[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 53 (Tuesday, April 29, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H1984-H1986]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ABOUT THE BUDGET
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sununu). Under the Speaker's announced
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address
the House tonight. I want to speak about the budget.
Before I do so, I want to speak about the big bust over there at the
Department of Justice. I am referring, of course, to finally, on
Thursday, April 24, I am getting this out of the Savannah Morning News,
that the Florida couple, who illegally recorded a conversation of
Members of Congress and then passed it on to other Members of Congress
finally got, finally pleaded guilty to Federal charges, which is, they
actually had already said that they were guilty, Mr. Speaker, back in
January, but our good old Department of Justice, who has been very busy
with all kinds of other things, just now decided to lower the boom and
deal with the Martins.
I will read a little bit of that article:
A Florida couple agreed Wednesday to plead guilty to
Federal criminal charges of intercepting a cellular phone
call between House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other Republican
leaders last December.
Identical one-count criminal informations were filed in
U.S. District Court in Jacksonville, Florida against John and
Alice Martin of Fort White, Florida.
The Martins signed agreements with prosecutors to plead
guilty and those were filed in court along with the charges.
The Martins admitted in the agreements that they
intentionally intercepted the telephone conversation and
agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department's continuing
investigation of the case.
Justice officials, who requested anonymity* * * *
That is interesting, Mr. Speaker, because I guess when they were
interviewed on the phone they were not on the cellular phone or
anonymity would be irrelevant, would it not, but they said the
investigation is continuing on how a transcript of the conversation
ended up in the New York Times and later the Atlanta Journal-
Constitution and Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper.
I wonder, Mr. Speaker, how did the Martins get that tape from
Florida, from their car, which they were just innocently driving along,
how did they get that tape to the Atlanta Constitution and the New York
Times? It does make one wonder, does it not?
But good old Justice Department, I guarantee you, they will crack
this case probably in 10 years. No, maybe in 5 years, because these
people said they will cooperate. So I am very optimistic about our
Justice Department and, who knows, maybe they got some consultants from
the FBI telling them how not to botch an investigation.
[[Page H1985]]
But never mind that, Mr. Speaker. Let me speak tonight on the budget,
because that is a very, very big matter and one that affects all of our
children, all of our present generations and future generations.
I have, and I wish I could tell you who gave this to me, but it is a
document entitled Seven Reasons to Balance the Budget. The annual
budget is $1.6 trillion. The Government spends about $4.4 billion a
day, about $183 million an hour, $3 million a minute, or $50,736 every
second.
Mr. Speaker, I am afraid that in the time that I have been at the
microphone that the Government has already spent probably about
$250,000 just in terms of our $1.6 trillion annual budget.
Now, if the spending patterns do not change, anyone born after 1993
will have a lifetime tax rate of 84 percent. This is compared with
those born in 1940, who will have a lifetime tax average of 31 percent.
That means that during the period of time that you are alive, if you
were born in 1940, you will pay about 31 percent total taxes. But our
children, the babies of today, the kids in nursery schools and
kindergartens, right now will pay about 84 percent.
I think that is so important, Mr. Speaker, because as the President
talks about let us do something for children, I would say, let us start
by not shackling them with an 84 percent tax burden.
Reason No. 3, every dollar of taxes raised since World War II,
Congress has spent over $1.59 of it. So for every dollar paid in taxes
since World War II, on an average, we in Washington have spent $1.59.
Reason No. 4, it takes nearly 9 American families to support one
Federal bureaucrat in Washington, DC, executive branch staff members
cost an average of $52,000 a year, while an average family pays $6,100
in taxes. So that is good math and good to think about.
Reason No. 5, in 1994, every American paid an average of $800 in
taxes just to service interest on the national debt.
Now, I think this is real important, Mr. Speaker, because people do
not understand that when you pay taxes, some of your tax dollars go
just to pay the bondholders, those who hold the notes on the national
debt. So let us say $800 per person, multiply that times 4. The average
family of four, average family is, therefore, paying over $3,000 in
interest each year on the national debt. That is $3,000. That probably
would pay for 3 or 4 months of groceries. It would probably pay for 6
months of car payments. It would pay for maybe a half a year at a State
college or university. Three thousand dollars would even pay for 3 or 4
months of home mortgage. That is a lot of money. Yet the American
taxpayers are paying that in interest on the national debt.
Reason No. 6, a child born today will pay $187,000 over his or her
lifetime just in interest on the national debt.
Reason No. 7, in the year 2000, the national debt is projected to be
$6.8 trillion. That is $26,000 or $104,000 for a family of four.
Mr. Speaker, it is past time to get very, very serious on balancing
the budget and paying down the debt.
