[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Page 27710]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      REPUBLICAN BUDGET PRIORITIES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, we are at a real interesting time. We are 
in the home run stretch of the legislative session. We are in a 
position on the budget that we are negotiating with the President 
because of three different reasons. Number one, we had the 1997 budget 
agreement. That agreement was a bipartisan agreement, over 300 
Democrats and Republicans alike joined forces to say, let us put some 
fiscal order, some discipline in this place. The President signed off 
on it. Now even though it is a bipartisan agreement, it seems like only 
one party is responsible for carrying out that agreement. That party is 
the Republican Party.
  Number two, we do not want to spend Social Security money. Now, do 
not take my word for it as a Republican. This is John Podesta, the 
Chief of Staff at the White House. He works for Bill Clinton. Here is 
his exact statement: ``The Republicans' key goal is to not spend the 
Social Security surplus.'' I am glad, suddenly the White House is 
saying things right and we are very glad about that. Indeed, if you 
look at this smaller chart, that is exactly what we have been able to 
do. In the past, the Democrat controlled Congress and under Republican 
control, Social Security money has been taken for general purposes. But 
this year, zero. A historic moment. We have not raided Social Security. 
Very important.
  The third reason we are in this position is that the President had 
promoted a tax increase as a way to fund a lot of new programs. On a 
bipartisan basis, this House, 419-0 voted against increasing taxes. So 
right now we are in a situation where the only way to continue the 1997 
budget agreement and not raid Social Security is by reducing spending a 
mere one cent on a dollar.
  I am a father of four, Mr. Speaker. I have two teenagers and two 
smaller children. We have to every month sit around and decide are we 
going to fix the washing machine, are we going to buy new tires. I 
guess we will have to postpone that vacation or that trip to Atlanta 
one more time in the fancy hotel, but we are used to doing that. But 
when Libby and I sit around the table and cut our budget, out of $5, we 
have got to look for 2 or $3. All we are saying to the Federal 
Government is cut out a nickel out of $5 or one cent out of $1. We have 
heard from Democrats tonight, that cannot be done.
  Let me give my colleagues a few suggestions. The FDA has a pizza 
inspection program. If you buy cheese pizza, the FDA inspects it. But 
if you buy pepperoni pizza, the U.S. Department of Agriculture inspects 
it. I do not know, but in the private sector we would say, let us 
combine that. Or how about this. The President went to Africa with 1300 
of his closer Federal employee friends, spent $42.8 million. Or how 
about when he went to China, he spent $18.8 million and took 500 of his 
closer friends. Cutting out 1 percent would mean 50 of them would have 
to stay at home the next time he goes to China. The next time he goes 
to Africa, 13 would have to stay at home. That does not sound so bad to 
me. But we keep hearing how harsh this is.
  How about the program in Washington, D.C. where the Federal 
Government spent $6.6 million on a staffing company to help the 
government get people from welfare to work, $6.6 million and they were 
supposed to place 1500 people. One year later and $1 million later, 
they had only placed 30 people out of 1500. They spent $1 million to do 
that.

                              {time}  1930

  That is waste. And, you know what? I would like to pop the bubble of 
the Democrats and the big spenders up here. The Federal Government does 
not have any money. Let me repeat it: The Federal Government does not 
have money. It is the people's money. We hard working taxpayers send 
our money to Washington. It is not the Federal Government's money, it 
is sent to them by hard working taxpayers. So I believe that we in 
Washington have to be very careful on how we spend that.
  Now I want to say one thing that is just kind of interesting. Here is 
a statement by Secretary Babbitt when a reporter said is there no more 
waste in government in your department? Secretary Babbitt, who is Mr. 
Clinton's appointee for the Department of Interior, the guy in charge 
of the National Parks, he said, ``Well, it would take a magician to say 
there was no waste in government.'' Amen to that. ``We are constantly 
ferreting it out. But the answer is otherwise, yes, you have got it 
exactly right.'' From the President's own folks, yes, there is waste in 
government, and we can cut it out and save Social Security.

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