[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 94 (Wednesday, July 19, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H6567-H6573]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     LOOKING BACK AT 6 YEARS OF REPUBLICAN CONTROL IN THE HOUSE OF 
                            REPRESENTATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, we rise tonight to talk a little bit 
about what has happened in the last 6 years, and I am delighted to have 
with me tonight one of my colleagues who came to the Congress with me 
in 1994. I think once in a while it is important to remind our 
colleagues where we were in 1994, what was happening here in 
Washington, what was happening with our government, when the American 
people said, in effect, enough is enough.

                              {time}  1930

  They sent 73 new Republican freshmen to this Congress to begin to 
change the way Washington did business. We had with us a Contract with 
America, not a Contract on America, some of the critics like to say, 
but it was a Contract with America. And we said if you will elect us to 
the Congress, here are some things we are going to do.
  I am happy to report that virtually all of those planks in that 
contract with the American people have now come to fruition. In fact, 
we kept every item. We kept our bargain on every one of those items. We 
had a vote on a few occasions. There were not the constitutionally 
required majorities, and so those have not become law, for example, 
with term limits. But on virtually every other item.
  One of the first items on that contract was to make Congress live by 
the same laws as everybody else, and perhaps later this evening, the 
gentleman from Connecticut (Mr. Shays) will join us and talk about that 
particular plank. I am privileged tonight to have one of my colleagues 
who came with me in 1994, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts); and 
we have really come a long ways.
  Let me just talk about the budget side of the equation, and I will 
talk about this more after the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) 
leaves us. But when we first came to Washington, the Congressional 
Budget Office, and I have a copy of this, if any Member would like a 
copy of what the Congressional Budget Office said, our official 
scorekeepers were telling us back in 1994 and 1995, they were telling 
us that the on-budget deficit for each of the years 1994, 1995, 1996, 
1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000 was going to be $208 billion, $176 billion, 
$207 billion, $224 billion, $222 billion, $253 billion and $284 
billion. Now, that was the deficit that they were projecting when we 
came to Washington in 1994.
  That did not include all of the money that the Congress was regularly 
taking from Social Security to spend on other items; if we include 
that, we are actually looking at deficits of $259 billion growing 
ultimately to $381 billion by fiscal year 2000.
  That is where we were back in 1994, and what the American people said 
in that election is listen, there must be a better way. Every family, 
every business, every association has to balance its budget and somehow 
they figured out a way to make the income meet the expenditures. Every 
family does it every week.
  It really is time for the Federal Government to do the same, and so 
they sent some of us there and said, listen, if you do nothing else, at 
least balance the Federal books.
  Mr. Speaker, I am happy to report that we not only have balanced the 
Federal books, we are now looking at enormous deficits. We will talk 
more about that. I would like to yield to my friend and colleague, the 
gentleman from the great State of Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) to talk just a 
little bit about where we were, where we are and hopefully where we are 
going with this Congress.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Minnesota 
(Mr. Gutknecht) for yielding to me. And I am appreciative of the fact 
that the gentleman has chosen this time tonight over the next hour to 
talk about what we have done in Washington and, although, he and I are 
Republicans, the wins, the victories that we have seen over the last 
5\1/2\ years really are not Republican victories. They have been 
victories for the American people.
  I recall back when we were sworn in. I was sworn in on January 9, 
1995, my colleagues were sworn in 4 days or 5 days before I was, 
because of some obligations I had back home, but when I was sworn in on 
January 9, I believe, and I think the gentleman has the numbers there, 
that the deficit of that year in 1995 was about $285 billion, somewhere 
thereabouts, $285 billion or $300 billion. Those were the deficits, and 
deficits means that we have spent out a whole lot more money than we 
take in and we create a deficit position.
  As the gentleman has said, we came in and wanted to do things 
differently. We felt like Washington could be better, and it is 
interesting the Contract with America items that the gentleman has 
mentioned, about 80 percent of those items today are law.
  Although people campaign and they talk about the evils of the 
Contract with America, 80 percent of the Contract with America today is 
law and a Democrat President signed those things into law.
  A balanced budget amendment, we did not pass that. We did not pass 
term limits, but I think we both voted for term limits and both voted 
to say that we should amend the Constitution, have an amendment to 
force Congress to do about what 39 different States around the country 
have to do, by law they have to balance their books. They cannot spend 
out one dime more than they were appropriated or that the legislators 
appropriated.
  So what we have done over the last 5\1/2\ years, we do have a 
balanced budget today. We do not spend out more money than we take in. 
Welfare reform, we were beaten on that, because we wanted to reform 
welfare to say, let us not define compassion by how many people we can 
have on food stamps and AFDC or in public housing, instead let us 
define compassion by how few people are on food stamps and AFDC and 
public housing because we have helped them climb the ladder of economic 
opportunity.
  Today 6 million more Americans are in the workplace because we chose 
to define compassion in a different way.
  We cut committee staff by a third for the first time, I understand, 
in the history of the House of Representatives. We audited the books of 
the House of Representatives. If Members will recall, back when the 
gentleman and I were freshman, every morning we would have people 
pushing these little carts around that had these buckets of ice on them 
that would give Members a bucket of ice. I thought this was somewhat 
unusual. The gentleman thought it was unusual, because we had 
refrigerators inside of our offices that keep

