[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 172 (Wednesday, December 12, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H9754-H9758]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              THE TIME IS RIGHT FOR PRAYER IN OUR SCHOOLS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 3, 2001, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is 
recognized for 43 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the time.
  I wanted to say to the gentleman from North Carolina, I was debating 
one of the school prayer debates that we have so often here in 
Washington with a gentleman named Barry Lynn who allegedly is a 
preacher, but one of these preachers who has no church. He heads a 
group called Americans for Separation of the Church and State, not 
exactly a grass-roots organization; I think a top-down Washington 
elitist kind of organization, and he is against any form of school 
prayer.
  I said, okay, let us go to Columbine, a horrible tragedy, 12 kids are 
dead in Colorado. Should the kids in that school be allowed to pray for 
their fellow students who died? And he said, no. I said, well, should 
they be allowed to pray immediately when the attack was taking place? 
There was one group of kids who were clustered, I think, in the back of 
a biology lab with a teacher. At that moment, gun shots were going up 
and down the halls, people were screaming, everybody was terrified. 
Should they have been allowed to have a corporate prayer, that group of 
clustered kids together? And he said, no, absolutely not.
  Then, the gentleman from North Carolina may remember, months after 
the Columbine tragedy, the school was replacing the bullet marks that 
had popped the concrete cinderblocks that are in the hallways of the 
school, and they were putting 4-by-4 inch tiles and doing them in 
memory of the students who had died, and I said, should the families be 
allowed to quote scripture or allude to scripture? And he said, 
absolutely not.
  The point that I am making is so many of these people who are simply 
trying to say that they are against school prayer are, in fact, far 
more beyond that. They are antiChristian, they are theology, they are 
anti-Semitic. It is not really a matter of: we just want to be fair for 
everybody and make everybody comfortable. That is not the case at all. 
They are just very, very mean-spirited, antireligion. So I really 
appreciate the gentleman from North Carolina for bringing it up.
  I want to point out to folks that as the gentleman's father served in 
Congress, I know that he was here during a period of time when there 
was a little bit more openness for prayer, so certainly the gentleman 
brings a perspective of history to the debate.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield 
for a moment, I really appreciate his comments. He has been out front 
on a number of issues that I think are really important to the 
foundation of this country.
  Mr. Speaker, sometimes I do not want to just make my comments about 
Reverend Barry Lynn or the lady with the PTA, but the children are 
America's future, and the children have to be given every opportunity. 
That is the reason I read the paper by the young lady, Ms. Ormand, Rose 
Ormand from my district, because these are young people. They are 
America's future leaders. She had those kinds of strong feelings about 
prayer, and I know that she is just an example of one of millions in 
this country that feel that they should have the opportunity to have 
that moment of prayer. So as I said, and then I will yield back, but I 
am looking forward to the debate next year on the Istook bill, and I 
know the gentleman from Georgia has been on that bill before. I look 
forward to joining him.
  I was very pleased, I would say to the gentleman from Georgia, when I 
looked at the vote and about 80-some Democrats voted for the 
resolution, for which I was pleased, and very pleased that the leader 
of the minority, the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) voted with 
us on that resolution, so I thought that was progress.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think that is the case. This has broad 
bipartisan support. It is a mainstream reflection of America. Certainly 
there are people on the fringe who maybe want to turn schools into 
theological institutions. I think that the main reason I send my kids 
to school, and I know the gentleman does too, I want the basics, 
reading, writing and arithmetic. It is not up to my schoolteachers to 
make my children more moral or more spiritual. Then there are other 
people on the other extreme that do not want any pretense to us. If we 
look behind us, and I only wish the cameras could show it, but the 
words in the United States Capitol, 10 feet from where I stand, ``In 
God We Trust,'' right above the American flag, right above the Speaker 
pro tempore, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers).
  What do we do every single morning as Democrats and Republicans and 
Independents and staff members, Federal Government employees, no less, 
in this House Chamber, we open and always have opened with a prayer, 
and we have Christian, we have Jewish, we have Muslim, we have whoever 
Members invite that day to give the opening prayer. So the hypocrisy 
and the inconsistency is incredible.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Absolutely, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I want to say finally, prior to September 
11, 70 percent of Americans surveyed said that they pray regularly. 
After September 11, 97 percent. America has gotten back down on its 
knees, and I am glad that we have an administration that acknowledges 
the role of religion and spiritual matters in their decisionmaking.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Amen.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, George Bush has never strayed from that.
  In this House since September 11 we have had lots of challenges and 
the House has moved quickly for a number of reasons to give the 
President the tools he needs to fight the war and to fight terrorism 
and to secure the airlines. But the House has consistently done a lot 
more work than just focusing on the war effort. We support the war 
effort on a bipartisan basis. We think it is very important to do that. 
But there are a lot of issues domestically where it is just hard for me 
to go along with the liberal, big-spending Democrat models that we have 
seen over the years. I am glad that Speaker Hastert has been a 
workhorse. This team in Congress has done a lot of things that 
unfortunately we cannot get our friends in the other body to do. I will 
show my colleague a chart of some of the House accomplishments this 
year.
  We passed an energy package. Now what are gas prices doing in North

