[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 153 (Wednesday, November 3, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H11459-H11465]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       UPDATE ON SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, tonight what we would like to talk about 
is an updating for the American public about, not only what is 
happening currently in Washington, D.C., but to give people an 
understanding about why Republicans are standing up essentially on 
several themes.
  One is Social Security, people's retirement. The future of people's 
retirement should not be taken to fund the government. Social Security 
should be used for that which it was intended, and that is to be put 
aside for people's future retirement like myself. I have paid in 27 
years into Social Security, 27 years, both my wife and I, and we want 
to make sure Social Security is there.
  Second thought process, we must continue to balance the budget. By 
balancing the budget in Washington, D.C., and not spending Social 
Security, we will make sure that government has to look internally for 
its needs to prioritize, to provide those things that the government 
has to do. It has given lots of money, and it needs to set priorities 
and make tough decisions just like people out in the States do, people 
who have families, people who run small businesses, people who work for 
corporations.
  The last thing is no means no. Mr. President, we are not going to 
spend Social Security. One hundred percent is larger than 60 percent.
  Lastly, that we want the government to do those things that the 
American public has done for many years, and that is look internally, 
set priorities, and try and meet those obligations and needs that one 
has.
  Today, also, I am joined by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. 
Hayworth), one of my fellow members of the Republican conference, and I 
yield to the gentleman from Arizona.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas for 
yielding to me, and I appreciate the fact that he has organized this 
time, Mr. Speaker, to go directly to the American people. Indeed, 
following, as we do, our colleagues from the left, I think it is 
important, even as much as we would like to set this up with a very 
positive dynamic, we are also compelled by the instant revisionism of 
the left to address a couple of their arguments.
  Indeed, Mr. Speaker, as we hear the ferocity of the denial of what 
has gone on for so many years on the left, as the folks stepped up to 
the plate tonight, Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to set the 
record straight.
  First and foremost, the fact is, before the gentleman from Texas and 
I came to the Congress of the United States, for 40 years the Social 
Security surplus was routinely spent on pet programs of the left. 
Indeed, so much money was spent that the country was taken further into 
debt.
  We heard all the name calling about the notion that Americans keeping 
more of their hard-earned money was somehow unpopular. Mr. Speaker, 
what is really unpopular on the left, sadly, is a failure to step up 
and recognize fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. Speaker, what we are talking about is a 1 percent solution. There 
is a success we can already celebrate. The budgeters, the folks who 
take care of all the numbers, have done some studying. They tell us for 
this fiscal year, fiscal year 1999, for the first time since 1960, for 
the first time since Dwight Eisenhower was ensconced in the big White 
House at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, this Congress balanced 
the budget, and did so using none of the Social Security surplus and, 
also, we might add, generated a surplus over and above the Social 
Security funds to the tune of $1 billion.
  That is cause not only for celebration, Mr. Speaker, it is cause to 
signal our commitment. Now that we have done that, we dare not go back 
and to hear the charges from the left.
  Let me offer what any computer student knows, what most folks 
understand here in the United States, one of the oldest games in the 
world, and, sadly, one of the first casualties in dealing in debate 
with the left, one of the first casualties of such debate is truth.
  When one sends the folks in the budget office a set of false 
assumptions and one says, assuming the following things, then what does 
one see? The folks who crunch those numbers are honor bound to say, 
well, making those assumptions, we expect X, Y, and Z.
  In the popular vernacular, Mr. Speaker, that comes down to garbage 
in, garbage out. My friends who preceded us here on this floor involved 
in the instant revisionism were offering a clear example of that.
  I mentioned just a minute ago the 1 percent solution. Mr. Speaker, I 
hold here a shiny new penny, made, no doubt, with Arizona copper. What 
we are saying through this appropriations process, through what the 
media calls the battle of the budget is as follows: Cannot we step up 
and save one penny out of every dollar given the massive waste, fraud, 
and abuse fraught on the American people by Washington, D.C., cannot we 
save one penny out of every dollar to save Social Security?

  An example is as follows here with this chart, which graphically 
demonstrates what has transpired. It is entitled, Mr. Speaker, ``Mr. 
Clinton goes to Africa.'' My colleagues may remember the trip in the 
news, a few positive policy notions discussed there.
  But what was disturbing about the trip, Mr. Speaker, was the 
President took along 1,300 people. Included in his entourage were some 
Members of this body, the mayor of Denver, Colorado, and others. Mr. 
Speaker, what is compelling is the cost of that trip was almost $43 
million, including an entourage of 1,300 folks.
  Now, under our modest proposal, the 1 percent solution, saving a 
penny out of every dollar, what would have happened was that 13 members 
of this 1,300 member delegation would have had to stay home. Maybe the 
mayor of Denver had concerns he could have better added in Colorado 
within the environs of the city limits of Denver. Maybe 12 other folks 
could have stayed home. I believe Mrs. Curry, the White House secretary 
for the President, was also on the trip. Maybe she could have tended to 
things back here.
  But all we are saying is this is not a draconian cut. My goodness. If 
anything, it is somewhat modest. But this demonstrates the waste. Let 
me point out to the gentleman from Texas, Mr. Speaker, and others who 
join us, understand, the 1,300 people in this entourage did not, I 
repeat, did not include the security personnel that every American 
understands a President, given these trying times, needs both at home 
and abroad.
  We are not talking about secret service. We are not talking about a 
security entourage over and above that. We are talking about 1,300 
people. You combine this number of folks with

