[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 118 (Thursday, September 28, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H8454-H8459]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 HISTORY OF CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE AND THE ``NEW MAJORITY''

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica) is recognized 
for 60.
  Mr. MICA. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate having this time this afternoon 
to come before the House following the distinguished ranking member of 
the Committee on Government Reform.
  I have had an opportunity, since I came to Congress in 1993, to serve 
on the Committee on Government Reform. I came as a freshman Member in 
that year, in 1993, and served on that committee because I think it is 
a most important committee.
  Many of my colleagues may not be familiar with the history of the 
Committee on Government Reform. It was called the Committee on 
Government Operations, and it has had several other names through its 
history. But I think the Committee on Government Reform is one of the 
most important committees in the House of Representatives and in the 
entire Congress. It has an interesting history that dates back to when 
our Federal government started building a bureaucracy.
  After the Presidencies of Washington and Adams, in 1808, actually, 
Thomas Jefferson was quite alarmed by the bureaucracy building, he 
termed it, in Washington. He did not like the huge bureaucracy in his 
estimation that had been constructed previous to his taking office. The 
founding Members in the Congress, early Members at the turn of that 
century, the 19th century, again in 1808, created the predecessor of 
the Committee on Government Operations.
  They did not trust the appropriators. They did not trust the 
authorizers. The authorizers would initiate a program, the 
appropriators would fund the program, and they wanted an additional 
check. All the checks and balances they put into our system of 
government are really incredible when we think back that this was done 
some 200 years ago. They wanted a government that worked and also a 
government that had oversight and investigation responsibility.
  So in 1808, they created the predecessor of the committee on which 
the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) is the ranking member. He is 
the chief Democrat. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) is the 
chairman of the full Committee on Government Reform. So from the very 
beginning of the House of Representatives and the Congress, and the 
beginning of our system and the checks and balances, our Founding 
Fathers wanted that committee. Again, it serves a very important 
purpose and that is to investigate, to conduct oversight independent of 
all the other committees.
  We heard criticism of the chairman, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Burton). I would say that no one has done a more admirable job. We have 
to look at the history of this Congress and we have to look at the 
history of administrations. There have been many administrations. I 
would venture to say that never in the history of the United States of 
America and our government have we had an administration that has had 
more scandals. They probably have had more scandals in the Clinton-Gore 
administration than we have had in the 20th century and the 19th 
century back to the founding of our government.
  This administration has been riddled with scandals. I cannot even 
keep track of the number of scandals that we have had. And for a Member 
to come forward and criticize the chairman for his conduct of 
investigations and oversight, I think, is unfair, because he had a 
responsibility and a tough responsibility.
  I submit, having served on that subcommittee, that never before had I 
seen anything like this, and I have been a student of government since 
high school days some many years ago. Again, in serving on the 
committee under the Democrat control of both the House, the Senate and 
the White House from 1993 to 1995, I saw how they ran that committee, 
and it did not serve its purpose well.

                              {time}  1615

  In fact, there was a great defect in that because the committee was 
run in a fashion unintended by the Founding Fathers. I remember coming 
to this floor and holding up a sign that said ``55 to 5.'' And I will 
tell you how the other side ran the committee, the committee that kept 
us straight in the House of Representatives. Again holding up that 
chart that said ``55 to 5,'' I said, my colleagues, that is not the 
score of a badly mismatched sporting event. That is how the Democrats 
ran the investigation and the oversight committee. They gave us five 
investigative staff and they kept 55. We did not even have a chance. 
And they controlled the White House, the House and the other body; and 
that was not what the Founding Fathers intended.
  So if you want to talk about misuse of one of the most important 
committees in the Congress or in the House of Representatives, merely 
look back in a reflective manner on how the other side operated this 
committee.
  And time and time again, when I was in the minority, I came out and 
said, this is unfair, they should not run it in this fashion. And time 
and time again, they ran it in that fashion.
  So to criticize the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) for his 
record in conducting oversight and investigations for the most scandal-
ridden administration ever to set its face in Washington, and I will 
include Philadelphia and New York, and we could go back to the 
Continental Congresses where they met in Trenton, Annapolis, 
Harrisburg, and some dozen State capitals, there has never been an 
administration so racked with scandal. And it has been dumped in our 
lap.
  Now, do you think that is a lot of fun? Do you think we came to 
Congress just to pick on the other side? No, we did not. We came here 
because the Founding Fathers set up this check and balance to make this 
system work.
  There are some countries I found that have even adopted the 
Constitution of the United States of America. They have adopted the 
entire document. Yet they do not function like ours. And I submit one 
reason they do not have that additional check that the Founding Fathers 
established, such as we have with the investigations and oversight, is 
because we are always trying to cleanse the process.
  Sure, we may make a few mistakes in the investigations. It is not 
intentional. Sure, we may have gotten some inadequate information. But 
let me tell my colleagues, when we were in the minority, I saw how they 
ran the show at least as far as investigations and oversight, and it 
was not anything to be proud of.
  In fact, again, I came many times asking for reform. And we did 
institute that reform, and we shared staff on a more equitable basis so 
we could do an honest job in conducting oversight of the House of 
Representatives. But to come here today to criticize the chairman.
  I have also served on the committee, and I have seen what we had to 
contend with. And you can talk about witnesses, you can talk about Webb 
Hubbell who served time in prison, can you talk about run-away Federal 
prosecutors; but I am telling you, never before in the history has 
there been such a scandalous misuse of the investigative process by the 
other side. And I hope, for the good of the country, I hope for the 
good of this Congress that it is never repeated.

