. Well, I want you to speak about yours in just a moment. I
attended four or five church services about God and Country Day and
Return to Glory Day, and I must say that it helped, it inspired me for
this reason. As you know, both you gentlemen know, and I am on the bill
and maybe you both are, I am on the bill introduced by the gentleman
from Oklahoma, Ernest Istook, called the Religious Liberties
Amendments, and I had this discussed many times. Why do you in
Congress, when you have behind the Speaker's chair ``In God we trust,''
why do you not allow our students to have voluntary prayer in school?
And I was pleased to tell them that Ernest Istook, a second or third
termer from the State of Oklahoma, has introduced a constitutional
amendment, and that is the way it should be, to give voluntary prayer
back to the States and the schools. And these people applauded in
church when I told them that I was on a bill that would help, if it
passes the House and the Senate and goes back to the legislatures.
As you and I, all three of us know, and those listening, 38 out of 50
State legislatures have to pass the legislation before it becomes an
amendment to the Constitution. But people in America are ready for the
clarification of our religious freedoms that the writers of the
Constitution promised us, whether you are a Jew, Catholic, Protestant
or Moslem.
I will share this and then I will yield to you, the gentleman from
Minnesota or the gentleman from Georgia. It so happens that last year,
in 1995, a Federal judge in Santa Fe, TX, I think his name was Kent, I
apologize if I am mistaken, sent a notice to a high school graduating
class that if you were going to use the word ``Jesus'' in a prayer, and
it was a Protestant-Catholic group, 90 percent of it, then he would
have to have you removed by the Federal marshals.
So what Ernest Istook and those of us who have joined in this
legislation have done is to say all we are asking is that we clarify
our constitutional rights to practice religious freedom in America,
whether you are a Jew, Catholic or Protestant or Moslem.
So I am pleased to tell you that back home in my district, in eastern
North Carolina, and I am proud of this district, we care about
religious freedoms in this country, and that is what I think the
Constitution is all about.
Mr. KINGSTON. All I will say about that Federal judge is he obviously
wanted to go to hell and he did not want to wait in line.
I think it is real important that we understand that what we are
trying to do is just get decisionmaking out of Washington. Think about
this. In Minnesota, North Carolina, if your county welfare agency knew
that it was in their hands and in their power to end poverty in your
home county, what a difference it would make, because really we do not
look at poverty as our problem.
The thing about Americans is we see a problem, we want to fix it. And
so what we have found ourselves subconsciously doing in many cases is
ignoring problems because we see something like poverty and we think,
well, we cannot fix that. You know why we cannot fix it? Because there
are too many rules and regulations.
If somebody is on welfare, a 16-year-old with a baby, she needs
health care, she has education needs, she has transportation needs, she
has child care needs, and under our current welfare bureaucracy
different agencies do different things, and so if you wanted to you
cannot solve her problem because there are too many bureaucrats who are
telling you this is my territory; this is my territory, and I get her
here and I get her here and we do not want you just to have one A to Z
program to get this young woman independent.
So, as a result, we all kind of tend to back away from it. But if you
knew in your hometown you could make a difference, then you would make
a difference.
Mr. JONES. Is it not true that since the mid-1960's, when the Great
Society program was established under the leadership of Lyndon Johnson,
that it has cost the American people $5 trillion? This Nation today is
about $5.3 trillion in debt. So welfare has cost the American people $5
trillion.
In addition to that, what the Republican majority has proposed that
even Democrats supported and the President vetoed is a program that
would save the taxpayers in 7 years in outlays about $58 billion and
lend the programs, or I should say direct the programs back to the
States, which most of them want, and the President vetoed it.
{time} 2245
Is that not correct, please?
Mr. KINGSTON. It is correct. I think, there again, the President was
acting from an extreme point. There is nothing extreme about requiring
able-bodied people to work. There is nothing extreme about
discontinuing permanent benefits for illegal aliens or telling local
folks they can get involved in their own poverty program through State
grants.