[[Page H11460]]

other trips to China and Chile, and you are looking at a bill of close 
to $70 million.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, just to prove the gentleman's point, the 
President just today has vetoed the bill that was known as H.R. 3064 
for Labor, Health and Human Services and the District of Columbia.
  Today, and I will quote from what the President has sent to the House 
of Representatives, ``I am vetoing H.R. 3064 because the bill, 
including the offset section, is deeply flawed. It includes a misguided 
.97 percent across-the-board reduction that will hurt everything from 
national defense to education and environmental programs. The 
legislation also contains crippling cuts.''
  Well, what we have done in the Congress is we have tried to make sure 
that government was fully funded. An example of this in this bill, 
since the time that I have been a Member of Congress, former Speaker 
Newt Gingrich said it should be a national priority that this 
Republican Congress would double biomedical research over 5 years. We 
are now in the very midst of that. In fact, the Republican bill 
increased funding for the National Institutes of Health by 15 percent, 
that was in 1999, and 14 percent for the new year's budget.

                              {time}  2100

  The President asked for $15.9 billion, and we gave him $17.9 billion. 
That is $2 billion more.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, would my friend please repeat those 
numbers, because I think it is important; and it is something, given 
the many curious mathematics of Washington, D.C., and the failure of 
both accountancy and accountability at the other end of Pennsylvania 
Avenue. Would my colleague repeat those numbers. That is actually an 
increase, is it not?
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, it is a huge increase in some of the most 
fundamental things that are important for biomedical research and 
things that we are doing, funding in Washington, D.C., to solve medical 
problems of Americans that would be open then for the world.
  What we did is we increased it $2 billion. Yet the President has said 
it is misguided. When we asked, after fully funding and more than 
funding this, the President said it is misguided to ask for a .97 
percent of the budget to be looked at internally.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, what we are talking 
about here, we need to point out facts are stubborn things. And the 
chart, basically, sums it up right here.
  In terms of spending, we see what is going on here. We are just 
simply talking about reducing spending, realizing savings of 1 cent, 1 
cent on every discretionary dollar. My colleague from Texas pointed out 
the fact, and again, facts are stubborn things despite what some of 
this town call spin, others would more properly label as propaganda, 
how can you spend $2 billion additionally funding priorities and at the 
same time be accused of irresponsibility.
  Mr. Speaker, my colleagues remind me of George Orwell's seminal book 
``1984'' where the mythical republic of Oceania embraced slogans such 
as ``Ignorance is strength.'' ``War is peace.'' Now we are hearing in 
this town that fully funding, and then some, is a draconian cut. It 
just does not add up.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, could it not really be that what has 
happened is that the priorities that we have had to establish, in other 
words, ``no'' means no, no, we are not going to keep spending more and 
more and more; and, no, we are not going to spend one penny of Social 
Security, we mean we have to make tough decisions here in Washington, 
D.C., set priorities, determine what money will be spent on, is it not 
probably that it is too tough a decision for evidently some people to 
make?
  Let me give my colleagues an example. When asked if there was 
absolutely no waste in his department, Is there no waste in your 
department, Bruce Babbitt responded, You got it exactly right, no waste 
in my department.
  The Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, when asked about the 
administration's position on, we should not reduce at all the size of 
the Federal budget, Eric Holder said, That would be my view.
  When Joe Lockhart, the President's spokesman, has talked about 
whether it is okay to spend Social Security, is it dipping into Social 
Security, should that not be a choice, he said, Listen, if you look at 
the budget that Congress has produced over the last 15 or 20 years, 
they have every year dipped into that.
  And there is more. The more is, when Secretary of Education Riley was 
asked about how much money would be given to his department he said, 
The Republican plan slashes critical resources and schools well below 
the President's request.
  And yet, we gave them our education budget, the Republican budget, 
$88 million more than what the President was allowing for or asking.
  So, in fact, what we are doing is we are making tough decisions. And 
they want more and more and more.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think it is ironic that the Education 
Secretary, the man who is in charge of teaching children math, 
misunderstands the fact that when our budget is over the President's 
that we are slashing education. I think there is certainly a math 
deficiency there. Maybe we should have an investigation of that in 
itself. I know the Clinton administration loves studies. I am sure they 
would want to fund it. But it would also be a waste of money, so I am 
being sarcastic.
  I wanted to point out to my colleagues that the Lockhart quote, the 
White House spokesman, when he said, yeah, Congress should go ahead and 
spend the Social Security funds because they have done it for 20 years, 
well, there are a lot of things that have been going on for 20 years in 
this town that we are slowly putting a stop to.
  Now, the three of us wanted to put a stop to it really quickly in 
1994 when we became the majority, but we could not. So it is kind of 
like stopping a runaway train. You just got to go slowly. You just 
cannot stop these things suddenly.
  The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Hayworth) has the same quote, 
basically, from the Democrat leader, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. 
Gephardt) saying, just take a little bit out of Social Security.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Georgia for his 
comments.
  Two points. Number one, again, in the vernacular of this town, which 
some folks who are onlookers call spin, or should properly call spin 
propaganda, there is also something known as message discipline. And 
our colleague from Texas recites not only the statements of the White 
House press secretary but several cabinet officials involved in message 
discipline, to use the vernacular of the city.
  How unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, that they cannot be involved in fiscal 
discipline, stepping up with us with a 1 percent solution. A penny 
saved out of every dollar of discretionary spending goes a long way 
toward protecting the Social Security Trust Fund. It is summed up like 
this: a penny saved is retirement secured.
  My colleague from Georgia alluded to this. This was 2 weeks ago, 
October 24 of this year, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), 
the House minority leader, appeared on this week on ABC. The question 
was, ``What's the problem with spending the Social Security Trust 
Fund? You've been doing it for years,'' which sounds to me like a set-
up question just as an average citizen in addition to a Member of 
Congress. But here is what the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) 
said: ``I understand. But there is a feeling now that since we have a 
surplus and since we got to get ready for the baby-boomers,'' and this 
is the key clause, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, ``that we really 
ought to try to spend as little of it as possible, none if possible. We 
really ought to spend as little of it as possible.''