[[Page H6568]]

our Nehi peach and a Nehi grape cold, and these pockets of ice would 
melt.
  These were no good. So we looked into this, and I think it was 
costing the taxpayers something like $600,000 a year. We cut it out. We 
eliminated it. We said that is wasting taxpayers' dollars. I think the 
people back in the fourth district of Oklahoma would be pretty proud 
and folks in the gentleman's district back in Minnesota would be proud 
to know we did not have to put together a task force to do that. We 
just eliminated it. We said Congress, the American taxpayers are paying 
for that. We do not need that.
  We have given tax relief, $500 per child tax relief. We have done 
that. We paid down our public debt by $350 billion. Now, 5\1/2\ years 
ago when the gentleman and I came, that was just a theory that some day 
we would start down that track of paying down our public debt.
  We have done all of these things over the last 5\1/2\ years, which 
these things are good for the American people. The gentleman mentioned 
about stopping the raid on the Social Security and Medicare surplus. We 
think that is important.
  Why is that important? We believe that the FICA fellow who takes 
money out of your payroll, he ought to do with it what he says he is 
going to do with it, and that is set aside nothing but for Social 
Security and Medicare.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. If the gentleman would yield, one of the comments that 
I made, and I think that the people in my district really appreciated 
this, was that when we started talking about taking money from Social 
Security and spending it on other things, what I said was, when the 
American people allowed the Federal Government to get into their 
paychecks to pay for Social Security, they never told the Federal 
Government that they could keep the change. That is what was happening.
  The Federal Government was keeping the change and spending it on 
other programs. And 2 years, thanks to your leadership and the 
leadership of others in the House, we finally stopped that abuse. For 
the first time, we are making certain that every penny of Social 
Security taxes goes only for Social Security or to pay down debt.
  As the gentleman has mentioned, we paid down $350 billion of debt 
and, as a matter of fact, I believe by the end of this fiscal year, 
that number will be greater than $400 billion that we will have paid 
down.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I wanted to 
point this out. Jimmy Carter wrote a book in the 1970s called Why Not 
the Best? And he talked about rethinking. So many of the things that we 
do routinely in government, and I think that even though we had 
philosophical differences of what that blueprint should be, that is 
what, in fact, happened in 1994.
  I think it took many years with ideas like the challenge of Jimmy 
Carter, Why Not the Best; and then Ronald Reagan saying, good morning 
America, bringing out the best news. Now, in this day of great 
prosperity, the day of great medicine, great technology, great 
entertainment, great food supply, we still need to get to that next 
level in a government where our priorities have been very focused in 
the last 5 years. We protect and preserve Social Security. We protect 
and preserve Medicare. Then we pay down the debt for the next 
generation, and then the change.
  If we go to WalMart and we buy $7 hamburger and we give $10 at the 
counter, they are going to give us $3 back. The Federal Government, if 
we get a congressional cashier, he is going to keep the change and give 
us some more nails and all kinds of things we did not ask for. We are 
stopping that.
  To go after great communities, where the kids can walk the streets 
late at night not having to worry about drug pushers and crime. 
Education, where teachers in the classroom are getting the money, not 
the bureaucrats in Washington. Just think about every dollar we spend 
on education, 50 cents never leaves this city.
  That is something we have got to change. Our constituents would never 
put up with that in the private sector. It is outrageous.
  Mr. WATTS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Kingston) for sharing those thoughts with us, because I think what the 
gentleman has said, what the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) 
has talked about in getting us into this special order this evening, I 
think it is critical to look at where we have come from to see where we 
are going. Had we not made those tough decisions 5\1/2\ years ago when 
we first came, putting more people in the workplace today. We balanced 
our budget. We do not spend out more money than we take in. We have 
sent more education dollars home. We stopped the raid on the Social 
Security surplus and on the Medicare surplus.
  We have cut our committee staff by a third. We have given tax relief. 
We paid down our public debt, because we have done all of these things. 
Now we are in a position over the next 8 years to 10 years that we are 
talking about massive surpluses. No longer are people talking about 
deficit spending any longer.
  We are talking about massive surpluses, and over the next 10 years, 
we really have an opportunity to do some wonderful things to secure the 
future of America. Just think, just imagine, over the next 10 years, 
because of decisions we made early on, we have surpluses that we can 
find a cure for cancer. We can find a cure for sickle cell anemia and 
diabetes and Alzheimer's. This is within our reach.
  Mr. Speaker, consider an America that we had paid off our debt. I 
mean, that is within our reach. Consider an America that every child in 
America gets up every day and they went to a venue of learning that was 
safe, that taught them how to read and write, do the arithmetic, have 
the computer skills necessary to compete in the global marketplace, 
imagine that kind of an America. Imagine an America that was safe from 
foreign enemies, because our military was strong and people's 
retirement security was safe.
  They could retire at their retirement age with security. This is 
within our reach, thanks to, in large part, by what we have done and 
all the names we went through, what we were called and all the things 
that we had to go through to get here, but we are here, and now if we 
will manage it properly, not go on some wild goose chase of government 
spending, these things really are within our grasp over the next 8 
years to 10 years.
  Finding the cure for these many illnesses out there, the many 
diseases that plagues the greatest Nation in all the world. I said it 
time and time again, as I close, this place that we all call home and 
the rest of the world calls America, it is a pretty fascinating place.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. That is right.
  Mr. WATTS. I appreciate what the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. 
Kingston) said, and we should be about being our best, not our worst, 
giving our most, not our least, understanding the importance of who we 
are.