[[Page H8455]]

  My colleagues, the House, Mr. Speaker, over 120 witnesses either 
would not raise their hand and swear to tell the whole truth, they 
raised their hand and took the fifth amendment. Over 120 witnesses fled 
the country. We have never been able to conduct a thorough 
investigation. And the other side that calls for campaign reform, 98 
percent of the violations were on their side of the aisle, 98 percent 
of the violations.
  I submit that 98 percent of those serving in Congress obey the laws, 
they do not get into the gray area. They know there is a controlling 
legal authority. They have made a mockery of the law. And for them to 
campaign on campaign finance reform is a mockery. Because almost every 
one of the offenses that we see and we have seen, whether it is the 
Vice President at a Buddhist temple raising funds, whether it is making 
calls with no controlling legal authority, whether it is other gray 
areas and now we see that the White House has reported the use of the 
Lincoln Bedroom like a Motel 6, campaign contributions coming into 
various people running for high office here or there, and the lights 
are on at the Motel 6 White House.
  So again, we have a very serious situation we have had to contend 
with on that committee attempting to conduct investigations and 
oversight in a responsible manner, whether it is campaign finance; 
whether it is Travelgate, which was one of the worst misuses and abuses 
of Federal authority planned, cooked, sealed, a misuse of that office, 
a misuse of professional White House employees abusing them in the 
fashion, and some of them have been compensated fortunately for that; 
whether it is Filegate.

  And we can go back to Filegate. Do we still know? Do we still know? 
And our committee, under the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) and 
other Members, investigated Filegate, the illegal use of hundreds and 
hundreds of personnel files obtained through the FBI into the White 
House.
  Everybody knows what they were up to. We know they were trying to get 
dirt on their political opponents. We even know who did it. Now, do we 
know who hired Craig Livingston? We do not know to this date because 
this is the way these folks operated.
  I had a conversation with a Democrat colleague, and the Democrat 
colleague and I shared our concern that a future administration might 
use the Clinton-Gore administration as a model in which to use the 
system, and that would be so sad for the future of the country.
  Hopefully, we can banish the Clinton-Gore method of operation because 
the operation of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight has 
always had involved bipartisan cooperation and people coming forward 
raising their right hand and telling the whole truth to the committee 
so we could proceed, not taking the fifth amendment, not fleeing the 
country, not withholding information, shredding information, 
information disappearing, and only reappearing when we were able to get 
it somewhere else, information that unfortunately we have never been 
able to obtain.
  So it is sad to come and have attacks against the chairman. And I 
will not say that, again, everything I have done is 100 percent. I make 
mistakes. I am human. The gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton) makes 
mistakes. But I will tell my colleagues, he has done an incredible job.
  The same method they used to go after everyone who questions or tries 
to hold them accountable is find dirt on them, try to expose them in 
some way with their friends in the press and belittle them and degrade 
them in public is sad. My Democrat colleague and I both share our 
concern that this is not the method of operation for future 
administrations whether they be Democrat or Republican.
  So I take great exception.
  I wanted to spend part of tonight, I usually talk on the drug issue, 
but following the ranking member and having background about how this 
committee, which I have served on since the first day I came to 
Congress and am knowledgeable about, I wanted to tell, as Paul Harvey 
says, the rest of the story.
  Let me also mention while I have the floor that there are some funny 
things happening at this juncture. Of course, we are in a political 
time and people are talking about what they have done and what they 
have not done. And I think it is important to reflect.
  I came into the Congress, again, as a minority Member in 1992. I was 
from the business sector. I am not an attorney. I came here because I 
was concerned about the future of the country, about us having a 
balanced budget, about the huge deficit we were running, about getting 
our country's finances in order.
  I am pleased to come before my colleagues tonight to tell them that 
in fact we have been able to do that. And it was not done during my 
first term when there were huge numbers of majority from the other 
side. They did not bring spending under control. In fact, what they did 
was tax and spend more.
  In a few weeks, the American people have an opportunity to decide 
whether they want to turn back to tax and spend or they want to remain 
on a sound fiscal basis, they want the finances of this country run 
like they would run their own finances so the income matches the 
outflow. And if they do not do that and they have a personal checkbook, 
they know exactly what happens, they keep spending and spending and 
they get further and further in debt.
  Except they had the ability to tax. In 1993 and 1994, they did 
increase taxes on the American people. They did not balance the budget. 
And we could not pin the President down on when we would balance the 
budget; and every time we made a proposal, he would come back with a 
different date and propose more government spending, more government 
programs, more control in Washington, more takeover here, and they did 
not balance the budget. They had their opportunity.
  In fact, I remember them presenting their budget and for this fiscal 
year after they came to the floor and proposed the largest tax increase 
in the history of our Republic and told us this was going to balance 
the budget, they found in fact that the information they gave us for 
this year they would have had a $200 billion deficit. That was their 
plan to this year have a $200 billion deficit.
  Now, something changed there. I will tell my colleagues what changed 
there. It was the Republican majority took control in 1995. And what we 
did was not anything special. It was not rocket science. It was 
not some magic formula from a Harvard economic Ph.D. We limited the 
annual increases, we still have allowed increases, and we matched it 
with our expenditures and income.

