[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

[[Page H10558]]

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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