                              {time}  1945

  Again, I am delighted in some very, very, very small way that folks 
in the fourth district of Oklahoma that they have given me an 
opportunity to be a part of what we have seen happen as Members of 
Congress over the last 5\1/2\ years.
  Mr. KINGSTON. One thing that he has done a lot for, that I think that 
it is important to talk about in terms of getting everybody at the 
table, because when we were passing welfare reform we were accused of 
pushing children out in the street, pushing women out in the street. 
The President vetoed the bill twice, and then as soon as it turned out 
to be a success, 40 percent of the people on welfare got jobs and liked 
those jobs, then the President went around saying it was his bill, 
which is fine. If that is the way the system works, let us do another 
bill like that.
  What I think the gentleman has been good at is getting everybody in 
on it, pushing for an education system where no child is left behind 
and saying, as the gentleman has pointed out, America's prosperity is 
the envy of the world, but there are people in the world who are not 
sharing in that prosperity. We are saying we want to invite them to the 
table, and we are going to show them a pathway to the table, and we are 
going to help them get to the table so that they too can enjoy this 
great land and negotiate for a better America. I think that is 
something that we do not talk about.
  The gentleman has reached out to the children who are at risk, and I

[[Page H6569]]

think that that is something that we need to always keep in mind for 
the next generation.
  Mr. WATTS of Oklahoma. George Bush calls it prosperity with a 
purpose. We are experiencing unprecedented prosperity in America. The 
Dow is going through the roof. NASDAQ is doing very, very well. These 
days if one is older than 30, they are too old to be a billionaire in 
America.
  It is fascinating the wealth that we see, and I think that if our 
objective is just to make money, that is a bad purpose. Prosperity with 
a purpose says that, yes, I want to take the wealth that we have in 
America and make sure that those who are left behind, that in spite of 
what skin color they are, in spite of what party they are in, we can go 
to them and say these are my values, these are my principles, how can 
we help accomplish what they want to accomplish in life?
  This prosperity that we are experiencing, we have an opportunity to 
do wonderful things for the United States of America, but I think we 
have to be disciplined enough, composed enough, that we do not get 
dollar signs in our eyes and say let us spend, spend, spend, spend, 
spend. Let us grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. We have to have a purpose, 
I believe, in the wealth that we have created in America and in the 
surpluses that we have that we are experiencing today.
  I think we have to have purpose in our surpluses. If we do, boy, we 
will surely create that shining city on a hill.
  I thank the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) very much for 
letting me participate this evening.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) because I think in many respects he has done the 
best job of communicating what it was we were trying to do. As the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) mentioned, welfare reform was not 
about saving money. I think to a large degree that was miscommunicated 
by so many people.
  Welfare reform was not about saving money. It was about saving 
people, because we all knew that there were too many people that were 
being trapped in an endless cycle of dependency and despair, and 
because of our welfare reforms we allowed States and governors and 
legislatures to decide what it was that they wanted for their people 
and how it was that they could use the instruments of government to 
encourage work, to encourage personal responsibility, to encourage 
families to stay together, and that is what welfare reform was all 
about.
  The great news is, since we passed that bill, gave that authority 
back to the States, we have seen the welfare roles in the United States 
drop by 50 percent. That is a great story, not in terms of how much 
money it will save but most importantly how many people it saves.
  One of the stories that I love to tell, and many of us do visits to 
our local schools, I was at one of my local schools a couple of years 
ago, about a year after we passed the welfare reform, and we were 
talking to the teachers after school.
  One of the teachers said, Of all of the things that have been done 
since you went to Washington, Gil, I think the best thing is this 
welfare reform.
  I said, Really? Tell me about that.
  She said, Well, let me talk about one of my students and let us call 
him Johnny. All of a sudden Johnny started to behave better. He was a 
better student. He was a better kid. He carried himself better. 
Everything about Johnny was better.
  So finally one day the teacher said to Johnny, Johnny, is there 
something different at your house?
  Johnny said, Yeah. My dad got a job.
  We sometimes forget that a job is more than the way one earns their 
living. A job helps to define their very life, and when the breadwinner 
of a family is unemployed and on a government welfare program, it not 
only affects the attitude of the breadwinner, it affects the attitudes 
of everyone in that family.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I think that as we talk about welfare reform, and as 
the gentleman said it is about people and giving people opportunities, 
it is not about taxes, it is not about saving dollars but there are 
really three legs to the stool. One is for those who are able and 
capable, able-bodied to work. The other one is the single mother with 
transportation needs, health care needs, day care needs, education 
needs, housing needs. The third leg, though, is something very 
important and the gentleman just touched on it when he talked about 
little Johnny, and that is Dad.
  Our welfare system for years has been geared under the premise that 
if Dad is around, then one does not qualify for public housing; they do 
not qualify for the health care benefits for their children. What we 
are doing now under the leadership of the gentlewoman from Connecticut 
(Mrs. Johnson) is a great Fatherhood Project, saying to the kids, in 
some sectors of society it is as high as 70 percent of the children who 
are born without fathers at home, we are saying we want to bring their 
dad back because if we bring their dad back, the teenage dropout rate 
will go down; the drug usage rate will go down; the grades at school 
will go up and the teen pregnancy will go down.
  I think that is the kind of common sense legislation that we need to 
do, not just say, okay, we did welfare reform, now we are through; but 
to go back and say, now look the father has to be in the picture. When 
70 percent of the kids are born without dads at home, they end up on 
welfare. Dad has to be brought back. I think that that is one of the 
keys.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. In many respects what we have done since 1994 was to 
reverse sort of the unwritten rule of Washington, which had become 
almost an epidemic; and the unwritten rule was that no good deed goes 
unpunished. If families stayed together, as the gentleman said, they 
got punished. If people worked, they got punished. If they invested, 
they got punished. If they saved, they got punished. If they created 
jobs, they got punished.
  If one thinks about that, that was a perverse incentive. It should be 
no surprise that the welfare system particularly was destroying the 
work ethic, was destroying families, was encouraging dads to leave the 
household. It was the most perverse thing.
  The good news is we have begun to reverse those perverse incentives. 
As a result, I think we are not only going to save, quote, money we are 
going to save families; we are going to save children from one more 
generation of dependency and despair.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Getting back to this in just a second because the bill 
of the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Mrs. Johnson), which will be 
passed by this House, it has already been passed and we have another 
version we are going to consider, I hope, next week; but I have been 
involved with the Georgia Fatherhood Project with the director named 
Robert Johnson, and then locally Robby Richardson, whose wife, Annette, 
works with us, he is the Savannah coordinator of it, they invited me to 
one of their meetings to talk to the men who are 23, 24 years old who 
have said when I was 19 years old, I was irresponsible and then the 
system kept pushing me out and pushing me further out the door. I made 
a mistake or two, but I could not get back in because society kept 
shutting the door on me.
  Now through this fatherhood project I can come back in and get my 
high school diploma, maybe get some college credits, get some 
vocational learning, learn a skill, get my job; and it is not 
necessarily the job I want, but it is the entry level job and then to 
get to the next level of the ladder.
  These guys are talking about I went four years without seeing my 
little girl, and now I am seeing her again, and I am part of her life; 
I do not have to hide from the Government to do this. Mom is in on it, 
too. It is win/win for society; win/win for the mom; win/win for the 
dad. But, more importantly, it is a win/win for that little girl.