  It was a simple plan. We balanced the budget. And we did that without 
harming senior citizens, without harming education, but actually by, 
and I will show in a few minutes, by helping education, by resetting 
priorities. Because this place basically had run amuck. The finances of 
the country were out of control.
  Let me just tell my colleagues the way I found the House of 
Representatives running when I came here. The banking scandal, as my 
colleagues may recall, Members on both sides of the aisle would write 
checks and the bills would be paid by bouncing checks that were covered 
here really with taxpayer money.
  The restaurant downstairs, the House restaurant, was run at a deficit 
and the food there for Members of Congress and their guests was 
subsidized.
  I have given the example of ice being delivered and some 16 and 17 
people working to deliver ice. Well, they instituted delivering ice to 
the Members' rooms back in the 1930s and 1940s before they had 
refrigerators and they were still spending three-quarters of a million 
dollars a year to deliver ice to the offices when I came here and had 
some 16 to 17 employees doing that.
  I gave that speech many years ago, and someone could not believe it. 
I had to send them the documentation. He said I was not telling the 
truth. But that is how they ran the place. The place was in shambles. 
The House of Representatives, the people's House, was a disaster.
  And I sat with a Member of Congress, a freshman Member, and I was 
telling him the things that we have done since 1995 just starting here 
with the House of Representatives.
  The first thing we did, and we said we would do it, was we cut the 
staff in the House of Representatives by one-third. That is what we 
started out with. We cut the staff by one-third. We cleaned

[[Page H8456]]

out one building and a half a building on Capitol Hill of the huge bulk 
that the other side had taken on board and bulged the bureaucracy of 
the administration of Congress.