[[Page H9755]]

Carolina these days? Are they going down still?
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, they are going down, yes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that, because when I 
drive up from Savannah, Georgia, I often have to stop in Lumberton, and 
they always get about 30 gallons worth for my Suburban. It is very 
expensive to get gas in North Carolina. In Georgia, it is always a 
little less. But in Georgia, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., New York 
City, California, and in Colorado where my mama lives and in Texas 
where my sister lives, gas prices have come down.
  So there are those in the Senate who think, well, okay, we do not 
need an energy policy anymore, and in California, they have sorted out 
their situation and they say, let us back off this. But I feel more 
than ever now that we have got to move towards a comprehensive energy 
policy.
  So we passed on August 2 an energy bill in the House. Where is it 
now? Well, Mr. Daschle does not want to bring it up on the Senate 
Floor.

                              {time}  2015

  We passed July 19 faith-based initiatives, so that we can have 
charitable groups who deliver welfare services, welfare-to-work, 
independence-type services, faith-based groups can participate in that. 
That is actually just broadening the 1996 welfare reform law signed by 
President Clinton. We passed it over there, and where is it? It has 
been sitting there for 141 days.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. If the gentleman will yield, Mr. 
Speaker, the two issues the gentleman just mentioned, they were 
campaign promises by President Bush, as Candidate Bush for the 
Presidency. He talked about the fact that this country had never 
developed an energy program plan for America.
  As the gentleman made reference, we passed that in the House. That 
was one of the campaign promises by President George Bush.
  Secondly, the faith-based program has met with great excitement in my 
district in eastern North Carolina, because what Mr. Bush campaigned on 
was, let us take the assistance, take the service to where the people 
are, not Washington, D.C., but in Georgia, in North Carolina. Let us 
let those organizations within the community extend the hand of help. 
So I just wanted to mention that.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman, that is 
exactly the way it works. In Savannah, Georgia, we have St. Paul's 
A.M.E. Church. Reverend Delaney is the minister there, and he has a 
tremendous ministry. They feed the poor. They have a school program 
there for young kids. They have outreach to help people who have drug 
addiction and alcoholism, and need job training.
  They are doing all of this, and they cannot compete for any Federal 
funds, even though their outcome and the result there shows that 
Reverend Delaney is effective at this. The reason why is because that 
recipient, he knows their full name and where they live; he knows their 
brother, their sister, their mother, their father; he knows their 
neighborhood; he walks the same streets. He knows them, and he is 
driven by love for them, not driven by a paycheck.
  Yet when he goes to try to get Federal funds to expand his soup 
kitchen, they say, No, you cannot do that, you are doing too good of a 
job. You are doing a good job, but you are doing it in the name of 
religion. We just cannot have that. If faith-based grant programs are 
driven by results, then what is wrong with letting the Reverend 
Delaneys of the world take care of the hungry and help, with the 
Federal Government; not take over it, but help?
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield 
for another moment, I could not agree more. America's strength is its 
people; and the gentleman, Reverend Delaney that the gentleman just 
mentioned, obviously is a caring, compassionate man that understands 
the Bible, to help the brother who is in trouble.
  If anything, over the last 20 years, that is why we reformed welfare 
when we came in 1997. It was simply that the Federal Government does 
some things good, but a lot of things it does not do so well. So 
therefore, go back to the community and the people, as the gentleman 
said, they know the name of the person they are trying to help. That is 