  Senior Citizens Should Be Able To Buy Their Prescription Drugs From 
                            Other Countries

  Mr. KINGSTON. The gentleman has been a leader in something that I 
want to talk about in terms of why not the best and in terms of common 
sense legislation, and that is the fact that our Food and Drug 
Administration has prohibited our senior citizens from buying drugs, 
prescription drugs, medicine, in Canada, which is sold at a lower price 
than it is in America.
  I have a chart with some of these price differences on it, but I 
thought the gentleman might want to explain

[[Page H6570]]

that because I think it is so important to our seniors and to the 
family members.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. I thank the gentleman for allowing us to talk about 
this tonight. Actually, it all started several years ago at a meeting 
with some senior citizens at one of my townhall meetings, and they 
started talking about the differences between what prescription drugs 
sold for in the United States compared to what they sell for in Canada, 
in Mexico, in other countries in the world. So I began to do some 
research and began to do some work, and I came to the realization that 
they were in fact telling the truth; that there was a huge difference.
  What the gentleman has next to him there is a chart based on some 
information that we got from the Life Extension Foundation. These 
actually compare some of the prices of drugs between what the average 
price is in the United States. As a matter of fact, I might say that 
those prices on that chart are probably about a year old now. They are 
actually probably worse today in terms of the actual prices, but I want 
to pick out a couple of them there that are important to my family.
  The first one is Synthroid.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let me look at Synthroid here. Synthroid, why does the 
gentleman maybe tell us what it is used for. In America, our American 
citizens have to pay $13.84. In Canada they can get it for $2.95.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let me clarify that. It is actually in Europe. Those 
are all European prices. Now the price in Canada, I believe, is about 
half what it is in the United States. The point is, it is even cheaper 
in Europe.
  Now, Synthroid is a drug that my wife takes because she has a goiter, 
an enlargement of her goiter, and many Americans have to take that 
drug. As long as she takes her drug, she has no medical complications 
because of that. So it is a wonderful drug, and we are certainly 
appreciative of that drug and that it is available.
  We can afford the $13.85 or whatever the price is here in the United 
States. That does not really break us, but it does begin to bother when 
it has to be taken all the time. Literally, she has to take that drug 
probably for the rest of her life.
  When one looks at the differences between what the Europeans pay for 
exactly the same drug, made in exactly the same plant, under exactly 
the same FDA approval, one begins to ask the question, why is it the 
world's best customers, the Americans, pay the world's highest prices?
  Mr. KINGSTON. Let us look at Prozac. Prozac is $36.13 in America. In 
Europe, it is $18.50, and I would suppose in Canada maybe it is $25.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Somewhere in there.
  Mr. KINGSTON. People can go to Canada and buy it if they live in 
Maine or Michigan; it is ready access. It will not really help us much 
in Georgia, but the fact they could get it, and they should under the 
North American Free Trade Agreement. Free trade means free trade for 
anything that is a legal product, and yet they cannot get it.
  Now, the legislation of the gentleman which was passed by the 
Republican Congress 2 weeks ago stops this practice, does it not?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, it begins to open the door. It is not a complete 
solution.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It stops the practice of not being able to buy the same 
drug for a cheaper price in Canada?
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. We begin to open the door. What happens right now, to 
try and explain what happens, for example, and let me take another drug 
on that list, Cumadin, that is a drug that my 82-year-old father takes. 
The average price in the United States is over $30. The price in Europe 
for the same drug is $2.85. What happens sometimes is people are 
traveling, and they happen to have their prescription along with them; 
they are traveling perhaps in Italy and they realize they are running 
short on their Cumadin. It is a blood thinner. It is very commonly 
prescribed. They go into a pharmacy and they buy it; and when they 
convert the lira to dollars, they realize that it was less than $3.00. 
That is 10 percent of what they pay back in the United States.
  So when it is time to renew that prescription, some people have said, 
I have the phone number of the pharmacy there in Rome. Maybe what I 
could do is just give them a call, and see if I could get my 
prescription refilled and have them ship it to me.
  What happens is, and the gentleman has it behind him there, there is 
another chart, what our FDA does when that drug comes into the United 
States, even though it clearly is the same drug, made by the same 
company in the same plant, what our own FDA does is they send a 
threatening letter to that senior citizen or to any citizen, as a 
matter of fact, who happens to be importing drugs, and this letter is 
one of the most threatening letters.
  It says, ``It appears that you are violating drug importation laws 
and that you are importing a drug that is illegal in the United 
States,'' even though it says clearly on the carton that this is 
Cumadin or this is Prozac or this is Premarin or whatever the drug 
happens to be.

