[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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