Now, we have some plans. There is a Republican plan that is going on,
and we have been negotiating, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich],
chairman of the Committee on the Budget, has been negotiating on this
for really since January, trying to get somewhere with the President.
There is the President's plan.
The President's plan has a few flaws in it. I will hold this up, Mr.
Speaker. I think everybody can see it. What is wrong with the Clinton
plan to balance the budget?
Well, for one thing, in the year 2002, it does not balance the
budget. It has a deficit of $69 billion. So, A, what is wrong with the
President's plan? It does not balance the budget.
B, what else is wrong with it? Ninety-eight percent of the deficit
reduction is in the last 2 years.
Mr. Speaker, I am not the first one to say it, many people have said
it, but that is the equivalent of saying you are going to go on a diet
to lose 30 pounds over 6 months, but you are not going to lose any
weight the first 5 months. You are going to take it all off in the 6th
month. It just does not work. Washington has never followed through on
promises made very far in the future.
Under the Bush tax deal, as you will recall, in the 1990's, which
was, I think, actually probably what did the Bush administration in,
the plan was to raise taxes now and cut spending later.
Well, Members of Congress were pretty eager to raise taxes, but when
it came time to do the spending cuts, where was Congress? They said,
well, that agreement was not made by us. It was made by a previous
Congress, and we will not follow through on it.
No. 3, letter C, whatever way you want to do it, what is wrong with
the Clinton budget? It increases the 1998 deficit by $24 billion
compared to doing nothing. So in other words, Mr. Speaker, if we do not
do anything at all in terms of passing a budget, we are better off than
we are under the Clinton proposal. So I think the Clinton proposal
should not be seriously considered.
Now, that will not mean that the media will not seriously consider
it, because anything that comes out of Pennsylvania Avenue they accept
as truth and absolute so they will be talking about how good it is and
how sensible it is. They will cleverly overlook these three facts that
I have gone over here tonight.
But let us put it in perspective. Balancing the budget is a moral
imperative, not an accounting exercise. Balancing the budget is about
your children; it is about my children.
Mr. Speaker, I think you have small children. I have a 6-year-old; I
have an 8-year-old. I would love to leave Washington one day saying
they are going to have a better future with less debt because Members
came to Washington during the 105th Congress with the idea of cutting
the budget and reducing the size of Washington. We chose children over
bureaucrats. We chose home town America over Washington, DC.
Now, the President opposed the balanced budget amendment. Okay.
Philosophical difference. He did not want the balanced budget
amendment. I can understand. We have the right to disagree here.
But that being the case, as he stood on the floor of the House and
said, you do not need a balanced budget amendment to balance the
budget, he was correct on that. But he needed one, because he has yet
to produce a balanced budget.
One of the other things, though, that this thing points out is, this
about families.
Let me give you some more numbers, Mr. Speaker. If we have a balanced
budget, interest rates will drop. If interest rates drop as much as 2
percent, that means that on a 5-year family car loan at 9.75 percent
interest, $15,000 car, that average family would save $900.
In terms of a college education loan, if a college student borrows
$11,000 at 8 percent, it will save $217 in interest.
{time} 2200
In terms of a 30-year home mortgage, if it drops 2 percent, over a
30-year period of time on a $75,000 house, Americans would save $37,000
in interest and payments. For a 6-month $350,000 farm operating loan at
10 percent, it would save about $17,000.
These are real numbers, Mr. Speaker, and these are things that will
help Americans. But I want to throw out one more interesting statistic
about the national debt. A 1-day increase in the national debt of $2.2
billion is enough to buy McDonald's Big Mac extra value meals for every
person in the United States and every person in Mexico.
Now, I do not know if we should recommend that to everybody in the
country, but the fact is that is a heck of a lot of hamburgers, Mr.
Speaker, and yet another way to look at it.
I do not see balancing the budget as partisan politics. It is about
good government and it is about our children. It is about dreams and
aspirations of future generations of Americans. It is about the fact
that year after year the American dream gets eroded by a large runaway
bureaucracy that comes up with more rules and more micromanagement in
order to justify their own existence.
I think the questions are these: Is the Federal Government too big?
Does it spend too much? Who can spend money the best, the folks back
home or the bureaucrats in Washington? Are we getting our money's worth
out of Washington right now? Are we getting our money's worth of tax
dollars? If we had a choice, would we purchase this
[[Page H1986]]
government? Could we tell a friend about it? Is it fair for the
government to take over one-third of our hard-earned income each year?
I do not think it is fair, Mr. Speaker. I think it is time right now
to get spending under control and try to bring sanity back to
Washington.
There are a lot of other topics that I want to talk about, Mr.
Speaker, but I think what I may do is just end tonight on the budget,
because I want to focus just on the importance of it.