                              {time}  2000

  So it is clear to everyone what that drug is. As a matter of fact, 
the FDA has the right to actually test that drug.
  But beyond that, it strikes me that it is outrageous because the 
burden of proof right now is on the individual to prove, in fact, that 
it is a legal drug. So what my amendment does is it reverses the burden 
of proof so that the FDA must now prove that that is, in fact, an 
illegal drug.
  Now, in doing so, what it does is it changes everything. It begins to 
reverse the process so that it will be virtually impossible for the FDA 
to send these threatening letters to consumers who are abiding by the 
law, have a legal prescription, and are importing legal drugs into the 
United States. And when that happens, markets work. We have a world 
market price for oil, we have a world market price for wheat, we have a 
world market price for automobiles. And we should not allow our own FDA 
to stand between American consumers and especially American seniors.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it is common 
sense, if the gentleman will yield, 86 percent of our seniors take at 
least one prescription a year, and the average senior consumes about 18 
prescriptions each year. The average cost for the drugs is around 
$1,000 annually, or about $80 a month. Mr. Speaker, 44 percent of those 
seniors that are having to take or buy their own drugs have an income 
of less than $10,000 a year. So one of the things that we have done, 
not just pass the ``Gutknecht Law'' in terms of allowing free commerce 
between two nations who do have free commerce and are trading back and 
forth, but we have also passed a prescription drug benefit for 
Medicare.
  The important thing is that it reduces the average cost of 
prescription drugs by about 39 percent, it gives seniors still the 
option to buy it where they want, it does not endanger Medicare, and it 
does not come between the doctor-patient relationship, and that is 
something very important.
  Mr. Speaker, one difference that we have between the Republican plan 
and the President's plan is, we are saying this affects about 30 
percent of the seniors on Medicare. They do not have prescription drug 
coverage. The other ones, about two-thirds do, either from their 
Federal retirement program or from the program that they were in in the 
private sector. But what we are saying is, because of that, we do not 
want to pick up Ross Perot's prescription drug charges. That is common 
sense.
  Now, the President wants it universal, which has a great ring to it, 
but when we do that, we buy prescription drugs for people who do not 
need that benefit. That is not quite the American way to subsidize 
somebody who does not need subsidizing.
  So we are trying to work this out with the White House, but I say to 
my colleague, I want the best plan to prevail. Prescription drugs is 
not a partisan issue. I want the best of the Democrat ideas in the 
House, the best Democrat and Republican ideas in the Senate, the best 
ideas from the White House, and let us put grandmother's prescription 
drug issue first and not politics.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, without being overly political, though, I 
do have to say this: This administration has had 8 years to deal with 
this issue and what they have given senior

[[Page H6571]]

citizens most are these threatening letters. I mean, hundreds of 
thousands of seniors have received these threatening letters from our 
own FDA. That is not the way to deal with this issue.
  And let me also point out, if we could put the other chart up, so we 
can talk a little bit about this, what we have said, what I have said 
and I know the gentleman has joined me on this both on the agriculture 
appropriations bill and some others, what we have said is, if we do not 
deal with this price problem, because the real problem for seniors is 
price, when we have drugs like Prilosec, for example, that sells for 
over $100 here in the United States, sells for about $56 in Canada, the 
same drug sells in Mexico for about $17.50, the average price in Europe 
for the same drug is about $39.25, the problem is that over the last 4 
years, prescription drug prices have gone up by about 60 percent.
  When we look into the eyes of some of the seniors at our town hall 
meetings and they say, I can afford the price of prescription drugs 
today, now; it is not easy, but when we look at how much they are going 
up every year, I do not know if I will be able to afford them in 
another 2 years. The problem is, if we do not deal with the price side 
of that equation, we will never be able to catch up just by pouring 
more Federal taxpayers' money at this problem.
  As one person put it, I think, very accurately, if we think 
prescription drugs are expensive today, just wait until the Federal 
Government provides them for free.
  So we have said that we have to deal with this problem from both 
sides. We have to open up markets so that Americans have access to 
market prices for drugs, world market prices for drugs; and secondly, 
we have to provide a prescription drug benefit as part of Medicare as 
an option, if people choose it, so that it is affordable, available, 
and that people have choices. That is the plan that we are working on.
  I think if we attack the problem from both sides of that equation, we 
can make certain that every senior has access to the drugs that they 
need at affordable prices that will not bankrupt them now or in the 
future. I think that is the right prescription drug plan. Frankly, I am 
prepared to debate that with anybody in front of any audience, anywhere 
in the United States, because I think once people have the facts before 
them, they will see that the plan that we are trying to put together is 
superior to what the President is talking about.


