[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 143 (Sunday, October 11, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H10553-H10559]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1930
PRIDE IN THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) is
recognized for 60 minutes.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, before I begin and respond to a lot of
things we have heard, and there is an awful lot to respond to, I want
to say a couple of words about two people that were in the news today
that all America needs to remember.
First of all is Clark Clifford, who was a wise man to many
Presidents. He helped Harry Truman in dealing with the union crisis
also certainly helped LBJ in Vietnam. He was a good public servant. He
was a wise man. Any clouds that may have come over his life in his
waning years certainly are insignificant compared to his public
service.
Also we need to be thinking about Matthew Shepherd. He was a young
college student who was brutally beaten a few days ago. I find it kind
of ironic that Amnesty International this past week issued a report
talking about human rights in America the same week that this happened.
While it certainly was not sanctioned by this government, I believe
all of us who are public officials must do all we can to publicly
condemn these type of actions. Certainly all of America's prayers need
to be with Mr. Shepherd today.
There is also obviously strife in the District of Columbia as we have
heard. It has always been that way, I guess, from the time that our
President Adams, our second President openly loathed our third
president Thomas Jefferson. This is a bit of tradition in Washington,
but those two gentlemen learned how to disagree without being
disagreeable.
Unfortunately, as we have heard today, that has just not been the
case. We need this honest debate. There are differences. But I am
continually disappointed by the tone of the rhetoric from the other
side.
This is what I heard just about 15 minutes ago, quote, ``the
Republican majority does not care at all about America's health care,
about our children's education, or about the environment.'' This is not
quite as bad as the last session when I think I was called a Nazi
because I was a Republican probably about 5 or 10 times by the minority
because they disagreed with our efforts to balance the budget. This
shrill rhetoric does nobody any good.
I have a question to ask. Who says I do not care about our children's
educational system, when I have got two boys in public schools back in
Pensacola, Florida, just because I do not believe that bureaucracies in
Washington, D.C. should have more money, more power, and more
authority, and just because I believe that the teachers that I meet
when I take my children to student night, to open house night at
Cordova Park Elementary School, just because I have faith in the
principal that oversees my children every day, just because I have more
faith in local school boards than bureaucracies in Washington, D.C.,
does that really mean that I hate public education? Of course it does
not.
But we are 3 weeks away from the election, and this shrillness. It is
offensive. We also hear that we hate the environment because we do not
agree with their form of regulatory burdens that they have thrown on
America for over 40 years while they were in the majority.
Listen, I have got a stream in my backyard. I have got blue skies
overhead. My children drink from the water supplies that Democratic
parents' children drink from. Who says we do not care about the
environment? Again, it is the shrillness.
They have lowered the level of public discourse, and I think it is
shameful. We do not need to disparage Democrats just because they
believe in a centralized bloated bureaucracy. I can disagree with them
without being disagreeable.
I am not going to say that they hate their children just because
their policies failed in education from 1954 to 1994. I am not going to
say that they hate their grandparents because, over the past 40 years
while they were in control, they did not put aside one cent for Social
Security.
But after four years, we have already put a plan together to save
$1.6 trillion to save for senior citizens and keep Social Security
solvent. I am not going to say that they hate senior citizens. I am
just going to say that they are misidentified, that their way was the
way of LBJ and FDR and generations past.
But we are going into a new era, and we need to go into that era with
a bit higher public discourse. They say that we take pride in doing
nothing in Washington, D.C. in this do-nothing Congress. Well, I do not
want to get into this partisan wrangling, but facts are stubborn
things, and the American people have been misled.
I think the American people need to hear the facts. Four years ago,
when we got here, Americans had a $250 billion deficit that was
strapping them down and strapping the economy down. We had Alan
Greenspan, Fed chairman, say, if we balance the budget like the
Republicans are proposing in 1995, we will see unprecedented growth in
America.
Four years later, we have a $70 billion surplus the way that
Washington calculates the surplus. And true to the Fed chairman's
prediction, we have unprecedented growth in America. Interest rates did
come down. America's economy has been stronger over the past 4 years
than ever before.
Am I proud of that? Yes, I am proud of that. I am proud of the fact
that we
[[Page H10554]]
also did something about welfare reform. We promised we would do
something about welfare reform. The President promised in 1992 that we
would do something about welfare reform. But when the Democrats were in
control, he did not do it. When we got into control, he had to do it.
In the first 6 months, the welfare rolls of America dropped by almost
8 percent. We have a long way to go. But am I proud of the first step
we took in welfare reform? Yes, I am proud, and America is proud.
Tax relief, I hear them say that they agree that we need tax relief.
But I have never heard of a single tax relief bill that the Democrats
have supported since we have been here, not a single one. But we gave
Americans the first tax cut in 18 years and tax cuts that will help
them educate their children, tax cuts that will help grow the economy,
that will keep interest rates down, and have if put student loan rates
at their lowest of percentage point. That helps all of Americans. Am I
proud of that? Yes, I am proud of that.
Despite all of the wrangling and all of the screaming and all of the
moaning about how horrible this Congress has been, the public opinion
polls show that more Americans are pleased with the performance of this
Congress, over 60 percent. The newspapers say it has been a historical
high more than it have ever been.
So am I proud of our accomplishments, yes, I am. Am I discouraged by
their rhetoric? Certainly I am. They talk about health care, about how
we do not want our families to have good health care. That is
insulting.