how government can partnership with local communities and community 
leaders to do for those who need help.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I think that is so important. The 
gentleman had mentioned the energy package. There are a whole lot of 
things that the House has passed that the Senate is sitting on.
  I think it is real important to say, hey, we understand that they are 
now run by the Democrats, and they are going to disagree with the House 
philosophy. No problem with that. The gentleman came from North 
Carolina, I came from Georgia, to carry our points of view and our 
philosophy, and sharpen our ideological swords against opposition, and 
come up with a better product and a bipartisan product. So we do not 
expect the Senate to rubber-stamp what the House does, but vote on the 
things, vote it up or vote it down; have the guts, the integrity, the 
fortitude to face the American people and say, These are our actions, 
we are proud of them, and we are right about them.
  Now, what is interesting on the energy package, the stumbling block 
for Mr. Daschle happens to be the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve, 
because he has Democrats who actually want to explore oil there and 
opportunities, so he does not have the vote to kill the legislation, so 
he is going to hold the legislation.
  We are a funny country. We do not want to park our Suburbans, we all 
like our sports utility vehicles, but we do not want to drill oil just 
anywhere, and we are also tired of buying it from the Middle East. But 
let us have a sober, adult, mature discussion of ANWR for just a 
minute.
  Just to put it in perspective, if Members can look at this chart, the 
red outline is the State of Alaska. The blue outline is the State of 
Texas. The gray outline in the middle of Texas is the State of South 
Carolina, and the little red dot is the size of the potential drilling 
area. The wildlife reserve is the size of the State of South Carolina. 
The little red dot is about 2,000 acres, probably the size of the 
gentleman's airport. Savannah, Georgia, has an airport about 2,000 
acres. That is where it is. That is national security.
  Do we have a model for this? As a matter of fact, we do. We have 
Prudhoe Bay. The same people who were telling us the sky was falling if 
we explored oil in Prudhoe Bay, now they do not mention the fact that 
the caribou herd has actually increased, for some reason; and it has 
not hurt the wildlife.
  I am a hunter, an outdoorsman. My constituents love the woods. I do 
not want to harm the environment, but I also know this.
  This summer I was driving up to New York City with my wife and four 
kids in the car, and I did not even know what State we were in at the 
time, but we were driving our good old Suburban, and there were five 
lanes of traffic, two on one side, three on the other, all going one 
way, so it was a ten-lane interstate.
  The car in front of us hits the car in front of it. Another car 
swings into our lane. Before you know it, we are in the middle of a 
four-car collision. I do not even know what State we were in. It turned 
out we were in Delaware. I do not know how Delaware folks like people 
from Georgia. I was a little nervous and thought they might see the 
Georgia tag and put an-out-of-state surtax on whatever problem it was.
  I am sitting in the middle of these cars whizzing back and forth, 
trying to get over to the shoulder and get my children out of the car 
waiting for police, and it turns out that out of the four cars in the 
collision, one of them was untouched, or not damaged at all. It was our 
car, our Suburban.
  The guy behind us who hit us had about $2,000 worth of damage. I am 
not sure if his car was drivable or if he had it towed. The police came 
and actually did not even fill out a report on us. They filled out a 
report, but we did not file for any insurance because not one person 
out of six in our car was hurt, and there was not a scratch on 
anything.
  The point is, why do I want to drive a big car? It is because my 
children are more important to me, and I do not want to jeopardize 
their safety. I want to have that option. Because of that, I think it 
is important to have an abundant fuel supply.