                              {time}  1630

  We cut the committees by a third. I took over the Civil Service 
subcommittee, which at one time Civil Service and Post Office had over 
100 employees. I chaired Civil Service, and in fact we operated with 
seven staffers as opposed to more than 50 that had been devoted to the 
Civil Service subcommittee. So we cut the staff.
  If you walk around the halls of Congress today in some of the House 
office buildings, you will see some empty rooms there that are there 
for meeting. They were formerly filled with this huge bureaucracy that 
the other side built up. That would be very sad to return to those days 
of yesteryear when they had control, when they misused their power.
  We instituted many reforms in addition to cutting staff. 
Incidentally, since we cut the staff, we had a lot of parking spaces 
left over here because we did not have the 3,000 employees that were 
cut from the congressional payroll when we also cut the expenditures of 
the House of Representatives. So we turned that into a public parking 
lot. That parking lot actually has revenue into the House of 
Representatives. The subsidized dining room is now privately operated 
and not operated at a subsidy on the House side. A big change. The shoe 
shine stand, the barber shop, all of these things have been privatized 
and now accomplished. As I said, I sat with a freshman Member of 
Congress, he did not know, and if a freshman Republican Member of 
Congress does not know what we did, how can the American people or the 
rest of Congress remember the reforms that were instituted here in this 
House of Representatives?
  One of the other great things that we have done, as long as I am 
going to spend a few minutes talking about, again, a contrast between 
the Republican control and the Democrat control, is our Nation's 
capital. Our Nation's capital was a disaster in 1993 to 1995 when the 
Democrats controlled the White House, the House and the Senate. It was 
a national shame. The murder rate approached some 400. There was a 
murder almost every weekend. Some weekends there were half a dozen 
murders here. There was slaughter in the streets of Washington. The 
public housing authority was bankrupt. The children who were supposed 
to be protected, most protected, not at a disadvantage, were fed jello, 
rice and chicken for a month because they did not have money to pay the 
vendors.
  Sometimes you had to boil your water in the District of Columbia. The 
morgue was not able to pay again for burying the indigent dead and 
bodies were stacked up like cord wood because they could not meet their 
obligations. This Congress was funding three-quarters of a billion 
dollars of deficit for the District of Columbia before the Republicans 
took control of the House of Representatives. Three-quarters of a 
billion dollars a year in debt. Marion Barry who was a disgrace to not 
only the capital but to the Nation, who set a horrible example for the 
young people here, he had employed some 60,000 employees. About one in 
every 10 people in the District of Columbia was employed by the 
District staff.
  What did the Republicans do? This year we have nearly balanced the 
budget for the District of Columbia, first of all kicking and screaming 
and you would think we had imposed martial law but we did impose a 
control board over the District of Columbia. The District is our 
responsibility. It is a trust given to the Congress under the 
Constitution and we must work to try to maintain that trust as a good 
steward of the District. You do want home rule and we have tried to do 
that, but we did have to institute a control board. We have gotten some 
of the agencies, not all of them, in order. But the District again is 
running at a near balanced budget. They were spending more on education 
than any other entity in the United States on a per capita basis and 
performing at one of the lowest levels and we have turned some of that 
around.
  We had to turn the water system over to another agency to operate. We 
have had to redo the District of Columbia building which once was a 
beautiful building and it looked like a Third World practically bombed 
out shelter when we took over. We have cut the employees from some 
60,000 to in the mid-30,000 range, I believe, but we have dramatically 
decreased the number of employees in the District of Columbia. And we 
have cut the murders in the District. The person we brought in as the 
financial officer to oversee the District's finances and try to get 
them in order fortunately was elected the mayor and he has done an 
admirable job in bringing the District finances under control, and now 
we have returned most of the rule back to the District of Columbia.
  But what a sad case. How sad it would be for the District of Columbia 
or for the American people to turn the Congress over, the running of 
the House of Representatives to the side that put it in such shame and 
disrepute, how sad it would be to turn the District of Columbia back 
over to the people who had that stewardship and in some 40 years ran 
the District of Columbia into the ground. They were responsible. They 
failed. We took on that responsibility both to run this House, run the 
District, and I think we did an admirable job. So today, my colleagues, 
I think it is time that we remember as Members are prepared from the 
other side to come and bash what we have done, I want to put in the 
Record and let the Congress and the American people know what we have 
taken on as a responsibility.

  I was appointed by Speaker Gingrich to be the chairman of the Civil 
Service subcommittee. I spoke about that a few minutes ago. I talked 
about some of the things we did with the Civil Service subcommittee. I 
am not here to tout my own horn but let me tell you, we took the 
Federal employees personnel office, which is the Office of Personnel 
Management, and in the 1993 to 1995 period, just go look at the 
statistics. Close to 6,000 employees in our personnel office, Office of 
Personnel Management. We were able to get that down to some 3,000 
employees. And 1,000 of those employees, although there was kicking and 
screaming, there were Federal investigators, I was able, working with 
others, to turn that into an employee stock ownership plan. So we cut 
the number of employees. We took a thousand of those Federal 
investigators and turned that into an employee stock ownership company. 
I am sure you would not read about this but it is a success of again a 
Republican initiative and something that we should be very proud of. 
They now own that company. They now pay taxes, millions of dollars in 
taxes. They do business with the Federal Government, with other 
government agencies, with the private sector. But it is employee-owned. 
They fought kicking and screaming, but we did it.
  We can cut government. We can cut bureaucracy. We can make things run 
more efficiently. I had never been chairman of Civil Service. I had 
never been to a Civil Service subcommittee hearing. Again, it does not 
take a lot of rocket science or a Harvard Ph.D. in economics or 
administration management, it just takes some common sense. And somehow 
in 40 years these people lost common sense.
  Let me talk about one more thing that really got my gander last week. 
We had the President of the United States at the White House in a 
signing ceremony for long-term care. The President and the White House 
announced the statement that the President and the administration had 
passed long-term care for Federal employees and retirees and others in 
the Federal workforce. The President of the United States had the gall 
to say that this would serve as a model for the private sector. Little 
did the President of the United States know the history of what had 
taken place on long-term care. Nor would his aides ever reveal this to 
the American public nor his press machine. But long-term care, ladies 
and gentlemen, when I became chairman of Civil Service was not ever on 
the radar screen. There was never ever a hearing in the Congress on 
long-term care. When I took over and I came from the private sector, I 
took over Civil Service, I started to look at some of the employee 
benefit programs. And coming from the private sector, I wondered why we 
did not have long-term care benefits for Federal employees. So I looked 
into it, and I actually conducted a hearing. The first hearing