My father underwent open heart surgery a year ago. He would not have
been able to afford it himself. Obviously, we have a health care system
that is the best in the world. We have to improve on that and get more
Americans in to have access to health care. We have to curb some of the
abuses, and that is what we did when we tried to pass a health care
reform bill earlier this year.
But it has never been enough. We actually heard 20 minutes ago a
Member from the minority party dream wistfully, and I could not believe
it, but they cannot help showing their hand sometimes, dreaming
wistfully of the day when America will once again recognize that we
need a single payer health care system, that we need to socialize
medicine in America.
I am sorry. I thought that is what the President tried to do in 1993
and 1994. Have Americans decided in the past 3 years that they were
wrong when they elected us to Congress in part because he tried to
socialize one-seventh of the economy with the health of the Democrats?
No.
Americans still do not want socialized health care. Even if that is
what the liberal extreme left wants, we have to chart a moderate course
for health care reform.
I also hear them talking about tobacco, the evils of tobacco, and how
the Republican Party is fueled by greed, lust, and tobacco money. I
cannot help but remember the articles that came out after the 1996
campaign that showed that, no, the Democratic National Committee did
not take money from tobacco companies. Instead, they let their State
parties take money from tobacco companies, and then they funneled the
money to President Clinton's campaign, to the Democratic House Members'
campaign, to the Democratic Senate Members' campaigns. The same
campaigns where they were shaking their fist on television talking
about how they hated big tobacco. They hated it so much they did not
take the money directly, they had to take it under the table.
I am saying this as somebody who has not been a friend for big
tobacco. I voted against tobacco subsidies before. I will do it again.
I think it is bad policy for America. I think it is bad policy for the
health of our children. But I also think it is bad to have this level
of disingenuousness coming from the other side. Do not attack tobacco
if you are taking their money under the table.
Again, we hear about Social Security; last time, we wanted to cut
taxes to raid the Social Security Trust Fund. Well, I do not hear them
saying anything about the $17.1 billion that President Clinton and the
Democrats want to use today to take from the Social Security Trust Fund
to fund more government spending in Washington, D.C., more employment
of bureaucracies, and more regulations.
The moral of the story today, it appears on October 11, 1998, is that
the Democratic Party thinks it is bad to give Americans a tax cut if
that takes a dime out of the Social Security Trust Fund. But if we are
talking about feeding bureaucracies, making the Federal Government even
fatter and bigger and more obtrusive, then that type of gutting of the
Social Security surplus is okay.
Again we have inconsistencies. They just cannot seem to get their
story straight. They cannot get their story straight on education
either. We are the do-nothing Congress on education? I do not think so.
I think we proposed one of the most dramatic bills for education reform
that has been proposed here in 40 years.
We had a very radical message, a very dangerous message. The message
was this, it was a message of Jefferson and Madison, it was that we are
a Nation of communities, not a Nation of bureaucracies.
We had the Dollars to the Classroom Act. We said we were going to
give 95 percent of the money in Washington, D.C. in education to the
classrooms. That is radical in Washington, D.C. in 1998. But we are
actually going to spend education money in the classrooms.
I can tell my colleagues, I have been around the classrooms in, not
only my children's classrooms, but also across my district, across this
country, and then in Washington, D.C., and I can tell my colleagues the
classrooms are in dire need of more money, better books, better
facilities, better computers, more teachers, and smaller classroom
sizes.
But we are not going to get that by keeping the money in Washington,
D.C. and growing the education bureaucracy. They are very fearful that
power may actually slip out of the hands of Washington bureaucracies
and their allies and instead go to teachers and parents and principals.
I am fearful that that will not happen. Because, while they were in
control from 1954 to 1994, we saw the educational standards and the
system in this country skid at an unprecedented alarming rate.
We have got to do better. My two boys deserve it. Our children
deserve it. Their children deserve it. We are not going to do that as
long as we continue to fight to protect the status quo.
Let us get all the money we can get into the classrooms. We are not a
do-nothing Congress. I really do not want to tread too much into this
area, but I think it is necessary, because we have been attacked as
being a do-nothing Congress.
I think it is important to set the record straight, that the same
party that is attacking us as being a do-nothing Congress, even after
we passed this historic balanced budget agreement, the economy is
booming. Welfare rolls are down. The Social Security trust fund is
solidified.
What we found is that we have a Democratic Party whose leader has
held only two cabinet meetings in 1998. Think about that for a second.
Here we are being attacked for not doing enough. The President, their
President, our President has only held two cabinet meetings this entire
year.
We know during the first cabinet meeting, he used it to mislead his
cabinet officers. The second cabinet meeting was to apologize for
misleading his cabinet officers.
I think we deserve better. I think we deserve more honesty from our
leaders when they attack us for doing nothing to actually put that
mirror up and see what they have done.
Instead of vetoing every single education proposal that we have sent
to the White House, seven education proposals, every single one of them
vetoed, I think they need to turn around and start being constructive.
{time} 1945
They are saying they are going to keep us in town. That is fine. We
will stay in town. We will debate the issue of education. We will
debate who has done better on saving the Social Security trust fund. We
will debate on who has done better by balancing the budget for the
first time in a generation. We will debate about who has done a better
job cutting taxes for the American
[[Page H10555]]
people. We will do that as long as they want to do it.