  This is not rocket science, Mr. Speaker. What you see are two very 
different visions of government. We believe to help Americans realize 
the limitless nature of their dreams, we should put limits on wasteful 
spending in Washington. The other side says, let us never put limits on 
spending. There is always more and more and more to be spent, and they 
engage in dubious mathematics and spin.
  The President of the United States stood here in January of this year 
and

[[Page H11461]]

talked about putting Social Security first and then had the audacity to 
say let us save 62 percent of the Social Security surplus. Now, a quick 
check of math, Mr. Speaker, indicates that that evening he was prepared 
to spend 38 percent of it on other priorities. And that is the 
operative factor: spend, spend, spend, spend some more.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, it sounds like to me that it is another 
example where the truth is held hostage in Washington, D.C., where we 
have gotten so much into spinning the message that we have forgotten 
what the truth is.
  I would like to go back to the President's letter to the House today 
upon why he vetoed the bill and then, perhaps, to give the facts of the 
case.
  The President, on page 8 of the veto, says, ``This across-the-board 
cut would result in indiscriminate reductions in important areas such 
as education, the environment, and law enforcement.'' In addition, this 
cut would have an adverse impact on certain national security programs. 
The indiscriminate nature of the cut would require a reduction of over 
$700 million for military personnel, which would require the military 
services to make cuts in recruiting and lose up to 48,000 military 
personnel.
  Let us now do a fact check. A fact check says, despite the 1 percent 
that we are asking this administration to look internally for 
efficiency for them to save the money, Congress has appropriated, that 
is, the Republican Congress has appropriated more money to critical 
areas of the Government than President Clinton ever even requested.
  For example, in defense the President requested $263.3 billion. After 
the 1 percent savings that we are after, we appropriated $265.1 
billion. That is $1.8 billion above what the President even requested.
  For education, the President requested $34.71 billion. After the 1 
percent savings, we appropriated $34.8 billion. That is $90 million 
above what the President's request was.
  For crime, the President requested $2.854 billion for State and local 
law enforcement assistance, which includes his COPS programs. After the 
1 percent savings that we are after, we appropriated more than $397 
million more than the President requested.
  And yet, if we look at what the President is saying is that, if he 
has to make this 1 percent savings within the administration, they will 
have to take the loss of up to 48,000 military personnel. We are 
talking about we fully funded above what the President ever even asked 
for, and he is still going to have to cut.
  So it makes us wonder what is the truth and why should it be held 
hostage in Washington.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would continue to yield, 
what I find ironic is, frankly, these numbers are staggering to me as a 
conservative, as a Republican. I think that, in many cases, we as a 
Republican party spend too much money. But I understand we have got to 
work through the process, we have got to have 218 votes, we have got to 
have 51 votes in the Senate, we have got to have a bill that the White 
House will sign. So we, reluctantly sometimes, have to spend more money 
than our constituencies want us to spend.
  But when the Democrats vote no on the appropriations bills because we 
do not spend enough and then say they do not want to take it out of 
Social Security, we want to say, okay, I give up. This is some kind of 
game. Clue me in. What is the missing element here?
  The money that my colleague is talking about spending comes out of 
Social Security. And yet they say they do not want to spend it.
  Of course, now the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) says go 
ahead and spend it. Joe Lockhart, the Al Gore spokesperson and 
administration spokesperson, says go ahead and spend it. And Al Gore's 
own budget, which he is tooting around the country talking about, 
spends lots of Social Security money.
  I think that is maybe where the hope is that, perhaps because of the 
presidential year, the Vice President will come to his senses. But the 
reality is Al Gore is very much in favor of us spending Social Security 
money. We have got to put a stop to this.
  I do not know, I guess this is maybe being an alpha male, you raid 
your grandmother's trust fund so you can go around telling your 
friends, I wear opaque shirts, or whatever the color is that alpha 
males are supposed to wear. I do not keep up with these kind of 
subliminal things outside the Beltway.
  But the reality is, here is a guy running for President who wants to 
spend Social Security money and is fighting our budget because our 
budget does not spend enough money.
  What we are saying to the Vice President is, hey, look, all we are 
saying is take a penny out of the dollar. That is all you got to do is 
take one cent and then you do not have to spend any of the money out of 
Social Security. Cut out some of the waste.
  My colleague talked about Secretary Babbitt saying there was no waste 
in the Department of Interior, and you may have already mentioned this 
about the $30 million duck-breeding island in Hawaii. The Department of 
Interior has bought a $30 million island for ducks to breed on in 
Hawaii.
  I was a honeymooning duck, I might want to go to Hawaii myself if I 
could fly over there. But the problem is only 10 ducks took them up on 
the offer.