[[Page H9756]]

  That is why we Americans, when I drive in the car pools Monday and 
Friday when I am in town, and all it is Ford Expeditions, Suburbans, 
and other cars; and it is not because we are all going out in the woods 
in them; it is because of safety and children.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield 
for just a moment, on several points he made, one about the exploration 
in Alaska, we should remember, and I think the gentleman is a little 
younger than I am, but we should remember the days of President Jimmy 
Carter and the lines, and people paying high prices for the gas.
  Everybody said then, and I was obviously a much younger person, but 
everybody was saying then that this country needs to have an energy 
plan. It needs to have a program, a long-range program. We talked about 
it and we talked about it, but we never did anything.
  So again, I want to go back and give credit to President Bush, 
because he has taken this on. He said that the American people need to 
have an energy plan in this country, not just short term but long term. 
So we did what the President asked us to do and we passed that 
legislation, as the gentleman said; and it is now languishing over in 
the Senate. But they will have to deal with that hopefully sooner 
rather than later. They have waited too long already.
  The other point the gentleman was making about his family chose to 
drive a Suburban. Well, to me, that is what America is about. If I 
decide I want to drive a small car or a mid-sized car or an SUV, then I 
should have that right to make that choice and not have the government 
say, You have to drive a small car. I agree with the gentleman.
  Actually, I drive an old 1992 Buick, and I am back and forth every 
weekend from D.C. to North Carolina and back to D.C. on Monday or 
Tuesday, whenever we have votes, and that is my choice.
  I think if we ever get to a point, and that is why the gentleman and 
I happen to be Republicans and conservatives, we both are, is that we 
believe that the American people who pay the taxes, if they decide that 
they want to drive a car that only gets 15 miles to a gallon, and the 
gentleman decides he wants to drive a car that gets 28, that is fine. 
That is what America is about. We should have the choice.
  Mr. KINGSTON. It is very important. And I think if the majority 
leader in the Senate is worried about people actually getting an 
abundant supply of gasoline, which apparently he is opposed to, then 
killing this bill still is not the solution, because there are some 
other things in here that are very important.
  I wanted to talk just a little bit about fuel cell opportunities for 
automobiles. On Monday in Hinesville, Georgia, I had a great 
opportunity to go for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new business 
called E-Motion, which makes an electric car using fuel cells. It is a 
very smart idea.
  The concept is that in Hinesville, Georgia, they will start 
manufacturing a smog-free automobile, so when the gentleman flies to, 
say, New York City or Atlanta, Georgia, or wherever, he will be able to 
rent an electric car. He will have a smart car. That car will be tied 
into a GPS operating system. The gentleman will know where he is going 
in it. He can return it at the end of the day.
  Why is this important? Because we are not saying, let us just keeping 
driving Suburbans forever, let us keep drilling for oil all over the 
globe. That is not the point at all of the energy package. The energy 
package is to look at the energy needs from a national security point 
of view and come up with a combination of what works.