The American people are on our side. They are the ones that need to
worry about getting back to their district and justifying what has been
going on with the Democratic Party over the past 7, 8, 9 months.
In a free and open debate, in what Thomas Jefferson called the free
marketplace of ideas, we are going to win every time, because in the
end we believe like Jefferson, Madison, Washington and our Founding
Fathers, that the genius of America does not lie in Congress or in the
Senate or the White House or in bureaucracies across Washington, D.C.
but, instead, the genius of America rests in communities.
We are a Nation of communities. We are a Nation of individuals. We
are a Nation of people that actually know pretty well how to govern
ourselves and how to educate our children and how to take care of our
parents and grandparents.
What is at the bottom of their argument? Regrettably, it is the
paternalistic belief that they know how to educate my children better
than I do, they know how to take care of my children and my parents'
and my grandparents' health better than local governments and State
governments. And they know how to spend our checks that we get from
working better than we know how to spend our money. It is total
arrogance. It is the arrogance that drove them out of power in 1994,
and it is the arrogance that is going to haunt them again three weeks
from now.
I think we can do better. I think we can continue fighting to do the
things that we have been doing. I think we need to ask the President to
become engaged in this process, to stop calling out focus groups and
pollsters and saying, how can I save myself from this political crisis
that I find myself in? We need the President of the United States to
come back to Washington, to sit across the table, to negotiate instead
of doing what he continues to do.
I told you that he held two cabinet meetings all year for not the
best of reasons. Well, he has held over 96 fund-raisers this year. In
fact, tomorrow he is going to be holding a fund-raiser in Palm Beach,
Florida, would we all not like to be there, and New York City. So he is
going to be holding as many fund-raisers tomorrow as he held cabinet
meetings all year.
Is this really a President that is serious about doing the Nation's
business, about reforming education and health care and Social Security
and balancing the budget and cutting taxes, or is it a President who is
desperately doing everything he can in his political power to hold on
to his office for at least three more weeks until the midterm
elections?
There are some disturbing questions to be asked that we are not going
to go into. I want to talk about policy. I want to talk about education
because they talked about education. I want to talk about our great
record on Social Security and keeping Social Security solvent. We want
to talk about taxes. We want to talk about balancing the budget for the
first time in a generation. We want to talk about doing all the things
that we have done.
We will let the Committee on the Judiciary talk about the impeachment
proceedings, but if they want to talk issues, we will talk issues. The
American people, I get people calling up saying, you people need to do
the people's business. Well, all of this that we are talking about,
education, Social Security, health care, that is the people's business.
That affects government. But what also affects the American people is
whether they have an honest and trustworthy President and honest and
trustworthy Members of Congress. And those are tough questions that
have to be asked.
At the end of the process, we certainly hope that America will be
stronger because of it, but it will be stronger, we know already,
because of the great policy objectives that we have put forward over
the past four years that have been such a success.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr.
Souder) who has done a fantastic job with me on the Committee on
Government Reform and Oversight.
Mr. SOUDER. I wanted to make a brief comment associating myself with
your earlier remarks. One thing, I was a little concerned that you were
going to discourage them from advocating socialized medicine when, in
fact, you and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) and I owe a lot
of our presence here, as you point out, to the fact that they advocated
socialized medicine in 1993 and 1994. And I hope they continue to
advocate that because it goes contrary to the American will.
I want to associate myself with two other things that you said. I
think it is very important for the Speaker and anybody watching this
discussion to understand. When the venom comes out of the other side's
mouth and they talk about the radicals and the people who are extremely
conservative, the truth is that they are talking about, if anybody
else, you and me and the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
Do you know what? I do not take tobacco money. I sent tobacco money
back. I do not even take the affiliates of tobacco money. I, too, like
you am concerned about the impact of tobacco on my kids. Yet we are the
class of 1994. We are supposed to be these conservatives. Who are they
talking about exactly? Furthermore, they talk about education and
beating on it, saying we are not doing anything. In the higher
education bill, there was bill developed by the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Fattah) that he worked with the President on called
High Hopes. Not a lot of Members in on our side advocated that. I was a
cosponsor. In committee we talked together and you cast the deciding
vote.
The fact is, the number one priority of the President in education
would not be there if the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) and
the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Souder) had not voted in committee
giving them their margin of one to get it through.
We are supposed to be the terrible people. We are the people they are
constantly fingering. We have reached over and tried to work together.
We have tried to give them tobacco. We have tried to pass bills through
here. We have tried to move the Patients' Bill of Rights and different
health legislation through. What we do not see is any accommodation
from the other side except venom.
I thought you did a good job of pointing that out.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I have to tell you, it has been very discouraging to
see for the past four years Republicans sitting on the floor, talking
on the floor and balancing the budget, cutting taxes, saving over
a trillion dollars for Social Security. And from the first day that we
got here, all I have seen is venomous attacks.
I remember the first day we got here, it was the Speaker's book deal,
that this was somehow a horrible affront to western civilization. Then
they dredged up that story about the Nazi historian and it went down
hill from there. Now I am told that I do not care about my children's
public education. I care very much about my children's public
education, just as I care as deeply about the education of children who
are south of the Anacostia River, who will not be getting to go to the
schools that the President and the Vice President's children were able
to go to when they were here, because the President vetoed a bill that
would have given children south of the Anacostia River the same
opportunity that his children had.