There is a budget right now, introduced by our colleague, the
gentleman from Wisconsin, Mr. Mark Neumann, and it takes Social
Security out of the formula. Two important things I would say the
Neumann budget does. Number one, it takes Social Security out of it.
People do not realize this right now, but Social Security has a $65
billion surplus. That money is thrown into the pot with the rest of the
general spending, the rest of the budget, and it makes the deficit look
smaller than it is. The Neumann budget says, no, sir, that $65 billion
is stand-alone, it goes only in the Social Security trust fund, it goes
only for Social Security purposes, and it should not be used for
deficit reduction and general spending.
That is one thing the Neumann budget does and I think that is very
important for our grandparents and other folks on Social Security.
The second thing it does, which is equally important for those of us
fathers, is it pays off the national debt by the year 2023. So a child
born today, at 25, 26 years old, they will live in America without a
national debt. If we can do that, the jobs that will be created are
incredible.
In fact, Mr. Speaker, I had a list of some of these benefits that I
may submit for the Record, Mr. Speaker. But I believe that we can
achieve a balanced budget. I believe that we can pay down the national
debt. I believe, again, it is a moral imperative. It is not a matter of
common sense only but a matter of survival and doing what is right for
our children.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues and friends here in
Washington to vote for a balanced budget, work for the balanced budget
amendment, make some tough decisions in terms of government spending
reductions, and let us walk out of here with our heads held high, not
worrying about the next election but only concerned about the next
generation.
Mr. Speaker, I include for the Record the article to which I earlier
referred.
Florida Couple To Plead Guilty to Taping GOP Leaders' Cell Phone Call
(By Michael J. Sniffen)
Washington.--A Florida couple agreed Wednesday to plead
guilty to federal criminal charges of intercepting a cellular
telephone call between House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other
Republican leaders last December.
Identical one-count criminal information were filed in U.S.
District Court in Jacksonville, Fla., against John and Alice
Martin of Fort White, Fla.
The Martins signed agreements with prosecutors to plead
guilty and those were filed in court along with the charges.
The Martins admitted in the agreements that they
intentionally intercepted the telephone conversation and
agreed to cooperate with the Justice Department's continuing
investigation of the case.
Justice officials, who requested anonymity, said the
investigation is continuing here into how a transcript of the
conversation ended up in The New York Times, and later in The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Roll Call, a Capitol Hill
newspaper.
The call--between Gingrich, House Majority Leader Dick
Armey of Texas, Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, Rep. Bill Paxon of
New York and others--took place last Dec. 21 as the House
ethics committee was about to announce a settlement of its
investigation of complaints against Gingrich. The publication
of the text set off an uproar on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Jim McDermott of Washington, the ranking Democrat on
the ethics committee, said the call breached Gingrich's
agreement with the committee that the Speaker would not
orchestrate a response to his ethical wrongdoing.
Republicans said the transcript, to the contrary, showed
that Gingrich was following the agreement and they demanded
an investigation of the call's interception.
The Martins each face a maximum penalty of a $5,000 fine
with no prison term. The government made no promises on what
sentence it might recommend.
Alice Martin, reached at her home in Fort White, Fla,
refused to comment Wednesday evening and referred questions
to the couple's attorney. ``I can't say anything about
that,'' she said.
Boehner said the Martins ``should not be patsies in this,
set up to take the fall for more politically influential
people.''
Anyone ``who knowingly accepted the tape and passed it
along to the press is also guilty,'' said Boehner, who when
the call was intercepted was in Florida taking part in the
conversation on a cellular telephone.
The Martins said they gave the tape to McDermott. In the
ensuing furor over the tape's contents and its disclosure,
which also could be a crime, McDermott removed himself from
the ethics panel's investigation of Gingrich. A Republican
also stepped aside to keep the panel at an even party
balance.
``The Martins were charged with the most serious violation
possible based on the applicable federal law and the
circumstances surrounding the interception of the telephone
call,'' said Charles R. Wilson, U.S. attorney for the middle
district of Florida. ``If the Martins are ever convicted of
an illegal interception again, they would face a maximum
penalty of five years imprisonment, a $250,000 fine or
both.''
Because it was a first offense and because the interception
was of the radio portion of a cellular call; and because
there was no evidence that it was done for commercial or
private financial gain or for an illegal purpose such as
aiding in blackmail, the offense is classified as an
infraction, the Justice Department said.
John and Alice Martin heard the conversation on the Radio
Shack scanner in their car while on a Christmas shopping
trip. Once they realized the conversation they were picking
up was of Gingrich discussing the Republican response to his
admitted ethics violations, they recorded it on a hand-held
machine. They said it struck them as historic.
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