  What E-Motion will be doing is using things like fuel cells to help 
drive automobiles. In California, they have recently passed regulations 
saying that 22,000 automobiles that are sold that year have to be smog-
free. In Europe, they are going to have emission-free zones in certain 
cities where, unless it is mass transit or a no-smog automobile or an 
electric car, they will not even be able to drive there.
  In Iceland, which is very fossil-fuel dependent on getting fossil 
fuels in from other countries, they are actually looking at using 
thermal heat from volcanoes to separate hydrogen from water and use it 
as an energy source.
  So here again, the good old folks in the other body and Mr. Daschle 
are sitting on this technology. That bill, the energy bill that Mr. 
Bush has pushed, puts millions of dollars into fuel cell research. So 
this is not just something that is happening in Hinesville, Georgia. 
This is not something that somebody has to explain. It is something 
everybody knows, oh, yes, I know what a fuel cell car is. As a matter 
of fact, I am looking at one right now. They are available in every 
town.
  That is being held up because Mr. Daschle is preferring to play up 
the fears on drilling for oil in Alaska, so he is holding up all these 
other good things in that energy bill.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. If the gentleman will yield another 
time, Mr. Speaker, that is what is really somewhat discouraging, when 
they have that entrepreneurial spirit they have down there with that 
business in the gentleman's district, or in Georgia, and there are a 
multitude of those exciting businesses that could be benefited if we 
would do our job up here in Washington.
  As the gentleman said, the House has done its job; and now it is time 
for the Senate to move the legislation.
  Mr. KINGSTON. The other thing, when we talk about security, obviously 
we need economic security, we need energy security, we need to have 
security so our people will be able to spiritually compete in the free 
enterprise system, but none of it means anything if we do not have a 
good foreign policy.
  I represent Kings Bay, and we have one of the nuclear submarine 
fleets there. There is a great story of Kika de la Garza, a former 
Committee on Agriculture chairman. He goes out in the submarine and 
spends the night. He says to the captain of the sub, How far can you 
go? And the captain says, As far as we want. He said, When would you 
turn around? When would you need more gas, more energy for the nuclear 
generator? He said, We will not. He says, What makes a nuclear sub go 
back and forth? He said, We run out of food. It is that simple.
  Now, in terms of independence and security, what can be more 
important than an inexpensive, abundant food supply? Yet we passed our 
farm bill October 5 and the Senate has yet to move on it. And again, 
hey, agree, disagree, talk to me, let me know how you feel; but nothing 
has happened.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. The gentleman is exactly right. Our 
farmers in eastern North Carolina are like farmers across this Nation. 
Many of them have been in trouble. The foreign markets have not been 
what they had hoped they would be, and for a number of reasons the 
farmers really need this help.
  And I want to give the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Combest), chairman 
of the Committee on Agriculture, and all of the Republican and Democrat 
Members, a lot of credit for the bill they brought to the floor. It was 
what I thought a very strong, very helpful agricultural farm bill that 
would help our farmers. And as the gentleman said very well, it has 
been on the Senate side for quite a few weeks, and now months, and they 
need to remember that our farmers are waiting for their action.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Another thing that ties into the food supply is our 
trade policy. We have to have a tough trade policy to move our goods 
around the globe.
  A statistic I heard the other day is that in China, if they consumed 
as much Coca Cola per capita as the country of Australia, Coca Cola 
could double the size of its company. Now, there are a lot of thirsty 
Chinese folks over there who would like to have an opportunity to have 
a Coca Cola, and a lot of other goods that are made in our country, and 
trade promotion allows the President of the United States to sit at the 
bargaining table on these multinational trade agreements and come up 
with the best deal for American producers and American buyers.
  We have passed it in the House, but the Senate is nitpicking it to 
death. Again, vote on it up or down, send it back to us, amend it, but 
do not just sit on it.
  Another issue: Terrorism reinsurance. Like it or not, a lot of 
businesses

[[Page H9757]]