Now, listen, this is a tough business. I certainly am not saying that
the President and the Vice President's children should not have had
that opportunity, but I am saying, why do you not give the children in
Anacostia and inner city Washington, D.C. the same opportunity that
your children and our children have? It only seems fair.
One other thing on the radical remark. If we are radical, then so,
too, are the 65 percent of Americans who agree with what we are doing.
I guess the only people that are rational are those in the 35 percent
minority, because they are basically saying that 65 percent of
Americans are backward and dangerous and radical.
Mr. SOUDER. I, too, want to point out that I have two children in
college. Both of them went through public schools, through elementary,
junior high and high school. My youngest is going through public
schools. I went through public schools. I get tired of people lecturing
me, whose kids are in private schools, about public schools. I thought
that was a very good point.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. As a public figure, I have seen that time and time
[[Page H10556]]
again. You have, I do not want to put a label on them but for lack of a
better use of a label, liberals telling me how much I hate public
schools while their children are going to private schools. I do not
know about the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn) but I know you and
I are not country club Republicans. I know he is not either. We are not
Rockefeller Republicans by any stretch. We have an awful lot more in
common than a lot of those Members claiming that we hate public
education. Our children are going to public schools, and I have got to
tell you, I am glad every day that they are.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Coburn).
Mr. COBURN. I want to identify with a few of your remarks. Being from
Oklahoma, I went to all the public schools, all of my kids went to
public school. I have, my third daughter, my youngest daughter is now a
senior at Oklahoma State University. Public schools is something that
we need to enhance, and nobody here is saying we should not. The
question is, how many of the dollars are spent on the children and how
many of the dollars are spent in the classroom and how many of the
dollars are sent there for a merit raise for an outstanding teacher
versus how many of the dollars are spent above that school all the way
back to Washington?
The fact is only 60 percent of the dollars are getting to our
children. Why should not our teachers be some of our highest paid
professionals? Why? Because it is getting chewed up in administrative
costs from Washington before it ever gets there.
It is interesting, not long ago they published a study done in
Massachusetts, an 8th grade literacy test, 40 percent of the teachers
in the State of Massachusetts could not pass an eighth grade literacy
test. That is not an affront from me towards the teachers of
Massachusetts, but it brings to bear the very real problem. We put the
dollars in the wrong place.
If we want excellence, then we have to concentrate the dollars in the
classroom. I hope you will yield me about 4 or 5 minutes. There is an
area that, another area in Washington that I would like to address and
just take a little break here for a minute, if I could.
It has to do with the Office of Inspector General. This is an office
that was created to create a balance. The Inspector General in all the
different departments in this country was designed to be a balance, to
look at, to make sure, to both report to Congress and to the
Secretaries that, under the laws, that each of those departments were
running properly. It was established to promote economy, efficiency,
effectiveness, to prevent fraud, waste and mismanagement in the
programs that each of those agencies operate.
There is a particular inspector general, Ms. Susan Gaffney. She was
nominated for the HUD Inspector General post in 1993 by President
Clinton, was sworn in and confirmed by the Senate. This lady is
somebody we can be proud of. She is a career lawyer who has worked to
expose fraud and abuse and to expose those who perpetrate and steal the
very tax dollars that people bring to the operation of this government.
She has been in the housing industry since 1970. She has had the
following awards: the Presidential Meritorious Rank award, the
Distinguished Honor award, the Joint Financial Management Improvement
award for distinguished leadership, and because of those awards, she
was appointed and placed to be the watchdog over the housing programs
in this country.
She came in under Secretary Cisneros' tenure and had a great
relationship, developed good input and had a wonderful course, where
she helped that agency control the dollars and made sure that fraud and
abuse were not present.
However, I am sad to report that at this time the situation at HUD is
very much different. There is no question that Secretary Cuomo and Ms.
Gaffney share the same strong commitment to HUD's mission. However, the
department appears very uncomfortable with the concept of an
independent Inspector General who has dual reporting responsibility to
both the Secretary and to this Congress.
I believe that Inspector General Gaffney wishes to do the job to the
best that she can and to bring accountability to HUD, its programs and
the taxpayers who support it.
Over the past couple of years a series of events suggests that there
have been efforts to tarnish her superb reputation, her record and to
limit her ability to do her job. I want to share some of those for the
record.
Number one, the Acting General Counsel of HUD, a key aid to the
Secretary, asserted that the OIG audit reports should be issued only
through the Office of the Secretary, violating the laws that we have
set on the books. The OIG was not authorized to have its own office of
counsel. The OIG was violating its memorandum of understanding with the
HUD General Counsel. These actions contradict the concept of an
independent counsel and an independent Inspector General.
{time} 2000
A deputy general counsel at HUD stopped a routine investigation of an
Equal Employment Opportunity complaint against the Inspector General
and instead contracted with two law firms outside of the agency to do a
wide-ranging investigation of the complaint. A typical EEO
investigation costs $3,000. HUD is paying $100,000 to outside lawyers
for the investigation that is ongoing. Number three. On two occasions,
the Secretary has cut the office of Inspector General's budget request
without notification, without consultation. In February of this year,
the Secretary advised Ms. Gaffney to take care in reporting on his
program initiative HUD 2020 in the OIG's semiannual report to Congress.