                              {time}  2115

  So now at a cost of $3 million per duck, we have got an island. As 
the majority leader says, that is a lot of quackery.
  Mr. SESSIONS. The gentleman from Georgia is suggesting that the money 
that has been appropriated is more than what the President asked for in 
this bill that he vetoed. We have wisely provided it for not only the 
National Institutes of Health but $88 million more for education, and 
yet the President and the administration refuses to find one penny of 
taking out waste, fraud and abuse which we know is rampant, and the 
administration is even unwilling to look at the $30 million. Yet I know 
at Glacier National Park this year, the administration put a million-
dollar toilet that took 800 trips from a helicopter to place this 
outhouse at 7,000 feet. It is incredible. One would think that they 
could utilize some common sense just like what is done at my table, I 
am sure at your tables, where you have to make decisions just on one 
penny out of a dollar.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. It is amazing the efforts which the left will employ to 
avoid common sense savings. I was especially surprised and sadly 
disheartened at the comments of my fellow Arizonan the Secretary of 
Interior, our one-time governor Mr. Babbitt to now say that there is no 
waste in that department. I would simply refer the Secretary to a 
finding made just a few years ago, in my first term in the Congress of 
the United States when I was privileged to serve on the Committee on 
Resources and we had the Interior Department's accountant, in 
Washington, we give accountants fancy names, the Inspector General was 
there, that is the accountant who takes care of all the books, conducts 
the audit, and sitting alongside him at that point in time was the 
director of the National Park Service. The accountant, the Inspector 
General for the Interior Department, reported to our committee that for 
that fiscal year, the National Park Service could not account for over 
$70 million in funds authorized and appropriated to be spent by the 
National Park Service. They could not account for it.
  Mr. Speaker, we have the crown jewels of the Park Service in Arizona, 
the Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, a variety of amazing sites of 
natural splendor. We depend on the Park Service to be good stewards of 
those national treasures. But is it too much to ask the Park Service 
and other Washington bureaucrats here to also be good stewards of the 
treasure of the American people, the tax money they send here year in 
and year out? And so, Mr. Speaker, I would invite my fellow Arizonan to 
take a very close look, mindful of that report of a few years ago. 
Certainly there is savings of one cent on every dollar spent, because I 
know a whole lot of Arizonans who sit down every Sunday with their 
newspaper and start to clip coupons, because they need to save 50 cents 
on a box of cereal. This is something that is not foreign. This is 
something that we do not need any highfalutin economics for. It is just 
common sense. We can do better.
  I yield to my friend from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman from Arizona holds up the penny. I have 
got

[[Page H11462]]

a dollar here. All we are saying is find a penny. You know about 
clipping that 50 cents off on the Special-K or the corn flakes made by 
Kellogg's versus buying the house brand which always is cheaper but not 
always up to the taste quality. It is not just a matter of having to do 
it, it is also a matter of wanting to do it, because it is stupid not 
to. That is the way Americans buy things. We are a country of 
hardworking, middle-class people. If we can buy gas for $1.12 a gallon, 
we are going to drive two blocks past the $1.15 a gallon station 
because we can save the three cents per gallon. If we can buy our 
clothes cheaper when they are on sale, we are going to wait until the 
suits go on sale before we buy one. If we go to a restaurant, and I 
know the gentlemen here are both fathers. When was the last time you 
bought steak? You always are buying chicken and the first thing your 
eyes go to in the restaurant is the right side of the menu where the 
prices are, and then you work your way back to what the food items are 
you can buy for that price. For the people who have to decide between 
buying a new piece of furniture or a new dress or probably not buying 
either because the dryer breaks or you need a new set of tires on your 
car, or if you are a runner, buying jogging shoes when they are 
discontinued because they have been marked down 50 percent, if you go 
to Wal-Mart every Saturday or Sunday to buy anything from shampoo to 
cleaning fluid for your car or anything else, this is what we are 
saying, this is all we are talking about, finding that one penny on the 
dollar.
  All over America, it is easy to do, from Maine to Miami to San 
Francisco. But somehow in this little 50-mile radius of an area of 
Washington, D.C., and not even that, really just maybe about a five-
mile radius in the inner city here of government, it is impossible.
  Mr. SESSIONS. We are talking about the things that happen back home. 
We are talking about decisions that families have to make. Sometimes 
you sacrifice, perhaps for a child. Sometimes you might sacrifice for a 
parent. But I would like to give some examples about how Washington, 
D.C. can make some tough decisions. It started with taking control of 
the House of Representatives that Republicans did in 1995. I would like 
to give some information about that.