[[Page H8457]]

ever in the Congress was held on March 26, 1998, I chaired that, and I 
said, why do we not have long-term care as a benefit for Federal 
employees?
  Now, this does not again take anything but common sense. I came from 
the private sector. Businesses I had been familiar with had proposals 
for long-term care for their employees. The bigger the business, the 
better discounts you can get. With 1.9 million Federal employees, with 
2.2 million Federal retirees, with 1 million postal people and millions 
in the military, why could we not have a long-term care benefit for our 
Federal employees, go to an insurance carrier for long-term care and 
get a discounted rate for providing a group policy? I posed that.
  ``Oh, we can't do that. My goodness, we can't do that.'' The 
administration fought, kicked, opposed, blocked, did everything they 
could, said that this was a radical idea and fought us tooth and nail 
as we moved along or put impediments in the way.
  Finally, the President signed the bill. I was not invited to the 
signing ceremony. There were other places I have not been invited to 
that probably would be more offensive to me, but we must set the record 
straight. And for the President of the United States to say that this 
would serve as a model for the private sector, well, to the President 
of the United States, Mr. Speaker and my colleagues, I must remind him 
that this idea came from the private sector. It was delivered through 
the person of Mr. Mica from Florida who held the first hearing on it 
and who introduced the first legislation on this August 4, 1998 and 
worked to try to get them to provide this simple benefit for one of the 
largest groups in the United States.
  But Federal employees, Federal retirees, if you think that Bill 
Clinton or Al Gore did this for you, you need to have a serious 
counseling session with me and I will be glad to provide you the data. 
Of course he took credit for it and he had himself surrounded by people 
who did not have a whole lot to do with this particular issue.
  Another issue, just to reflect as long as I am on the subject of a 
comparison of the Republican administration, the new majority, I must 
say that the other side really has had a deficit in new ideas for some 
47 years, long-term care being one of them. But again in chairing the 
Civil Service subcommittee, I looked at the benefits that Federal 
employees have, and I came again from the private sector, I had some 
term insurance I had acquired in the private sector and as you get 
older and if you have term insurance, you know you pay more for that 
term insurance, and I thought, well, why not add on? I am now a Federal 
employee. Even though I am a Member of Congress I fall in that 
category. Why not add on to the Federal employees life insurance 
benefits program? I could pay a little bit more in a group and have 
those benefits. Now I am in that employ, I do not have the private 
sector benefit, so I looked at the rates, and I said, ``My God, they're 
paying higher rates for life insurance than I can get in the private 
sector.''

                              {time}  1645

  I thought, something is dramatically wrong. So I conducted a hearing 
on Federal employee-retiree life insurance benefits. Come to find out, 
the other side had not bid the life insurance policy for 40 years. For 
40 years they had not bid it; they only had one product available.
  If you are even familiar in the slightest sense from the private 
sector of all the new options that are out there in insurance coverage, 
and you have a group of 1.9 million Federal employees and 2.2 million 
Federal retirees and other Federal employees, why could you not get a 
better rate with a group that size? A no-brainer. I talked to my 
friends in the insurance industry, and they said it was absurd not to 
have more choices. It was absurd to be paying those rates.
  Now, we did make a little bit of progress. We have some more choices 
out there. Kicking and screaming, the Office of Personnel Management is 
coming into the 21st century, whether it is long-term employee health 
benefits, whether it is life insurance.
  Let me just set up as a bit of warning something else that I found as 
Chair of the Subcommittee on Civil Service that is on everybody's radar 
screen. One of the most important things to me personally is that we 
find ways to provide health insurance coverage for all Americans.
  I personally remember when I was in college and my brother was in 
college, we dropped out, my dad did not have health insurance, and we 
went to work and were able to help the family meet their financial 
requirements and then go back to school. But I know what it is like to 
be in a family that does not have health insurance, and there are 
millions of families that do not have health insurance.
  My dad was a working American who did not have health insurance, so I 
know what it is like; and I think it is important that we as 
Republicans, that we as Democrats, that we as an Independent Member of 
this body, work to find ways to find access to health insurance 
coverage.
  I oversaw the largest health care plan as chairman of the 
Subcommittee on Civil Service in the country when I chaired that 
subcommittee, and I saw what this administration did to that program. 
It concerns me, because they are doing the same thing in prescription 
drugs; they are doing the same thing with HMOs and other reform.
  What they are doing is they are bogging it down, they are packing on 
mandates, they are phrasing things like ``Patients' Bill of Rights'' 
and all of this that sounds good.
  So I held hearings on what the administration was doing back several 
years now when I chaired this subcommittee. They came out with this 
Patients' Bill of Rights, and they could not get agreement in the 
Congress, so the President, by executive order, imposed the Patients' 
Bill of Rights on the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program.
  I held a hearing and asked the people from the administration, what 
does this Patients' Bill of Rights do? Tell me what it does 
specifically. And each of them would say, well, it provides more 
paperwork, it is more regulation, it is more mandates.
  I said, well, what medical benefit is there to all this? And they 
could not mention a specific medical benefit. But the President by 
executive order, which he has used so much because of the slim 
majority, and we do not have override ability here, imposed that on the 
employees health benefit program for the Federal Government, and not on 
all plans.
  We had close to 400 plans at one time, before he imposed this, and he 
did not impose on it the most contentious part of the Patients' Bill of 
Rights, which is the right to sue. He imposed part of it, mostly the 
regulations and paperwork, I guess to make it look like he was doing 
something.
  I will tell you what the result was. Instead of having, say, some 400 
to choose from, we lost 60, 70 plans. When they added more mandates, we 
lost more plans. So many areas that needed that coverage for Federal 
employees out in the yonder started seeing fewer HMOs.
  In addition, they saw the costs rise dramatically, and the private 
sector costs have not risen for health care plans anywhere near the 
extent, almost double digit for Federal employees, again with a system 
that the administration could get its hands around and sort of 
strangle, which they have done. So Federal employees, retirees, have 
seen these dramatic increases in costs in premium, and also have fewer 
choices.
  We have to be very careful that we do not do the same thing here with 
HMOs. I had a great letter from a constituent in my district. It was 
really a prize letter. I think it started out with ``Dear Congressman 
Mica and you other dummies in Washington.'' He had sent it to not just 
me.