The Secretary stated that he was having HUD 2020 evaluated by outside
private sector program consultants and their reviews would be very
positive. The Secretary said that he did not want Ms. Gaffney to be
humiliated by filing a report at odds with the others, regardless of
what the truth was. In fact the Secretary spent $412,000 contracting
for outside reviews which the Inspector General had a parallel review
going on at the same time. One of the reasons is they gave very
different results. Despite authorizing language in the Inspector
General Act of this government and precedent and other offices of the
Inspector General throughout the government, HUD's general counsel
opined that the HUD Inspector General not establish its independent
personnel function without the approval of the Secretary. Congress has
decisively resolved this issue by inserting language in the Senate-
House conference report in the omnibus bill on the HUD's 1999
appropriation. The reason I stand here and share this with you is the
apparent assault on government accountability and the apparent assault
that this Inspector General is under.
When I was elected in 1994, the majority who voted for me wanted a
change. They wanted sunshine, they wanted open government, they wanted
less government and they wanted more efficient government. They wanted
an accounting of the tax dollars that is coming out of their paycheck
every day. One of the ways we achieve a goal like that is to make
agencies accountable. One of the greatest assets that I have as a
Congressman is the Inspector General's office. They have an expert
knowledge of governmental areas and critiques of programs. I think the
gentleman from Florida would agree when we have Cabinet secretaries
undermining the position that was placed there to hold them accountable
in the first place, that we have something very wrong ongoing. It is my
charge through this House that the Secretary let the Inspector General
do her job, that she would not be harassed, she would not be limited
and that her exemplary record be used to make sure that our tax dollars
are used in an appropriate way for those that are depending on our
assistance for housing.
With that, I change the debate back. I think that is something that
needs to be said. It is unfortunate that we see this many times coming
out of this administration. This is not the only area where we have
seen this type of coercion take place in trying to move the government
in a way other than sunshine and other than light. I thank the
gentleman for yielding.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I thank the gentleman. Really it does fit right in
with what we were talking about when we were talking about who to
trust, about whether we were being misled in this debate or not and
whether or not
[[Page H10557]]
we can trust the administration officials to properly execute and
faithfully execute the laws of this country.
Mr. COBURN. One key point. We heard that the Republicans had not done
anything for municipal bond funding for schools. The President vetoed a
tax cut for schools in terms of their ability to float bond issues. He
vetoed it from his own desk. So to claim that we did not do it, we did
it, we passed it, we sent it to him and he vetoed it. So the
misdirection. One of the things you do when you are on offense, if
things are not going real well is you misdirect. You go a different
direction. That is what we see on the football field. That is what we
are seeing in terms of playing with the truth.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I thank the gentleman. It is disingenuous. It is
disturbing and again whether you are talking about tobacco, whether
taking tobacco money under the table, shuffling the money around in a
different way; whether you are talking about health care reform where
they are still dreaming of socialized medicine; if you are talking
about Social Security where they claim that we are raiding the trust
fund, yet they want to spend $17.1 billion that they would take
directly out of the surplus on new government programs; whether you
talk about what we have done over the past 4 years in setting aside
over $1 trillion for the Social Security trust fund. Again and again it
is disingenuous.
Mr. COBURN. I have a question for the gentleman. Where did the $1.6
trillion of IOUs that are in the Social Security bank account now come
from?
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. The gentleman is exactly right. For 40 years the
Democratic Congress borrowed, begged or stole from the general budget
and got $1.6 trillion out of the Social Security trust fund. That has
changed dramatically just in the past 4 years. I have got to say, I
think I would have a hard time getting on this floor and saying with a
straight face that after that sorry record over 40 years, I would have
a hard time pointing at somebody else that has made Social Security
solvent.
Mr. SOUDER. You would at least think they would come out and say they
are sorry. ``We're sorry that for 40 years we did this.'' Maybe it
would take seven speechwriters to sort through this over time to get
the ``sorry'' part down just right. But how you can come down here and
not even say you are sorry and then point at us who have just gotten
here, barely 4 years in control, have balanced the budget for the first
time, have a surplus actually putting the money over in Social Security
and then to point at us just takes an incredible amount. At the very
least you should say you are sorry.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. It depends on what the definition of ``sorry'' is.
Mr. COBURN. I would just make one other assumption. We have tried to
slow the growth of spending. We have tried to send money back to the
people that are sending the money here. We have done that at the same
time while we want to protect what money is coming into Social Security
today. We always hear we cannot do it. We cannot do it. That is based
on the assumption that the government is this wonderfully efficient
operating machine, 110,000 IRS employees. How efficient are we that we
need 110,000 IRS employees? How efficient are we at all these different
Cabinet levels? How efficient are we at the Department of Education
with our 6,000 employees that are mandating on the people that I
represent what they will and will not do while at the same time for
years the commitment to IDEA, education for those with disabilities,
was promised by this government to be 40 percent of the cost. It has
never come close. So what we have is school boards having to maintain a
federally mandated budget program to meet the requirements of IDEA
while we do not send them any money. It is called an unfunded mandate.
If we would just pay our share, what we promised to send to the local
school districts for IDEA, every school district in the country would
average about a $500,000 to a $1 million increase in their budget this
next year.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. That point the gentleman made, that really answers
why we got elected in 1994. The question was to the American people,
who do you trust? Do you trust politicians with your children's
education or do you trust parents? Democrats for 40 years trusted
politicians in Washington. We trusted parents. Do you trust bureaucrats
at the Department of Education bureaucracy or do you trust teachers? I
can tell you I know my children's two teachers. I do not know a single
bureaucrat right down the street at the Department of Education. If my
child is having trouble reading, or with his math, if he is having
trouble in his school, I can go to the source. I do not want 60 percent
of their paperwork that they have to do coming from Washington, D.C.,
and that is what an Ohio study said it did come from. I would rather
them have that time working on lesson plans for my children. It does
come back to the question of who do you trust.