  Since 1995, the legislative branch funding has produced a savings of 
$1.2 billion below the trend line. In other words, if you had put the 
trend line of where it was headed from 30 years' worth of Democrat 
control, we have now reduced that $1.2 billion. This year, for the year 
2000, legislative appropriations is $124 million below the current 
year. That is a 4.8 percent reduction. That means from 1999 to year 
2000, the legislative branch, which is run by Republicans, has reduced 
their budget 4.8 percent. The legislative branch has downsized by 4,380 
employees since 1995. That is a 16 percent reduction. We have cut the 
number of printed daily congressional books by 8,200 copies. We have 
cut the number of House committee staffs by one-third. We have 
privatized the House barber shop and beauty shops and custodial care 
and the parking lot and transferred the House post office to the U.S. 
Postal Service. We have done things that made sense in Washington, D.C. 
But those were things that were underneath our own control. That was 
because we were able to make the hard decisions. That is what we are 
doing now. That is why Members of Congress, at least Republicans, said 
we believe that it is so important not to spend Social Security that 
Members of Congress should take a 1 percent cut in pay next year. Lo 
and behold, what happens? It gets to the President, wholly 
unacceptable. So the things that take place every single day back home, 
somehow is just not acceptable, will not cut it up here.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, we are all about the same 
age, born in the 1950s, raised in the 1960s. Just describing my home, 
and I know the gentleman from Texas, he may not know this, but I was 
actually born in Brazos County, Texas, and the gentleman from Arizona 
and I found out today we have cotton and a lot of other crops in 
common, and the folks back home live in a world totally different from 
the spending other people's money philosophy of Washington, D.C.
  I was raised in Athens, Georgia, on Plum Nelly Road, plumb out of the 
city and nelly in the county. In that house, 215 Plum Nelly Road, Ann 
and Al Kingston did not let children leave the room with the light on. 
If you left the light on, dad would let you know you were wasting 
money. We did not pay the power company extra money by leaving a light 
on in an unoccupied room. If you left the water on when you were 
brushing your teeth, not after you finished brushing but during the act 
of brushing your teeth, you were also called to the mat for a little 
dialogue, and sometimes that dialogue was not always verbal.
  Now, you washed your own car. My little sister Jean who had two older 
sisters, she did not know there were such things as new clothes until 
she got to be a teenager and was on a clothing allowance. She wore 
hand-me-downs. That is just the way we were raised. I will never forget 
walking to the Beachwood Shopping Center from my house with Jimbo Ray, 
we would pick up Coca-Cola bottles on the way because they were 2 and 3 
cent return bottles. We were frugal but it was not because we were 
poor, it was just that was the culture. You did not waste money. That 
is the way people did in Arizona and Texas and California and all over. 
And somehow they come to Washington and forget that whole value system. 
It is bizarre. Because I know lots of good people in government, 
Democrats and Republicans.
  Yet one of the absurd things, the Pentagon lost two $850,000 
tugboats. They lost one $1 million missile launcher. Now, I ask my 
colleagues, has anybody seen the missile launcher? Who has got it? Come 
on, fess up. Somebody has got to have it. It just goes on and on and 
on. A contractor for the Pentagon paid $714 for an electric bell that 
was only worth $46. It is absurd. We pay $8.5 million to 26,000 dead 
people for food stamps. Hey, why do we not start paying the money to 
live people, and we might have less of a need for health care if we 
start feeding live people. But can you imagine $8.5 million worth of 
food stamps to dead people? It is unbelievable. And it only happens in 
Washington, D.C. It does not happen in large businesses, it does not 
happen in small businesses, it does not happen in Georgia, it does not 
happen in Arizona, it does not happen in Texas, it does not happen with 
my family, with your family, with my neighbor's family down the street 
and turn the corner and go up one, it does not happen in that 
household, but here in Washington, D.C., it is the rule and not the 
exception.

  Mr. SESSIONS. We were talking about Bruce Babbitt, saying that there 
was not a penny that he could find in his department. Yet we go back 
just 4 months to August 11, 1999, and here is the headline out of the 
Washington Times. Junkets Found in Wildlife Service. Trips to Brazil 
and Japan to promote a logo cost $26,000. This is very similar to the 
number of people that this President takes when he travels around the 
world. We are not saying you cannot travel. We are saying reduce what 
you are doing. This is $26,000. Here is what it says:
  A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's employee spent $17,600 to travel 
from Brazil and Japan, including two junkets to promote the use of the 
sport fish logo, according to documents found by the Washington Times.
  What we found out is that a gentleman made four trips to Rio de 
Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil in 13 months at a cost of $9,084, 
according to the travel vouchers. And the director of the institute 
where they went said there is absolutely no reasonable justification 
for using the money to travel to these places. Here is what he said. 
His voucher stated that it was for the purpose of encouraging these 
manufacturers that he was going to meet with to use the sport fish logo 
on sport fishing equipment imported into the United States. In other 
words, he spent $26,000 to travel outside the country so that we could 
provide information so that our consumers in this country would want to 
see that sport fish logo. And yet the Secretary says he cannot find a 
penny.
  What really happened here after the Government Accounting Office did 
this investigation? Mr. Gordon said his organization requested vouchers 
from other employees after receiving information from agency workers of 
financial irregularities. ``This doesn't surprise me. I find that this 
is consistent with what we found in our organization.'' The GAO finds 
this every single day. Yet the administration refuses to find just one 
penny on their own and take action about it.