  He said, you all are up there arguing about whether or not I have the 
right to sue my HMO, and he said you all are out in space, because I do 
not even have an HMO to sue. Three of them have disappeared.
  That is a great concern to me, that something that was set up to 
provide health care on a cost-effective basis, that we do not destroy 
it.
  Now, there are patient protections and things that can be written 
without damaging the intent and purpose of HMOs to provide access to 
health care, but we do not want more people like this who make a 
mockery of the ability to sue because he does not even have a

[[Page H8458]]

plan he can go to. We see more and more plans being dissolved.
  So if the Federal Government does continue to impose mandates, if we 
put on a Patients' Bill of Rights that only adds paperwork and 
regulations, and we increase the cost and we have fewer HMOs to choose 
from, the gentleman who wrote me, unfortunately, will be very correct. 
But he did have a great point: we cannot destroy something that is so 
important to us, and we have got to find ways.
  It is interesting that we have some 30 or 40 million people who do 
not have health insurance coverage, and two-thirds of those people are 
working Americans. On our side of the aisle, again, kicking and 
screaming, we made the President sign welfare reform. I can tell you 
there is no way, if we had not boxed him into a corner, if it had not 
been close to the election, he ever would have signed welfare reform, 
but he did sign it. We have some 6 or 7 more million people working, 
thanks to the Republican initiative.
  It is hard. I know it is easy to come here to come to Washington, to 
say I am going to give you this, free prescription drugs; you do not 
have to work; we will send you a welfare check from Washington, or 
through Washington, and you will be taken care of cradle-to-grave.
  They tried that in the Soviet Union. They had it all cooked, and, 
unfortunately, the system was destroyed. You even see it in Europe and 
some countries that have these huge tax rates, unemployment, people not 
working, lack of productivity, and it is reflected now in their 
economies, as opposed to our's.
  But we must address the people that we have taken from welfare to 
work and find a way that they can have access to affordable, quality 
health care. I think that has to be through a partnership of the 
working individual on the basis of their ability to pay.
  We also have to do that through the employer; and most of the 
employers who are providing these benefits are small businesses. The 
majority of businesses in this country, the vast majority, is not big, 
big business; it is small employers. A huge percentage of our 
population is employed by small business people. So business, the 
employer and government also has a responsibility, and it is something 
we can do.
  They had their chance to balance the budget. They did not. What is 
interesting is this year, I believe we are going to have this year in 
excess of $200 billion in surplus. They would have had by their plan 
which they submitted to us, I was here, a $200 billion deficit. Not 
only would they have had a deficit, but they were also taking out of 
Social Security and putting in nonnegotiable certificates of 
indebtedness of the United States.
  So here is the crew on the other side of the aisle that brought us 
these huge deficits, and all the finances of the country start right 
here in the people's body, in the House of Representatives. They had 
their chance to propose getting this right, but they now claim to say 
that they can do a better job.
  If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that I would like to 
sell you. These are the same folks that not only had us in a deficit 
position, had no way to get us out, tried to tax their way out, tried 
to spend their way out, and had projected for this year a $200 billion 
deficit, their best guess, and we have a $200 billion-plus surplus.
  It has not been easy to do. Every time we have made a reform, they 
have thrown the kitchen sink at us, saying we are going to have people 
rolled out of nursing homes on the street, there will be breadlines in 
America, welfare reform is a cruel thing, to insist that people work 
and not stay on welfare.
  But I submit that we have done an admirable job. One of the things 
you can do when you balance the budget is you can talk about 
prescription drug benefits, you can talk about adding more money to 
education.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to talk a few minutes about education, because I 
think that is important.
  Now, I am a Republican Member of the House of Representatives. I come 
from a background, I actually have a degree in education from the 
University of Florida. I am very proud of that, and I never taught. I 
did my internship.
  My wife was a public schoolteacher, taught elementary school in 
Corning, New York, and West Palm Beach when we moved and were married 
some 28 years ago, and she was a great teacher. I admire her ability 
with young people, and she has been a great mother to my two children, 
and I respect her judgment.