If I could just say one more thing and then I will yield to the
gentleman, because what he brought up at HUD reminds me of something
that I found out about a year ago in this Chinese campaign finance
scandal. There was an international fugitive who wanted to go to the
White House and there was this pesky employee at the National Security
Council that said, ``No, we're not going to let an international
fugitive in the White House.'' So the international fugitive goes to
the head of the Democratic National Committee and he says, ``I'm an
international fugitive. They will not let me in the White House.
There's this pesky woman down at NSC who won't let me in. Can you fix
it?'' The DNC chairman says, ``Sure. I'll call my friend at the CIA,
Bob.'' He scribbles down on notes that were later subpoenaed, ``Call
CIA Bob.'' He called CIA Bob, he went around this government employee
that was trying to keep government clean, to keep this international
fugitive out of the White House and, sure enough, like a lot of other
things that happened in 1996, it got murky and they did not listen to
the people that were put there to be watchdogs for the White House, for
the administration, for this government, for this city and for America.
As a result, America suffered because of it.
Mr. COBURN. I will finish up with this. As I travel around my
district, every time I encounter a teacher I ask them two questions. Is
it the system that is the problem or the kids? If you could discipline
in the classroom and you had the time, would our kids do better?
Uniformly, every time, they say, I do not have the time to fill out the
paperwork and teach the kids. I do not have the ability to instill the
discipline in my classroom without the support of the structure of law
to make it that I am not sued every time I try to control the
environment in my classroom. So what we are really asking teachers to
do is to teach with both arms tied behind them. We take half their time
away filling out paperwork and then another third of their time trying
to control discipline in a positive way that eliminates any ability for
corporal punishment or significant absence of privileges if in fact you
do not participate and behave. One of the things we have to do is
dollars to the classroom. The block-granting of education programs have
to go directly to the school districts. And individual school districts
have to spend that money on the kids, on the teachers. The only other
thing we can do is we can download the paperwork burden for our
teachers, and that starts right here, by eliminating programs,
eliminating departments so that paperwork is not generated in the first
place. If we do that, we will see changes just like we saw in welfare
reform. If we will start using a commonsense approach that is based on
proper incentives and proper punishments when behaviors are not right,
then we will see the kind of response in education that we all want
from our public school system.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I thank the gentleman. And most importantly it will
not be Washington making those decisions. It will be teachers and
parents and principals who are going to be empowered for the first time
in 40 years to make that decision. For the life of me, I really cannot
figure out why my friends on the extreme left will not allow Washington
to get out of the way and get those dollars to the classroom where they
need it so desperately.
Mr. COBURN. I would just add one other thing. Somebody may think that
I am one of those extreme conservative radicals. A father, a
grandfather, I deliver babies on the weekend still. I love
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children. But I also know if they do not have guidance and if they do
not have discipline, they are going to be in trouble, and they desire
that guidance. Do not ever kid yourself. They want to be disciplined in
a way that will give them a future. It is natural that they would
desire it.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. I thank the gentleman from Oklahoma for coming and
speaking with us today. He has certainly helped out. I yield to the
gentleman from Indiana.
Mr. SOUDER. I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding. It is
once again really important to remind people why on a Sunday night we
are here and not with our kids and families. There is nothing going on
in the negotiations right now in the budget agreement that we did not
know were going to be in the final conditions 12 months ago. There is
no excuse that we are here. As I would like to point out again as I did
earlier, the plain truth of the matter is many of us believe our
leadership has negotiated too much away. In fact when they were kids, I
bet they were the kind of kids who when they went trick-or-treating and
they knocked on somebody's door and said trick-or-treat and the person
came to the door, they probably gave the person candy out of their
pumpkin. We have in effect surrendered much of what we fought for. The
plain truth of the matter is that the President has a lot of leverage
right now, but why would he not want to deal? Why given the fact that
we have gone through these same points, we had a shutdown in 1995, we
are down to the end here, we know what things we are going to debate
over, human life, over the size of government, over national testing,
over census, what could possibly be a motivation?
Well, one of the things that has been much talked about in this
country is a movie called ``Wag the Dog.'' The dog, the tail wagging
the dog, because of an allegation in that movie that because of a
personal affair of the President he decided to start through a movie
thing a war. Now, in this case clearly there is no war. I am not making
any allegations that the movie in fact says anything about this
President regarding that type of incident. But there is a legitimate
question, is there a secondary motivation? Is there in fact a tail that
wags a dog in this case where the tail says, in effect, I need a second
show, I need to be able to say to the general public that there is
another crisis that may take precedence over this crisis. And that in
this case I think that there has been a pattern.
I want to go through, rather than talk about this President, I want
to talk about a different President. I want to talk about Richard
Nixon. There is a new book called Abuse of Power. Stanley Cutler has
gone through the tapes which he fought through courts to try to have
made public.
{time} 2015
We do not have such tapes with this current President and probably
given what has happened with the Nixon tapes we may not in future
years. But there are some dramatic things on this that come across very
similar to many of the things we have been hearing over the last few
months, and I want to put some of these in the Record.
