[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 14 (Tuesday, February 24, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H541]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    EDUCATION, TAXES AND RETIREMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Northup). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, I wanted to tonight touch base on 3 
issues very quickly, but first I want to say, representing the Third 
Infantry Division in Hinesville, Georgia, Fort Stewart-Hunter, I had 
the opportunity on Friday to go say good-bye to many of the troops who 
were leaving to go to Kuwait. They were on the tarmac, they had already 
said good-bye to their families, they had already gotten their 
paperwork in order. They had guns in hand, canteens loaded, rucksacks 
on their back, they were sitting in their fuel trucks, in their 
communication trucks and Jeeps and so forth, getting ready to get on a 
C-5 and go to Germany or to Spain, then on to Kuwait. The men and women 
who were about to go in harm's way on behalf of not only the United 
States of America but the entire world were standing tall. They were 
confident but not cocky, they were proud but not arrogant and to a 
person brave and sure of themselves. They are well-trained.
  I told them that the American people are behind them. I was excited 
as everybody else was when I read about the potential peace agreement. 
I hope that it stands. However, I do think that this administration 
needs to clearly outline to Congress, this week, exactly what that 
agreement means to our foreign policy in Iraq and the Middle East. What 
will be the long-term ramifications? Do we have a lasting peace, what 
will be involved, and can our troops come home? Can we bring down the 
25,000 troops that we have? I am very interested to hear from the 
administration on that. I, like many Members of Congress, again would 
ask this administration to tell us exactly what is going on.
  To touch base on a couple of issues, real quickly. Education. This 
year we need to do everything we can to decentralize education and put 
it back in the hands of the local people. I was talking to a woman in 
Brunswick, Georgia whose mother was a teacher in Gray, Georgia, one of 
the great teachers that introduces all the kids to all the wonderful 
subjects and has taught most of the kids in the small town of Gray. She 
said that not long ago, a Harvard federally funded education consultant 
went down to Gray, Georgia and told this 30-year veteran of teaching 
that she needed to start pointing to the other side of the chalkboard 
because kids learn cognitively better on one side of the brain than the 
other and if the teacher would only start pointing to the other side of 
the chalkboard, these kids would learn a lot more. That kind of absurd 
busybodiness out of Washington, we do not need.
  The second issue, taxes. We need to continue to be mindful that the 
average American family pays 38 percent in taxes. That means every 
Monday, you are working for the government and most of Tuesday you are 
working for the government. We need to reduce our tax burden to the 25 
percent range. We need to simplify our Tax Code. If we go to a sales 
tax or a flat tax, whichever, it is better than the Tax Code that we 
have now. Then we need to change the attitude of the IRS. They work for 
us, the American people. We do not work for them. You should be 
considered innocent until proven guilty.
  Finally, we need to have a mature dialogue on retirement. We really 
do not have a zero balanced budget. We have a Social Security surplus 
that we are applying to the general fund. If we want to protect Social 
Security and put it first, we have to say absolutely no new spending 
programs.
  Madam Speaker, the President has committed to over $100 billion in 
new spending programs for this year in his budget. That money comes 
right out of the surplus in Social Security. We need to personalize 
Social Security, but we need to protect it. The first step is not 
spending the money. In these things, education, taxes and retirement, I 
hope that this Congress makes them the top priority.

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