[[Page H11463]]

                              {time}  2130

  Mr. HAYWORTH. I would say to my friend from Texas, I am indebted to 
him for pointing this out, and for my colleague from Georgia, who I 
think used a term that is all too revealing about the mind set of 
Washington and the wasteful spending therein and what transpires. The 
phrase is ``other people's money.''
  Some folks in this town come to view the Federal Treasury as one big 
piece of pie, or, perhaps more appropriately, as the ultimate lottery 
winnings of all times, equating with trillions of dollars, rather than 
realizing this money belongs to the American people we are entrusted 
with.
  While my friends talk about the accountability, we are also indebted 
to our colleague the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra), who serves 
on the Committee on Education and the Work Force, who has gone back and 
done some checking, because our good friend, the former Governor of 
South Carolina, the Secretary of Education, Mr. Riley, has also said 
that there can be no reductions.
  Mr. Speaker, our colleague the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Hoekstra) 
points out that the Education Department cannot account for $120 
billion of taxpayer money. Today, more than 7 months after the March 
audit deadline, the Department of Education still cannot produce the 
required paperwork to allow their financial works to be audited by the 
GAO. In other words, they cannot even supply the information, and they 
cannot use the excuse that the dog ate the homework.
  The Department of Education is the only Federal department that has 
not been audited for fiscal year 1998. The Department of Education is 
responsible for distributing $120 billion a year in education spending, 
$35 billion in appropriated funds and approximately an $85 billion loan 
portfolio. Unfortunately, they do not know where the money is going.
  Mr. Speaker, is it too much to ask for accountability? Is it too much 
to say based on the fact that the figures are incomplete, that 
apparently our friends in the Department of Education do not know where 
the funds are going, could they not at least take the modest step of 
trying to find one penny in savings out of these $120 billion?
  I see we are joined by our colleague from South Carolina, who has 
helped to make a difference from the low country, who must hear with 
interest the comments of the former Governor of South Carolina, the 
current Secretary of Education, about this topic, the out and out 
refusal of the administration to join with us to find savings of one 
penny on every dollar. I yield to my friend.
  Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for doing so. I was 
sitting in my office catching up on paperwork and saw you over here and 
heard what you are talking about, which is this notion is it or is it 
not impossible to cut one cent out of every dollar spent in Washington? 
And the answer is a resounding yes based on what I hear from folks back 
home in South Carolina, and the answer is a resounding yes, in that if 
we are ever going to get serious about limiting the size of government, 
about limiting its growth, you have to establish precedent with this 
idea of a penny on the dollar. I think it is a great idea, and it is 
something that has got to happen.
  One of the things that I think is interesting was I am on the 
Committee on International Relations, and I remember looking at a GAO 
report that talked about surplus properties within the inventory of 
State Department. As you know, we have got embassies around the globe.
  Well, they had a surplus list of properties, and I remember in 
looking at this list, for instance, the State Department had a $90 
million residence in Japan that was surplus. In Buenos Aires, the 
ambassador's residence down there is a $20 million home. You look at 
this, the State Department just got through selling the residence in 
Bermuda for I think it was $12 million or $14 million. You look at the 
amount of money that is out there, and, again, this was a GAO report 
that said you guys have too much in inventory, you might want to 
consider a little bit simpler accommodation. A $90 million residence in 
Tokyo is probably a bit much. It is not necessary to have that to do 
the job that has to be done.
  So, one, there is a lot of fluff in the system, based on the 
inventory according to the Government Accounting Office.
  The second thing that is interesting is this week we had a hearing on 
our policy with North Korea, and there is a new Government Accounting 
Office study that shows that over $365 million has been spent by the 
American taxpayer in food aid to North Korea. Never mind the fact that 
North Korea is testing missiles over Japan and basically disrupting the 
neighborhood, but you look at $365 million in food aid, the whole point 
of the GAO study was they could not quantify where the food was going.
  So you have somebody that has declared themselves an enemy of the 
United States taxpayer, who at the same time is getting over $300 
million worth of food aid that the Government Accounting Office says we 
cannot account for. We do not know if it is going to feed the army or 
if it is going to feed starving people in Northern Korea.
  Mr. SESSIONS. If the gentleman would yield, what we are talking about 
tonight is waste, fraud and abuse. We are challenging the President to 
find a way within this administration to find one penny's worth of 
saving, without spending Social Security, and balancing the budget, and 
that is what we are asking the President to do.
  I would like to go back and give a history of what 30 years of 
Congressional overspending does. What it does is very clearly seen on 
this chart. For those of you who might be a few feet away, the lower 
part here is deficits. This is spending too much money. This part that 
is on the right is the surplus.
  For 30 years, from 1970, when we first put a man on the moon was when 
we began ending surpluses in this government. For 30 years we have run 
deficits, and, for the first time, now, we have had 3 years worth of 
surpluses.
  But we Republicans recognize that we should not with a straight face 
say that the work is done, because we recognize that what has happened 
is we are operating under rules that even today allow Social Security 
to be raided and to be used for regular government spending.
  Since 1984, $638 billion that was given by people for their 
retirement, taken by this government, has been spent. So what we are 
trying to do is to say now that we are at zero in 1999. For the first 
time in 39 years, Republicans did not spend a penny of Social Security.
  We are trying to challenge the President now to say Mr. President, 
let us put it in writing. Let us have an agreement that we will not 
spend the Social Security. We provided the President millions of 
dollars more in many areas as a result of us making tough decisions, 
but we have had to prioritize. We are going to keep challenging this 
President and keep showing ways, which there is plenty ways.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, I think it is important to 
say that this is not the President alone, this is the Vice President. 
Indeed, Mr. Gore's entire proposed budget spends all of the surplus 
that you are talking about. It goes right through the operating surplus 
and then goes right into the Social Security surplus. So, you know, 
this is not a problem that necessarily ends with the Clinton 
administration should the baton be passed on to the Vice President, 
because the vice president is very much in favor of spending the 
surplus.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Or, if my friend would yield, given the rather 
considerable elector difficulties that this Vice President is 
encountering, we should point out that our former colleague in the 
other body, former Senator Bradley, would not end this either.
  Indeed, we should point out that the Washington Post, not exactly a 
bastion of conservative values, the Washington Post in work done in 
part by reporter C.C. Connelly pointed out 2 weeks ago that the 
campaign promises of Messrs. Bradley and Gore alone would require all 
of the surplus funds, including Social Security.
  It boils down to a very simple choice, Mr. Speaker: If you want to 
empower the culture of spending and having Washington take more and 
more and more of your family's budget to spend on the national budget, 
well, the standard to follow on the left is pretty clear. It is offered 
unapologetically by their 2 presidential candidates. If, however, you 
believe the money you earn and