            Saving Social Security and Responsible Spending

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman saying that. 
The other thing along this line in terms of a safe retirement is Social 
Security. The gentleman mentioned it earlier, but to think that this 
House, for 40 years, routinely would take any surplus in the Social 
Security Trust Fund and spend it on roads and bridges is just 
outrageous to think about.
  In 1999, in January, during the President's State of the Union 
address, standing right behind the podium where I am right now, he made 
the statement, let us save 60 percent of the Social Security surplus; 
i.e., let us spend 40 percent. And we on this side of the aisle said, 
no, Mr. President, we are not going to do it. We are going to protect 
and preserve 100 percent of grandmother's pension plan, because there 
is no business in the world that can mix operating expenses and a 
pension plan. At the time, everybody said yes, you all are talking a 
good game, but you are not going to do it. Well, we did do it. Not only 
did we do it for 1999, but we did it for the year 2000, and we will do 
it for the year 2001. The reason why that is important is once we have 
set the precedent, we have that firewall.
  In addition to that, I believe we could go another step and say, let 
us put it in a lockbox. Just putting the money aside is not good 
enough, let us put a lock on it so that in order to break that sacred 
implied promise, that sacred practice, let us say we have to vote. That 
would make it really impossible for people to frivolously spend this 
hard-fought-for Social Security surplus.
  Now, one reason why we know we need to do all of these things is 
because Americans are working their tails off. They are working harder 
than ever, and we need to protect their money and spend it like we 
spend our own money.
  Mr. Speaker, back in Savannah, Georgia and Glennville, Georgia and 
Hinesville, Georgia and Brunswick, Georgia, what my constituents do is, 
if gas is $1.47 at one pump and it is $1.42 down the street, they will 
drive that extra block to get the $1.42 and pump it themselves, even if 
they are wearing a coat and tie. If they need a new suit, they wait for 
the sales when suits are marked down, and if we need to wait until the 
fall to buy the spring outfit or the spring to buy the winter outfit, 
that is what they are going to do. If they are buying a pair of jogging 
shoes, they will wait until they are on sale with a discontinued brand. 
If they buy some Kellogs Cornflakes, they wait until they have the 50 
cents off coupon. That is how American consumers spend their money, and 
that is how we should spend their money. We should follow that example 
in everything we do.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, talking about coupons, sometimes we need 
to be reminded of this here in Washington, that every Sunday, families 
sit around their coffee tables and their kitchen tables and they clip 
over 80 million coupons out of the Sunday paper, worth an average of 53 
cents, and that is how they balance their budgets every single week. 
They watch their pennies.
  Now, we still have an awful lot of waste in the Federal Government. I 
will not be one to say that we do not have waste. But we have much more 
accountability, and I think we have less waste today than we have had 
in the last 10 years.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to say this. My wife has one of the 
most important jobs in America. She is raising John, Betsy, Ann and Jim 
Kingston, who are all at home and we are glad to have them there, but 
she clips those coupons every Sunday and she goes through the two for 
ones and the 30 cents off and the good until next month, and she 
reminds me every now and then, last month I saved $13.33 in coupons, or 
this month I am up to $27. She asks me if she needs to report that 
every now and then jokingly, and I am afraid that if Uncle Sam knows 
that if we are so thrifty, that he will require it.


                        Simplifying the Tax Code

  That is another reason why, in this Republican Congress, we have 
passed a Taxpayers' Bill of Rights, so that if the IRS comes to your 
door, you are no longer guilty until you prove yourself innocent 
through your lawyers and your accountants and 7 years of records; you 
are presumed innocent.
  A question that I ask people in coastal Georgia on occasion is all 
right, now, look, you leave here today and let us say you leave the 
Rotary Club today and you walk out and you remember for some reason you 
pulled your wallet out of the car and you put it on the hood, or your 
purses, and you meant to pick it up, but in the flurry of locking the 
car and picking up your papers, your briefcase and all that and getting 
to your meeting on time, you forgot. You walk out and you realize, I 
left my wallet on the car and it is gone. All your credit cards, all 
your cash, everything else. That is choice number one, losing the 
wallet. Choice number two is you do not lose your wallet at all, you 
just come home and you are going through your mail at the end of the 
day and under that letter from Aunt Gladys and from the Visa to pay 
your bill is a little friendly calling card from the IRS that says, we 
have chosen you randomly to be audited.
  Now, you are a hard-working, tax-paying American. What do you want, 
to lose your wallet with all of your credit cards or to be audited by 
the IRS? Most people, regardless of how conscientious they have been 
paying their taxes, filling out the forms, getting an accountant to do 
it, maybe, they would rather lose their wallet than be audited.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, it is an incredible tragedy in America 
today that the IRS knows more about one's personal finances many times 
than one's spouse.
  Which leads me to the next point. I hope we have made some progress 
in terms of simplifying this Tax Code. But it is very small progress. I 
would hope that in the next Congress, with perhaps a different 
leadership at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, we can get very 
serious about simplifying and making this Tax Code much fairer. There 
are several things we could do.

[[Page H6572]]

But it really is amazing that Americans even allow this system to 
survive.
  When we think about what Americans did back at the beginning of this 
country, we started throwing tea in Boston harbor because the king 
wanted to put a penny per pound tax on tea. I mean that outraged the 
American people. Today, we allow an IRS to continue to look into every 
nook and cranny of our personal lives, and if we make a mistake, even 
to the tune of $1, it puts a tremendous burden on the American people, 
and it is simply wrong.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, did the gentleman know that the Tax Code 
contains 5.7 million words. Now, that is eight times as many words as 
the Bible. One thing they do have in common is the Tax Code gives lots 
of instructions, but the Tax Code gives very little inspiration and 
zero forgiveness. In terms of the IRS laws, there is 101,200 pages of 
IRS laws and regulations. Just to comply with this Tax Code, our 
American taxpayers spend about $250 billion each year paying the H&R 
Blocks, paying the accountant down the street, the local folks, paying 
the lawyers or whatever, businesses, $250 million. To give my 
colleagues an idea, for our Commerce, State and Justice bill that has a 
lot of our drug enforcement money, we spend about $35 billion on that. 
So we have $250 billion to comply with taxes, not to pay taxes, but to 
comply, and yet to fight drugs, $35 billion. It is absurd.
  Mr. Speaker, in terms of the amount that we take, Americans today 
spend about 9 percent of their income on food, about 4 percent on 
clothing, unless one has teenagers, then it spikes well into about 20 
percent. My daughter told me, she said, ``You are a horrible dresser.''
  I said, ``You are right, but I was not this way until you were born 
and particularly since you turned 13.'' I tell her, I said, ``You know, 
I still dress better than my dad does.'' She does not give me any 
credit for that, but he is recovering from raising four kids himself.
  Now, on housing, we spend about 16 percent, on transportation, about 
7 percent, and yet, on taxes, the two-income family, 39 percent of our 
income goes to taxes.