Number, point number one: Limiting the testimony, July 20, 1972, Bob
Haldeman is talking to the President, quote, so they branded slow and
temporary immunity, and he is going to cover what he knows about the
Watergate stuff, which is nothing, and that gets him out of the thing.
Now what they had planned to do is he was going to take the fifth, but
this avoids his having to take the fifth, which is much better because
he has no guilt, where under the Watergate thing he has some of the
other. They just opened a new line of prosecution. We have seen that in
limiting the testimony today too regarding some people in this
administration.
Two: Limit the scope of the investigation. In 1972, Bob Haldeman
again talking to the President: Petersen, the Justice Department, is
working with that knowledge, directing the investigation along the
channels that will not produce the kind of answers we do not want
produced.
Now he also goes on to say that Petersen also feels that the fact
that there were some lines in this case that ran to the White House is
very beneficial because it slowed them down in pursuing things because
they are all of the view that they do not want to indict the White
House, they only want to indict the, they want to tighten up the case
on that criminal act, Watergate, and limit it to the degree that they
can. This is in fact exactly what the FBI director and Mr. LaBella who
did the Justice Department investigation said in their memos to the
Justice Department which is that the Attorney General had limited the
investigation to narrow parts and would not broaden the investigation.
That is in that memo that they will not release.
Number 3: We need to finish this investigation, no fishing
expedition. We have been hearing that for 4 years now. On August 2,
1972, Bob Haldeman said this to Nixon. The Attorney General has ordered
the director of the FBI to end the investigation. He said they have got
all they need to wrap up their case that is on Watergate. The
President: Do you think that is correct? Haldeman: Yes. Nixon said
really it is over. Otherwise it is a fishing expedition. We have had
enough of those. As the gentleman from Florida knows, we have heard
over and over, fishing expedition, fishing expedition.
Number 4: Overstate the potential damage. This is in September now
with the President, Haldeman and Colson. Haldeman goes on saying that
you know there is a perverse theory that we walk through this this
morning. We might be better off with the Watergate story. It is not
doing us much harm. The President says, yes, not much. What I mean is
the harm that is done when the reporters are in a hurry too much.
Haldeman: That is right, but the difference also is that the
indictments will be less than anticipated rather than more. The
indictments do not, see they said all along if the indictments or guilt
reaches into the upper levels of the Committee on the White House, then
there is the problem, and they did not at this time, which is what we
have been seeing here, limiting. You say it might be this bad, and then
it comes in this bad, and everybody goes, oh well, that is a relief.
Number 5: Complaints about spending too much money on the
investigation, something we hear constantly. September 15, 1972, 5:27
p.m., Nixon, Haldeman and Dean, John Dean says quote, the resources
that have been spent against this whole investigation to date are
really incredible. It is truly a larger investigation than was
conducted against the after inquiry of the JFK assassination.
Number 6: Build up expectations so news is less damaging. Here it is
Nixon and Colson, and they are talking about leaking false information
through a friend in the media, that the spread is going to be 19 points
over McGovern, and Nixon then says 27 points, and Colson says it will
sandbag him, it will sandbag him, and Nixon says sandbag them always,
that is right.
Number 7: Complain about press obsession, avoiding real issues,
October 13, 1972, 7:26 p.m., Nixon and Colson. Nixon: They have to
attack the press for its double standard. Colson: Yes, I think that is
the only way. Nixon: And by making it an all-out assault on the press
for their double standard and the rest and say now come on, you are
going to report this campaign, let us report what is happening.
By the way, I have been going through this book, and last night I
spent 3 hours because the more I heard this the more I thought this is
what we hear in the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight all
the time.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. And you are right, it is, and you talk about the
press. We have heard continued complaints about how the press is on a
witch-hunt and that they are absolutely enraged that over 115 or over
120 newspapers have called for the President's resignation, and these
are independent newspapers. The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Atlanta
Constitution are not conservative journalists by any stretch of the
imagination, but they have attacked the press as being on a witch-hunt,
and the question is, I guess for a conservative, is why would the New
York Times, why would the Washington Post, why would other newspapers
question this President in the way they have? Why would newspapers like
the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Atlanta
Constitution, call for his resignation? And I
[[Page H10559]]
think what you have to come to a conclusion is that there are some
people that take their job very seriously, and they have integrity, and
that is the decision, the journalistic decision that they have come to,
and yet they get attacked just like Ken Starr gets attacked, just like
anybody that has ever sort of been caught in the President's headlights
gets savagely attacked.
I read a news article about a former Miss America in fear for her
life and her family's life, and we have seen the hit squads that are
out there, and it is just regrettable.
Mr. SOUDER. Well, as I went through this I found I have gone through
seven parallels, and I found 21 minimum.
Number 8: Take advantage of the public's belief the Presidents act
logically. November 1, 1972, Nixon and Erlichman. Erlichman: We do not
mind being called crooks, but not stupid crooks. Nixon: We know we will
never convince them on our morality, but do they think we are that
dumb?
9: What is is. It is incredible, history repeating itself. December
11, 1972--
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. And, excuse me, when you say what is is, you are
referring to?
Mr. SOUDER. What the verb is.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. What the President said in his testimony, it depends
on what your definition of is is?