have to have terrorist insurance in order to get loans from banks. 
Small businesses. But after September 11, traditional insurance 
companies do not want to provide terrorist coverage.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Rogers of Michigan). The gentleman will 
suspend.
  Members are to be reminded to refrain from references to Members of 
the Senate or to characterizations of Senate action or inaction.
  Mr. KINGSTON. What happens, the small businesses, in order to get 
bank loans, cannot get their insurance because they have a terrorist 
exclusion in the policy. So what we have done in the House, in a 
responsible manner, is we have said we will help facilitate a 
reinsurance fund with the large insurance companies, the Travelers, the 
Aetnas, the Cignas, the CNAs. What we say is, you provide the first $1 
billion in a pool, and then we will set up a reinsurance fund, a buffer 
above that $1 billion. We will help underwrite it, but you reimburse 
the taxpayers.
  Of course, we have passed it, and one more time the United States' 
other body has not moved on it whatsoever. Again, this is about job 
creation. This is for small businesses.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. If the gentleman will yield for just a 
moment, I am on the Committee on Financial Services where the 
legislation came from that the gentleman just made reference to, the 
insurance issue. In fact, the gentleman sitting in the Chair tonight, 
who is from Michigan, is also on that committee. The committee worked 
in a very bipartisan way to come forward with very important 
legislation that needs to be, and I want to be very careful because of 
the statement by the Chair, but the Congress as a whole needs to move 
that legislation soon.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, I agree with the gentleman. Another issue that 
the House has passed and the United States' other body has not done 
anything on, is none other than human cloning. We had a very lively 
debate in July about that. Now, suddenly, there is a company and they 
have announced they have the ability to clone human tissue. And 
everybody gets excited and they say to us, as Members of Congress, what 
are you guys doing about it? We say, well, we have passed this 
legislation.
  It is our hope that our friends on the other side of the House, on 
the other side of the United States Capitol, will actually wake up and 
decide that when they are paid to do a job they will do the job, and 
that means they will vote and debate legislation on or off the floor. 
Move it on, vote it up or down, one way or the other. Human cloning 
might be a good thing.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. If the gentleman will yield for just a 
moment. There is no question that we always take great pride in the 
House of Representatives in saying that we are ``the people's House.'' 
I think anybody in government, whether they are elected or in a 
professional position, we need to realize that the people of America 
pay our salaries. And, therefore, if we are responsible for legislative 
progress, then those of us who are elected to serve in this beautiful 
Capitol, we need to remember we have a responsibility to do what is 
right for those people who are our taxpayers. And that means we should 
work together and we should move legislation expeditiously when we can.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, I thank the gentleman.
  Yet another example of something that we have done in the House is we 
passed an education bill back in May. Again, it is over in that deep 
dark hole over on the other side of the United States capitol. An 
education bill. That was George Bush's top priority, and we passed it. 
Again, it has been sitting floundering, waiting. And, hey, no call, no 
letter, no anything.
  The gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner) has said we may be able to get 
the education bill out maybe Thursday, maybe Friday, maybe even next 
week, and I think that we all want to do that. But we are excited.
  A patients' bill of rights, which we passed back in August. Again, it 
has been sitting over there in the morgue, also known as the other 
body.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Well, I certainly want to be careful, 
because of the ruling of the Chair, but I often think about the 
gentleman from Georgia and other of my colleagues, especially those 
that live much further than that, particularly our colleagues on both 
sides of the fence that live out west, because I can drive home in 5 
hours from Washington. And I think the difference in why we are so 
responsive is because we see the people we have the privilege to 
represent just about every weekend. We are here for 2 years and then we 
run for reelection. As it is set up by the Constitution, the other side 
of the Capitol, they are there for 6 years.
  Now, I am not advocating that they should serve for 2 years, but I am 
just saying that we are much more in tune with the people we represent 
than the other body.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, again, actions by the House on energy bill, 
faith-based initiatives, farm bill, trade promotion bill, appropriation 
bills, terrorist reinsurance plan, human cloning, education, and a 
patients' bill of rights, and we are still waiting for them to come 
back around.
  I do want to talk about the economic security bill, because in my 
area of Georgia, a big tourist area, tourism is down. Amongst retirees, 
their stock portfolios, their retirement programs have shrunk 
considerably. Down the street people are laid off. A friend of mine who 
has two children was laid off recently. Lots of people are losing their 
jobs.
  We passed an economic security package in October. And I do not know, 
the Speaker will have to help guide me, because I have this quote here 
and it says that the leader of the other body, Mr. Daschle, said that 
``It is not as front-burner an issue as other legislation, particularly 
government spending.'' And that is from the Associated Press, October 
27.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.
  Members are reminded that remarks in debate may not include personal 
references to, or quotations of, Members of the Senate.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Okay, Mr. Speaker, and I will not use this one again. 
However, it does show a particular philosophy of a body that wants to 
spend money rather than a body that wants to preserve and protect jobs.
  And I think if maybe there is a real difference between being a 
Democrat and being a Republican that is reflected in the Republicans 
running the House and the Democrats running the other body, it is in 
the economic security bill. Because here we are standing strong with 
jobs, standing strong with laid-off workers for benefits, for health 
care benefits and for unemployment checks, and yet this other body, 
controlled by the other party, is sitting on it and saying we would 
rather you do spending bills than an economic stimulus package. I think 
that is egregious and totally irresponsible in today's economy.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. I really agree with the gentleman. I 
came to the Congress with Mr. Newt Gingrich in the 1994 election, sworn 
in in 1995, and we have believed ever since we have been in the 
majority that the people that worked hard in this country, awfully hard 
for their money, should keep the majority of their money.
  And, in addition, as the gentleman said, those people who have been 
laid off work, if we can help strengthen business, small, midsize and 
large, so that they can get some tax breaks so that then they will be 
willing to expand job opportunities, that is what America is all about. 
That is our philosophy, to empower the people, empower the businesses 
so that the economy is moving and the engine is pumping.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well, again, I understand a difference in philosophy. I 
have a lot of friends in the other party who did not like the economic 
security bill. Maybe they did not like particular parts of it, maybe 
they ultimately voted against it. But to their credit they engaged in 
the debate. They came down on the floor and they voted. Whereas in the 
other body it appears that the best action is total inaction, and that 
is tragic. There are too many people who have worked hard on a package 
to try to jump-start this economy, but we need to have it.
  I am not sure, Mr. Speaker, if I can talk about appropriation bills 
or not.


                Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will suspend.

[[Page H9758]]

  Members are reminded to refrain from references to Members of the 
Senate or to characterizations of Senate action or inaction.
  Mr. KINGSTON. I thank the gentleman. I stand corrected. And I want to 
commend the freshman sitting in the Chair for his very careful and 
thorough job tonight, and being patient with frustrated Members like 
me.
  We have had a very productive year on the House side of the branch of 
the legislature, and we just hate to go home, at Christmas time nearly, 
and do it incompletely when there is an opportunity still to pass so 
many great pieces of legislation that will help real people in the real 
world get jobs, get jobs back, get benefits, secure benefits that they 
have, obtain a good food supply, good energy supply, and an education 
program that works.
  There are just so many things that are within our legislative grasp 
to do something about, and it is so frustrating to have only part of 
that done. There is just one area in the legislative branch where there 
seems to be a gap. We have the executive branch all ready with the ink 
pen full of ink ready to sign the legislation to get America moving 
again.
  We have worked hard here, Democrats and Republicans alike on the 
House side. We have had great leadership under the Speaker of the 
House, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hastert), and the recently-
announced retiree, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Armey), even though 
that will not be for a year from now. And of course the gentleman from 
Oklahoma (Mr. Watts) and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), 
chairman of the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
  So many great things. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), 
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, who I do not think has 
been home since August in terms of working overtime to try to get these 
appropriation bills passed. The gentleman from California (Mr. Thomas) 
of the Committee on Ways and Means moving on trade and health care 
bills and so forth.
  Mr. JONES of North Carolina. Well, I know we are getting close to the 
closing, and I am going to leave in just a second, but I have really 
enjoyed being with the gentleman, and I think he has done a great 
service really not only for his district but for the American people.
  There is one thing about it, and the gentleman might be somewhat 
restricted as to his statements tonight, but there is one thing about 
it, and I am sure the gentleman has, as I have, a lot of speaking 
opportunities back in his district, and I am proud to tell those people 
in my district what we in the House have done. And in that forum, you 
can certainly call names and you can make references to what has or has 
not happened.
  So I want to thank the gentleman. He helped me with my time talking 
about school prayer. I appreciate the gentleman's friendship, his 
leadership, and thank him for allowing me to be a small part of this 
tonight.

                              {time}  2045

  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from North Carolina 
(Mr. Jones).

                          ____________________