                              {time}  2015

  We struck a blow for that here in the last couple of weeks, another 
example of the ``No good deed goes unpunished.''
  Most people were unaware until just a few years ago that literally 
hundreds of thousands, if not millions of American couples, paid extra 
taxes, in fact, pay extra taxes, simply because they are married. In my 
congressional district alone, we have a study that says that there are 
70,000 couples that pay extra taxes just because they are married. 
There is the marriage penalty.
  It works out, the amazing thing is, it works out to something like 
$1,400 per couple that they pay in extra taxes. That is just not bad 
tax policy, that is bad family policy, and if we think about it, it is 
fundamentally immoral.
  A couple of years ago at one of my town hall meetings I had an older 
couple come up to me after the meeting. They said, you have to do 
something about this marriage penalty thing. I said, really? Tell me 
about that. They said, we are thinking about getting married, but we 
have figured it out with our accountants and we would be penalized to 
the tune of over $1,300 a year just because we were married.
  After they explained that to me, I said to myself, the Federal 
government should not discourage marriage. We all know that marriage 
and strong families are the glue that holds this society together. Yet, 
we have a system right now where hundreds of thousands of couples 
around the United States that are married pay extra taxes simply 
because they have a wedding certificate. That is simply wrong. This 
Congress is sending a very clear message to the administration and to 
the American people that we intend to change that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. About the marriage tax penalty, I have found in my 
district that the Democrats and Republicans are united on that. There 
are 25 million people paying absurd taxes. People are in favor of it.
  Another tax decrease this House has passed is the Spanish American 
War tax. It is interesting, because I say with great pride, General 
Wheeler, who led our troops over there, and the Rough Riders with 
Theodore Roosevelt, actually one of his descendents lives in Savannah, 
Spencer Wheeler.
  General Wheeler was a Member of Congress, and the President actually 
called him out of Congress to lead our troops in Cuba. What is 
interesting, I have talked to Spencer Wheeler, a doctor in Savannah, 
about it. I said, there is a tax that is still around that helped 
finance the Spanish American War, and it is a little tax on our 
telephone bills; not a huge tax, but it was earmarked or it was 
implemented for a certain purpose, it was earmarked for that purpose. 
But according to my history, we have been finished with the Spanish 
American War a long time. Yet, only in Washington do these things live 
on and on forever.
  We have passed that bill. I think the Senate is going to pass it. I 
hope the President will sign it. Again, it is common sense, kill the 
Spanish American War tax. We are finished with it.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. On the tax side, it all fits with the total budget 
plan. I only wish that he were here tonight. I remember so many nights 
doing special orders with Congressman Mark Neumann of Wisconsin. He has 
left us now, he decided to run for the other body, and now he is back 
in the private sector and doing quite well.
  I remember doing special orders and talking about, if we could get 
Congress to limit the growth in Federal spending to roughly the 
inflation rate, he had these models, he was a former math teacher, and 
he showed us with charts what would happen, how we could balance the 
budget, pay down debt, make certain that every penny of social security 
and Medicare went only for social security and Medicare, and we could 
provide real tax relief to the American people.
  In fact, what he said is if we did those things, if we could limit 
the growth in Federal spending to roughly the inflation rate, that we 
could pay off the national debt in 20 years.
  Americans have always loved big dreams. In fact, Ronald Reagan said, 
``America is the place where we love to dream heroic dreams.'' That has 
been the history of this country. What a great dream. What a great 
dream, to say that we are going to leave this country to our kids debt-
free. The truth is, it can be done. We are on the path to do that 
today.
  Part of the reason is when we first came here, when I first came 
here, Federal spending was growing between 6 percent and 8 percent. In 
fact, years before that Federal spending was actually increasing by 
more like 10 percent and 12 percent per year. Now we have reduced the 
rate of growth in Federal spending so this year, if we can abide by the 
spending agreement that we have with the Senate, we will limit the 
growth in total Federal spending to only about 2.8 percent. That is at 
a time when we are estimating the inflation rate will be something like 
2.9 percent.

  If we can do that, and that is going to be tough in the next several 
weeks because all of these groups are descending on Washington and they 
want more money for this and that program, and it is going to be tough 
to limit that growth in spending. But if we do that, we can balance the 
budget, pay down the debt, strengthen social security, but most 
importantly, we can allow families to keep more of what they earn.
  The interesting thing is, when we allow families to keep more of what 
they earn, they spend it a whole lot smarter than we spend it on their 
behalf here in Washington. They get more value for that money, and they 
help grow the economy. A growing economy makes everything easier.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Another part of that is not only passing the money on 
in our Nation from one generation to the next generation, but from 
family to family. The death taxes that rob so many of our families, our 
farmers, is a factor.
  I live in a growth area, and it is not unusual for me at all to see a 
widow who has bought the family property on Whitmarsh Island on the 
Intercoastal Waterway, bought it in the 1960s for $30,000, and after 20 
years paid it off. Her husband is dead, she is on a fixed income, and 
now that property is worth $700,000, $800,000, maybe $1 million, but 
she is still on a fixed income and does not want to sell, does not want 
to move, and does not want to develop. Yet, our property taxes are 
pushing her