[[Page H11464]]

the sacrifices that my colleague from Georgia pointed out as a common 
notion of light, if you believe for too long you have been asked to 
sacrifice so that Washington can allegedly do more, and we need to 
reverse that, as we have done with common sense priorities in this 
House, and make sure that Washington saves so your family can have 
more, then, Mr. Speaker, we should invite the American people to join 
with us to be understandably wary of the bill of goods offered by the 
left and to point out again the comments of the minority leader of this 
House, who now tends to hedge and says on national television, ``Well, 
we ought to try to spend as little of the Social Security surplus as 
possible.''
  Again, Mr. Speaker, it is a very simple notion: A penny saved, one 
penny, out of every discretionary dollar spent, one penny saved, is 
retirement secured.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Is it not interesting that as we go about telling the 
American public that it is their retirement, it is a savings that is 
for their future, and as we play this scenario out, that all of a 
sudden we are at zero, and now what we are trying to do is to fight the 
President, who says we should not spend any Social Security. He wants 
us to spend more and more and more. And even though this government is 
at $1.8 trillion, that he cannot find one penny. He will not even 
accept the challenge. He will not even accept the challenge to find one 
penny out of a dollar. And yet routinely in our family, and I am sure 
my colleagues, that happens every day.

  It happens in small businesses. It happens all across this country, 
where families and small businesses and even large businesses have to 
do this. Exxon. Exxon is one-eighteenth the size of this government, 
and yet every single year they make tough decisions where they 
reinvigorate themselves.
  I would suggest to you, and I have done this, that when I lost 
weight, I not only became healthier, but more efficient and things 
worked better. If this government looked inwardly to itself to take off 
the bloated fat that is in the bureaucracy, to exercise a little bit, 
to have to go and do something that it has never done, then I would 
suggest to you that we would have better employees also.
  Can you imagine an employee who may have been with the government for 
30 years, never being challenged to have to look for a better way to do 
his job or her job? Can you imagine the employees that still do have a 
sense of financial integrity with them, now, for the first time, being 
able to come to their bosses in the government and say, ``I think we 
should accept this challenge. I think I have found a way,'' we called 
it in my company an idea forum, ``a good idea. Here is what I think we 
can do to run ourself more efficiently and to be prepared to meet 
whatever our mission statement is.''
  For the first time, Republicans challenged the administration openly, 
put our paycheck on the line to take a 1 percent pay cut, challenged 
the government to simply find what it could to eliminate waste, fraud 
and abuse to find the savings, and the President, our leader, was 
unwilling to accept this from the get-go.
  Unilaterally he said, it is not something I wanted to engage in. 
Bruce Babbitt, there is no waste, fraud and abuse here. Can you imagine 
the disappointment on the faces of Federal employees when they came to 
work and found out that those good ideas that they could be presenting, 
those good ideas maybe that they had been trying to get up the ladder 
for a long time, can you imagine now that they were rejected by the 
President?
  Mr. SANFORD. You mentioned the idea again of a penny on a dollar. 
Again, one of the committees that I serve on is the Committee on 
International Relations. It was interesting, we had an amendment last 
year that dealt with a number of these international study 
organizations that we fund indirectly through the foreign aid bill.