But the President decided to go for the status quo, and if the
American taxpayers have paid $5 trillion, is it not time that we tried
something different because of no results?
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I think that is the important point. We
have spent $5.2 trillion on the war on poverty. It is terrible in terms
of the cost in dollars, but the real tragedy of the welfare system we
have created in the United States is not the cost in terms of dollars;
it is the cost in terms of human potential.
As I say so many times, we do not have to walk very far from this
Capitol building to see the effects of what we have done on people. Go
to any of the housing projects. In fact, 85 percent of the violent
crime in this city is committed within 3 blocks of a Federal housing
project.
We see the despair and despondency and dependency that we have
created. The cost is astronomical in terms of dollars, but the cost is
so much higher in the cost of human potential. The real reason is when
we try to substitute Washington-run welfare systems for those old-
fashioned traditional values that really made this country work, things
like work, and family, and faith, personal responsibility, those are
the cornerstone values that really have made this society work. The
problem with the welfare system is not the cost in terms of taxes; it
is that it erodes and destroys and eats away at those cornerstone
values.
That is why we need to reform the welfare system, not just to save
money for taxpayers this generation or the next. We need to reform the
welfare system and move away from a Washington-run welfare system
because we have destroyed all of those basic values. Look at the
families that have broken up, and people do not see themselves as
personally responsible anymore. We do not encourage faith. All of those
things made this country work.
In the 1840s there was a French gentleman who traveled the United
States and he wrote several important books. One was called ``Democracy
in America.'' I am talking about Alexis de Tocqueville, and he said it
in so many ways so beautifully. It was this volunteerism that really
made America work. He talked about religion.
The gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Jones] talked about Ernest
Istook's bill that I am cosponsoring as well. De Tocqueville said
religion is the first instrument of democracy. Yet somehow we have
driven religion and faith from the public square. The only welfare
system was through the churches and faith institutions, and now we have
said they cannot participate.
I do believe that we have to reform the welfare system and help the
President keep his campaign promise. It is much more about human
potential and the waste that the Washington-based welfare system has
created.
Mr. KINGSTON. One of the things about welfare, in preparation for
Father's Day I was doing some research and found out that police
departments unfortunately use as an indicator of crime in the
neighborhood, not the drug use and not the location or the geography
but how many fathers live at
[[Page H7251]]
home. Ninety-two percent of the children on welfare do not have a
father at home. Those are the kids that do drop out of school, do have
teenage pregnancy situations, do have violent crime and so forth.
The fact was unbelievable, but it is that breakup of the family unit.
Why is the dad not at home? Because we have a stupid, insane government
policy that says if he stays at home, they get kicked out of the
housing project because their income will make them ineligible. Does
that make any sense?
Would it not make sense to have a housing project where we have
stable mom-and-dad relationships, where we can have some model citizens
that other folks who live in the housing project can look up to? Does
common sense not dictate that we do that?
Instead, we have a Federal Government that says, ``No, dad, you are
out of here. If you stay here, she is going to lose her benefits,'' and
she cannot go out and find a job and get the benefits and the child
care and the health insurance, and she needs that. I do not blame her.
Mr. JONES. The points have been well made. What we are trying to do
is to give a program to the States with a financial support because we
believe the States throughout America, the 50 States, as has been
proven in Michigan and Wisconsin, that the people of the State know
what will help those that are dependent on welfare.
The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is right. Most of the
people on welfare would like to have an opportunity to get off of
welfare, but we have a system that punishes them, whether it be that
they live in public housing and they go out and get a job and start
making a little more money, and they raise the rent and they cannot get
caught up. It is the same way with those that want to work.
The point is that we have got to develop a system. I think the States
can do a better job--that has been proven--than the Federal Government
of saying what works in my country, Pitt County, North Carolina. The
State of North Carolina knows better than some bureaucrat that we made
reference to 10 minutes ago telling North Carolina or Georgia or
Minnesota what works better in their State. Let the people decide. Let
the people help people. That is what it is all about.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman would yield, I have had 75 town
meetings since I was elected. I did not realize that until we counted.