[[Page H6573]]

out, and then our estate taxes are. If she wants to pass that on to the 
next generation, the next generation is going to incur a big tax on it.
  Here is a woman who is really independent, not on public assistance, 
who has money in the bank or an asset that if she needs emergency long-
term care, if she has a catastrophe in her family, she has something. 
We are saying to her, you have to sell that cushion, because if you die 
your children are going to have to pay a whopping tax on it. We run off 
family farms because of that, and we make it impossible for small 
businesses to go from generation to generation.
  One of the things that is real important now is women own small 
businesses in unprecedented numbers. As they find out, hey, I have 
worked for the last 20 years to build up this company and it is worth a 
little money now, $1 million, $2 million net worth of a business, and I 
want to pass it on to my daughter, but guess what, Uncle Sam is saying 
they cannot do it.
  We have passed the end of that death tax penalty. There again, we 
have passed a version, the Republicans have, but we are willing to work 
with the President on it. If the President does not want to have too 
many wealthy people, I think wealth is something that in Arkansas, at 
least his school taught him that that was evil, that people who have 
been successful are not the people who have enjoyed the American dream 
but people who seem to be destroying the American dream.
  There seems to be this constant class warfare. The idea that you work 
hard all your life, you build up an estate, you build up wealth, you 
want to pass it on to your kids, I think is part of being an American. 
So we have passed estate tax relief.
  Again, we are willing to compromise with the President. We want to do 
what is best for America.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Let us not be too willing. The truth of the matter is, 
no family should have to visit the undertaker and the IRS in the same 
week. I do not think most Americans realize that very quickly, and it 
does not take much of a farm in my part of the world to quickly be 
worth $2 million, perhaps $3 million, that has been the family farm 
perhaps for a couple of generations, all of a sudden the patriarch 
dies, and in a very short period of time the family could have to cough 
up upwards of 55 percent. So I hope we are not too willing to 
compromise.
  I agree with the gentleman, we have to be willing to meet the 
President halfway. Frankly, I do not want to meet the President halfway 
going in the wrong direction. Frankly, I think it is time for us to 
say, this is not the government's money.
  At some point, I think every one of these estates, every one of these 
businesses, we have to be honest, they have been paying taxes all 
through the years. They have paid sales taxes, they have paid income 
taxes. As the gentleman mentioned, they have paid property taxes.
  For the Federal government to step right in and say, oh, by the way, 
we want upwards of 55 percent of the value of that estate, I am willing 
to compromise and I think we are willing to meet the President halfway 
on this, but I think the principle that families should not have to 
meet the undertaker and the IRS in the same week is a very important 
principle.
  As we were told this morning at a breakfast meeting we were at, that 
is not the Statue of Fairness, that is a Statue of Liberty. The people 
who came here came here for liberty and freedom and opportunity. I hope 
we will always remain a society that understands that the three magic 
words are hope, growth, and opportunity.

  We cannot make things completely fair. People came to this country so 
they could create their own fortunes, so they could take their chance 
at life, so they could use their God-given skills and create wealth for 
themselves, for their families, and in many cases, for hundreds, 
perhaps even thousands of other people. That is the magic of America, 
where ordinary people are allowed to do extraordinary things.
  We have to make certain that we have a government that respects the 
fact that people have a right and an opportunity in America to make the 
most of it.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I think the gentleman is right. That is also one reason 
that we are investing in fighting the drug war, because our children 
need to be safe from drug pushers at their school, and we need to pass 
this legacy on to the next generation.
  It is odd, as much money as a company like Nike or Coca-Cola spend 
advertising, that with drug dealers, there is no advertising plan, no 
business cards, you cannot tell everybody who you work for, no pension 
plan, no corporate logo. Yet as I go to the school districts in the 18 
First District of Georgia counties and I ask in schools, private or 
public, rural or city, ``How many of you kids can get drugs in the high 
schools by the end of the day if you wanted to,'' in just about every 
school, 50 percent of the hands go up.
  That is too many. We have got to stop it. I would like to ask that 
question one day and see zero hands go up. But that is one reason why 
we are pushing for drug interdiction, keeping the stuff from even 
coming to our counties; drug enforcement, that if you are caught 
selling this deadly poison to our children, you are going to go to 
jail; and drug treatment. To that kid, that user, who says, I made a 
mistake, now I am addicted, I need some help, we want to give them a 
lifeline.
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. We are just about at the end of our time for this 
special order, but I am really happy we have had the opportunity, and I 
was delighted our colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma, could join 
us.
  Because really, in many respects, this country is a much better place 
than it was 6 years ago. Instead of a future of debt, dependency, and 
despair, I really think we are giving to our kids a future of hope, 
growth, and opportunity. Instead of having huge deficits piling up 
bigger and bigger every year, we are now talking about surpluses. We 
are not talking about leaving them a legacy of debt, but perhaps 
actually paying off all of the debt held by the general public.
  We have welfare reform so we encourage work and personal 
responsibility. We want to allow families to keep more of what they 
earn, because we know at the end of the day the magic of America is not 
here in Washington, D.C. It really is back there in places like 
Savannah, Georgia, and Rochester, Minnesota, in Kasson, Minnesota, 
where real people, ordinary people, are allowed to do extraordinary 
things.
  That is the magic of America. That is the magic we cannot afford to 
lose, because if we continued down the path we were on 6 years ago of 
higher taxes and bigger debts, more government regulation, and even 
more government interference in the activities of business, we were 
absolutely guaranteed that we were on a downhill spiral, not only for 
the economy but for our society.
  The good news is we are moving up now, we are headed in the right 
direction. Taxes should be coming down. The deficit is coming down. 
Spending is under control. We are encouraging work and personal 
responsibility. I think that is the future that we want to leave to our 
kids. That is a legacy that I think we can all be proud of.
  I want to thank the gentleman for joining us tonight. If the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) has any closing words, I yield to 
the gentleman.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I do want to say this. We lost a great 
United States Senator this week. It is tragic for all parties.
  In discussing him, I learned a lot from Senator Paul Coverdell. One 
thing I learned, although he was a Republican and was a great, key 
member of the Republican team, he always showed us by instruction, 
never put politics over policy.
  What we are about here is good policy. Our hands are open to the 
White House, to the Senate, to the Democrats, to Republicans of 
different philosophies, to let us all put our policies first for the 
good of America.

                          ____________________