                              {time}  2145

  One of them was the Bureau for International Expositions. Another was 
the International Lead and Zinc Study Group. Another was the 
International Rubber Organization. Another was the International Vine 
and Wine. There are a lot of strange organizations out there that we 
fund. The idea that there is not a penny worth of waste in maybe some 
of these studies.
  For that matter, we had another amendment that looked at three 
foundations. There are a lot of foundations around the country are 
privately funded. They go out there in the marketplace, they compete 
for funds. Yet, there are three Cold War era foundations that are still 
funded through the Federal government, and compete with a foundation in 
any one of the 435 congressional districts for funding.
  So we went and said, you cannot have your cake and eat it too, except 
for in Washington. You cannot be funded through the Federal government 
and also compete in the private marketplace for research dollars.
  A lot of the research topics were bizarre. I remember one of the 
studies was to identify the causes of premarital sex in Southeast Asia. 
Call me old-fashioned on this, but I think it has a lot to do with 
simple attraction. But anyway, there were these bizarre studies. I do 
not know that there would not be a penny worth of savings out there in 
one of these studies, much less the overall organizations that were 
being funded that were, again, offering the research for the studies 
themselves.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. Speaker, I am on the 
spending end on that particular Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, 
Export Financing, and Related Programs, with the foreign aid bill.
  If we follow the Clinton travel thing, $42.8 million, taking 1,300 
Federal employees to Africa, and $8.8 million to go into China, and 
$10.5 million to go into Chile.
  Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Speaker, could the gentleman tell me the Africa 
number again?
  Mr. KINGSTON. That was $42.8. The gentleman from Texas has a chart on 
what we are talking about here, just to show the absurdity of this, 
1,300 employees who went.
  Mr. SANFORD. To me, it would not matter whether it was Africa or 
whether it was Chile or whether it was Australia or Great Britain, but 
the notion that there is not a penny worth of savings on one of those 
trips is just absurd to me.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Five hundred people went to China. I do not know why we 
need five hundred advisors. These are Federal employees, and there are 
also private citizens who go who allegedly pay back the money.
  I called the General Accounting Office, the accountability people in 
Washington, and I said, how many of the private citizens paid back 
their money? They said, well, you would have to ask the State 
Department. The State Department would have to get it from the White 
House, and we will never find out the answer to that.
  If we look at the chart here, tell me, 13 of those people could not 
have stayed home? That is all we are talking about, 1 percent, 13 of 
them have to stay home. I would say the mayor of Denver, I know 
Colorado is very important to our African policy, but if it is the 
case, why cannot the people in Colorado pay for the mayor of Denver to 
go on this junket?
  That is not even the expensive part. When Vice President Gore and 
President Clinton travel, the expensive part is the promises they make. 
In 1993, they promised $1 billion to Russia. In 1999, they urged the 
International Monetary Fund to release $4.5 billion in aid to Russia, 
one of the most corrupt countries in the world right now, and $400 
million promised to the Ukraine, and then another $5 billion through 
the International Monetary Fund, and $1.8 billion to close Chernobyl, 
another $2 billion promised in 1995 by Clinton to Poland.
  He promised $260 million to South Africa. He promised them $650 
million, and do they not have the largest diamond reserves in the 
world, and we are going to pay $650 million for infrastructure 
development? To Costa Rica he promised $2.2 billion to extend the 
Caribbean Basin initiative, which the gentleman and I both know has 
absolutely decimated the textile industry in the Southeast United 
States, basically taken all of our jobs out of South Carolina and 
Georgia and put them in the Caribbean. He promised $360 billion to 
train soldiers in Bosnia, even though we have already spent $12 billion 
in the Balkans. It just goes on and on and on.
  When the President travels, yes, it is expensive for his entourage, 
but it is even more expensive to hear what he promises to people.

[[Page H11465]]

  Mr. HAYWORTH. If I can just make the point, I thank my colleagues 
from Georgia and from South Carolina, and our other good friend who 
serves on the Committee on Appropriations, the gentleman from Oklahoma 
(Mr. Istook) put pen to paper and started to estimate all the promises 
in the last 7-plus years.
  Mr. Speaker, and I am glad the Speaker is seated, there are $22 
billion in promises of American funds to foreign governments on the 
road, and Mr. Speaker, we ought to issue this travel advisory, the 
President again, following Veterans Day, November 11, I believe 
November 12, is scheduled to make another trip to Europe.
  Mr. Speaker, we should ask the President to uncharacteristically 
restrain the price of his promises. We do not need finger wagging or 
redefinition of the word ``is,'' we need old fashioned fiscal 
discipline. We invite the President and the administration and our 
friends on the left to join us in that process.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleagues tonight who 
have joined me, the gentleman from Georgia, the gentleman from Arizona, 
the gentleman from South Carolina, for having what I think is a very 
interesting talk about a way that we can ask this president and 
challenge this president to save one penny.
  We know what happened, today the President vetoed the bill because he 
wants more and more and more and more spending. He wants less 
accountability, and the worst part is that what it means is it would be 
spending our Nation's future social security.
  Republicans will not allow this to happen. The gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Armey) will not allow a bill that places social security in 
danger. I thank the gentlemen.

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