Mr. KINGSTON. That is extreme.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is extreme, but every one of them, I feel better.
Certainly we have a few people that disagree with us, and that is part
of a democracy as well.
But there is so much common sense among the American people, and they
understand exactly what was just said. They understand that the
Washington-based, one-size-fits-all, whether we are talking about
education, the environment, whether we are talking about welfare, we
can take any issue and they know instinctively that it can probably be
run much more efficiently and frankly more compassionately if it is run
locally and if we allow people to volunteer and to work together. They
know that.
It comes up at my town meetings and I suspect it comes up at every
town meeting, that the common sense, the decency and the compassion of
the American people is overwhelming. But somehow all of that that we
talk about here in Washington is called extreme by some of our friends
here in the Congress and by some of the folks in the media, and
certainly by the people down in the White House.
But outside of this beltway there is tremendous good common sense
among the American people. They understand this. Frankly, I have said
this before, I think they are way out in front of us. The things that
we are talking about I think the American people understand
instinctively.
I know that the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] wants to
share some thoughts with us tonight. I wonder if we can kind of wrap
up. I do want to talk about some of the other things that we may have
heard or learned while we were back in our districts over the Fourth of
July break. Does the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] have any? I
have a couple of other points I might share.
While my colleagues think about it, I will share a couple. I was
surprised in my district how often the issue of the FBI files came up.
Frankly, again, I think the American people are out in front of us and
I think they put their fingers on the correct questions.
The first question that they cannot seem to understand and I do not
understand is how people could be heard in the White House and not know
who hired them.
Mr. JONES. Would the gentleman yield? I am not going to take his
time, but I must tell him that is the question that was asked of me
numerous times. How could Mr. Livingston have such an important job and
nobody knows who hired him? That is the point he is making.
Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, I want to make sure we
are all on the same page. The question is who hired Mr. Livingston, and
he is the political operative who illegally obtained over 900 FBI files
on private citizens and invaded their privacy by looking into those
files illegally, and has yet to give us an explanation of what he was
doing with them, why and who ordered them, and how he is saying he did
not even know who hired him.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. One of my constituents raised a point that I had
forgotten, and that is that a number of years ago a guy by the name of
Chuck Colson went to jail for mishandling one FBI file, and he went to
jail for 3 years.
I think there is an instinctive understanding among the American
people that if they can misuse the FBI against Republicans here in
Washington, that they can misuse the FBI against anybody. It can happen
to them. It is a grave concern to the American people.
They are happy that Congress is looking into it, but they also
suggested that we have to be very careful that this does not become
just a partisan political witch-hunt. I think we have to do our jobs
and exercise oversight without becoming overly partisan.
Mr. JONES. If the gentleman would yield, because we may in 1 minute
yield the time to the gentleman from California [Mr. Rohrabacher] so he
can have a full hour, but I would like to add to the point very quickly
that you, with a badge on your lapel that says that you are a Member of
Congress, and the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston], you will have
a very difficult time, as I would or anyone else in this membership, to
get into the White House. Yet we have a man running a security that
nobody knows how he got there. It is absolutely ridiculous and crazy.
I think I have about 2 or 3 minutes left. I would like to yield, if
the gentlemen would agree, the remainder of my time.
Mr. GUTKNECHT. If I could, just for 1 minute, one other very
important question was raised. I think this is one of the best
questions that I heard. I am embarrassed that I did not think of it. If
this is an innocent bureaucratic snafu, why is it that the bureaucrat
who was most responsible when he was called before the Senate, why did
he take the fifth amendment? There are a lot of unanswered questions
and I think the American people are expecting us to get to the bottom
of it.
Mr. JONES. I thank the gentleman from Minnesota and the gentleman
from Georgia for participating with me tonight.
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