  So she went to public schools, I went to public schools, we worked 
our way through college. I want to give that as a background. I am 
interested in education.
  My grandparents were immigrants to this country. One was an Italian 
immigrant who came in after the turn of the century, worked in the 
factories and got into business in upstate New York. My grandfather on 
my father's side, they were Slovak immigrants from Slovakia, now a free 
and independent nation, once part of Czechoslovakia. They came to this 
country.
  I will tell you, from the time I was a young child, I never heard 
anything repeated more in my family than get your education, that 
education is the most important thing. So the background of my family, 
again, came from immigrants, and they were intent on educating their 
children and grandchildren, and it was so important to us because they 
saw education and they saw it so rightly as the key to being able to 
function in a free democratic society that is dedicated to free 
enterprise. So education was a very, very important part of my family's 
background. I want to give that as a predicate.
  Mr. Speaker, part of our work is trying to pass some 13 
appropriations bills and do it in a responsible fashion. The contest is 
between the spenders, they had their chance to tax, and they could not 
impose any higher taxes on the American people because they are not in 
the majority. And the other alternative is spending, trying to keep the 
spending under control. The easiest thing for a politician to do is 
just spend more of the money and get it out of the people's hard-earned 
paycheck.

                              {time}  1700

  But, again, on the point of education, education has always been 
important to me. And once we get the finances of the country in order, 
once we get our personal finances in order, we can do a lot. We found 
that.
  If I asked a question to Members of the House of Representatives, or 
of the Mr. Speaker today, who would do more financially for education, 
Republicans or Democrats, I am sure, Mr. Speaker, many people would 
respond, Democrats, because they are bigger spenders. But a strange 
thing happens when we balance the budget and have fiscal responsibility 
in Washington. We have more money, as I said, for prescription drugs; 
we have more money for education.
  I can tell my colleagues that in the Republican Majority, K-through-
12 funding has been a priority. Now, we only fund about 5 to 6 percent 
of all education dollars. The rest comes from local and State, usually 
from State governments through sales tax or other taxes at the State 
level or local property taxes. So we are the small contributor.
  But these are the funding levels. Take a look at this. During the 
time the Democrats had control of the House of Representatives from 
1990 to 1995, they increased spending for K-through-12 some 30.9 
percent. If we have our financing in order, we can set priorities. We 
are not going further in the hole, and we are not robbing money out of 
Social Security, Medicare, or letting other programs go astray and here 
is what can be done. Under the Republican Majority from 1995 to 2000, 
we have increased the funds for education.
  So we can do this with a balanced budget. We can put more money into 
education and the facts show that.
  In fact, our side of the aisle has done that. Now, there is a big 
difference between the way we spend money and the way they spend money. 
Again, as a teacher, a former teacher-to-be, because, again, I never 
taught, but as a graduate of an education school and the husband of a 
teacher, I can tell my colleagues, and from talking to teachers 
throughout my district and anywhere I meet them, the last thing a 
teacher is able to do today is to teach. There are so many regulations, 
so many rules, so many restraints. There are so many court orders, so 
many edicts from Washington from the Department of Education, that the 
last thing a teacher can do is teach.

[[Page H8459]]