Mr. SOUDER. Yes, I am saying that there appears to be historical
parallels.
Erlichman says the Watergate thing, I do not think there is anything
to add what we have already said. Haldeman said you might re-say it.
Erlichman: That nobody in the government did this thing. Haldeman: The
White House. Nixon: What do you mean Watergate White House? Nobody
currently in the government. Haldeman: Currently employed in the
government, say currently employed. Nixon: Ever involved in the
government. Erlichman: Now you have Liddy and Hunt who were at one time
employed. Nixon: But while they were doing it even, while they were
doing it? Erlichman: That is right. Then employed I can say. Nixon: No
one who is an employee of the White House, who is an employee of the
White House. Then he goes on. Erlichman says either at the time of the
incidence or since. Nixon: Or since, that is what I mean, yes. Because
in fact they were still employed but not at the White House. They were
another branch of government. That is the precision of the is, that
they had it down, that they were at the White House earlier, they are
now in another branch of government, but if they said is in a certain
way, it implied they weren't employed by the government.
Parallel Number 10: Everybody does a defense. January 2, 1973, Nixon
and Colson. Nixon: Our democratic friends did a lot of things too and
never got caught.
Number 11: This is just partisan politics. February 6, 1973, Haldeman
says something we heard almost weekly. Haldeman: As we start into the
Senate thing, which is that there is a dire threat to the two party
system, because for the first time in our history we have one of the
political parties using the machinery of government to investigate the
other political party. He is trying to get them all stirred up. It is
not going to make any difference, and he does not have any illusions
that it will. He is just trying to make a case that this is a totally
partisan thing.
12: Coordinate the witnesses. March 6, 1973, John Dean said, well, I
think the most important thing for our handling the hearings are, one,
any witnesses that go up are well prepared. You know, re-reading your
speech on the Hiss case again showed how effective investigators can be
if one witness does not know what the other witness or there is a
dichotomy between the witnesses. I want to make a direct point here. I
sat in on the deposition of Jane Sherborne, and she told us how they
coordinated the White House witnesses both before and after.
Number 13: Conspiracy to commit perjury, Nixon and Haldeman.
Haldeman: I said that that is a conspiracy to commit perjury even if
Magruder did in fact later commit perjury or even at the time he was
answering Dean's questions commit perjury. He said not if Dean advised
him to tell the truth, and I said what if Dean did not advise him of
anything. He said, okay, I take that back, but I will simply say to you
that there was a conspiracy to commit perjury and there was a
conspiracy to commit justice.
14:----
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. And if this can be the gentleman's last one? And if
I can ask the gentleman if he can submit all of those into the Record,
I think that will be helpful.
Mr. SOUDER. Okay, one I want to finish on then is the loyal
secretary/scheduler, Nixon and Rosemary Woods. Two points, one Woods.
He said says, well, I think he is too a nice man, referring to a man,
but because of that fact is it even safe for me to talk on the phone?
Nixon says, no, do not talk on the phone. Woods says I will call this
girl today and say as soon as he gets back into town, say I need to see
him. In other words, do not do it at the White House.
Then in another amazing parallel Nixon and Rosemary Woods, June 12,
1973. Nixon: You know, Rose, you know that money you got from that
fellow? I would like to find a way to get that to the campaign
committee. I do not know how it could be done. Woods: I am concerned.
Who can hand it to them? Who can hand it to that does not have to say
he has got it? It is safe and sound already. Nixon: Third parties. You
never know when it is going to be investigated. Woods: But I do not
think he would need it, but if so, it is out of the safe, it is in my
home.
We have seen this over and over, and it is amazing parallel, and I
will submit them all for the Record.
Mr. SCARBOROUGH. And I thank the gentleman, and I thank again Dr.
Coburn and everybody else that has come to the floor today to debate
the issues that affect Americans, to debate health care, to debate
education, our firm belief that communities and teachers and parents
should form the alliance to educate our children for the next
generation instead of simply bureaucrats and politicians and
Washington, D.C., to debate Social Security, to take pride in the fact
that in just four short years we have put aside so much more to protect
the solvency of the Social Security, especially when you consider that
over 40 years our friends on the left did not put aside a single cent,
to debate about other issues that have an impact on Americans like tax
reform and tax relief for working class Americans.
I have been very surprised that over the past few years every time we
try to present a tax cut that would help Americans, that would help
lighten the load for parents who want to educate their children, every
time we have tried to pass an educational reform that would get dollars
into the classroom, every time we have tried to pass educational
reforms, every time we have tried to guarantee children in the inner
city of the District of Columbia south of Anacostia River and points
north the same opportunity that so many people in this Chamber are able
to give to their children, every single time it is met with a veto.
And so tonight on a Sunday night approaching 8:30 Eastern Daylight
Time, we are here, we are ready to work. We would ask the President to
hold his third Cabinet meeting of the year tomorrow and at that Cabinet
meeting talk about education reform, talk about saving Social Security
the way we have over the past several years, talk about continuing to
balance the budget without spending $17.1 billion in new dollars that
will be taken directly out of the Social Security Trust Fund. Let us
talk about the issues that affect Americans instead of running around
the country talking about fund-raising and also obsessing over a
shutdown strategy that does not do my children or the President's
children or America's children any good.
I again thank my friends for coming to the floor and speaking
tonight, and I certainly hope that the President will stay in town,
work hard and give us a process that every American can be proud of.
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