  So this Republican majority has a difference. We have a difference in 
philosophy too about education. With Democrat control of the House of 
Representatives and the Congress, we found that nearly 90 percent of 
Federal dollars were going to everything except the classroom. We have 
first of all put more dollars into education, but also to have them go 
to the classroom and to the teacher. Those are the most fundamental 
differences between what the other side has proposed and what we 
propose and what this great debate is about.
  They want that power; they want that control in Washington. They 
think Washington knows best. Better than parents, better than teachers, 
better than local school principals. In the meantime, they have created 
a bureaucracy. They have 5,000 people in the Department of Education; 
5,000 people in the Department of Education.
  Look at this administrative overhead. We have tried to get the 
dollars to education. They have tried and actually succeeded in getting 
the money to education administrative overhead. This is a chart from 
1992 to the year 2000, and that has to be reversed. We do not need to 
be paying for a bureaucracy in Washington. Of the 5,000 people in the 
Federal Department of Education, somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 
are located just within a few miles of where I am standing here in 
Washington, our Nation's capital. Most of them are making between 
$60,000 and $110,000. I do not have teachers that are making $60,000 
and $110,000.
  So we have a simple philosophy. Get that money out of administrative 
overhead. And no matter what program they get into, when they took over 
the Congress to have a Direct Student Loan Program as opposed to having 
the private sector, and the costs every time have risen dramatically. 
Look at the costs back in 1993. It has absolutely mushroomed. This is 
in a student loan program.
  So we have been able to put more money in education. We are trying to 
do it without strings. We are trying to do it without a huge 
bureaucracy. There were 760 Federal education programs when I came to 
Congress. We have got it down to somewhere, I think, just below 700. 
All well intended, as we will hear the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. 
Goodling), the chairman of that committee, cite on the House floor. All 
well intended. But there is no reason why we cannot get that money back 
to the classroom, back to the teacher, back to basic education.
  I tell my colleagues, and my wife will tell them as well as an 
elementary educator, students must be able to read, write, and do 
simple mathematics in order to succeed. And if students do not learn 
that at the earliest stage. I just saw, and I wanted to say President 
Bush, but Governor Bush's proposal and for what he did in Texas, what 
he has done in teaching young people to read, to write, to do 
mathematics. If we could duplicate this across the United States, what 
a great thing we would be doing for all young people, especially our 
minorities.

  Again, we have to remember the value of education, to succeed in this 
country. Because if a student cannot read and write and do simple 
mathematics at the beginning, then they become the dropout problem, 
then they become the discipline problem. Then they are the social 
problem. Then they are sometimes even the prisoner problem and greater 
social problem that we face.
  So Republicans have a very simple proposal. Get the money to the 
classroom. We have balanced the budget; we have additional resources. 
But not the control in Washington. Not the strangling. Let teachers 
teach. Do away with some of the Federal regulations.
  We have seen it with charter schools. We have seen it with voucher 
systems. Voucher systems do not destroy public education; but they 
allow everyone, whether they are poor or black or Hispanic or white, 
whatever, to have an opportunity for the best possible education. And 
we find success, tremendous success in those programs in improvements 
in basic skills.
  We have done it in the District. We helped clean up some of the 
District of Columbia problems. We have done it in the House of 
Representatives. We have done it with the Social Security program that 
was in disarray. We have done it with our Federal balanced budget. We 
have tried to do it in a responsible manner. And here in education with 
our seven key principles: quality education, better teaching, local 
control, which is so important, accountability. It is so important to 
have education accountability, dollars to the classroom, not to the 
bureacracy, not to administration, not to Washington control or 
mandates, but dollars to the classroom where they are most needed.
  And not telling each school district they have got to use this money 
only for this or that. They know, the parents know, the principals know 
how to use those dollars.
  Then parental involvement and responsibility. Responsibility which is 
so important in our society. Sometimes it is a word that is forgotten. 
No one wants to be responsible. And certainly we have had some 8 years 
of people not taking responsibility, of also promoting a nonresponsible 
society. That must change, because we must be responsible. We must be 
accountable. And our young people must also be ingrained with that 
philosophy if they are to succeed.
  So we want to, again, take this message to the American people this 
afternoon, my fellow Members of Congress. We are pleased to compare 
what we have done, what we said we would do, and what we have 
accomplished and what we want to do for the future. We have a great 
model that we have presented.
  Sure we have made mistakes. Republicans are human too. Sure, we have 
not done everything the way we should do. But I can tell my colleagues 
that this is not the time to turn to irresponsible management of the 
Congress, irresponsible management of the District of Columbia, 
irresponsible management over Social Security or Medicare that the 
other side let go. This is the time to be responsible, to have programs 
for the future based on sound experiences of the past.
  Today, I have been able to hopefully outline some of what we have 
done; what I have been able to do as a Member of this distinguished 
body. And we are here to do the people's business and do it with honor, 
and on a bipartisan basis. But, again, the American people must be 
aware of the facts, particularly as we approach this most important 
generational election. This is a critical election; and we do not want 
to turn back to 1993, 1994, 1995, to tax and spend and regulate and 
administrate from Washington in an irresponsible manner.
  Mr. Speaker, this is the time for responsibility. It is the time for 
us to really reflect upon the accomplishments that we can point to at 
this juncture. With that, Mr. Speaker, I appreciate you taking time and 
the staff taking time as the House concludes its business this 
afternoon and returns on Monday. Thank you so much for the opportunity 
to present this special order.

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