[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1656]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    REPUBLICAN AGENDA FOR THIS YEAR

  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, I wanted to talk a little bit about the 
Republican agenda for this year, and that agenda is called Best Schools 
and Military and Agriculture, and ``BEST'' in this case stands for 
balancing the budget, ``E'' is for education, ``S'' is for saving 
Social Security, ``T'' is for lowering taxes and, of course, having the 
best military and agriculture.
  We want to balance the budget, but first we believe that Social 
Security, that part of the surplus needs to be firewalled and 
protected, not masked in with the rest of the general operating 
expenses. We believe Social Security should be a freestanding account. 
That lowers the amount of the surplus, and then that amount of the 
surplus should be divided out between lowering down the debt and tax 
reductions.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, think about this: If you have a credit card and 
each month you run up a big deficit, and one month you do not, does 
that mean you are excused from all the months of debt that you 
accumulated? Of course not. You have got to go back and pay the debt. 
And I do not believe the President is being responsible when he does 
not mention paying down the debt as part of his agenda. We have got to 
pay down the $5.4 trillion debt.
  In education we believe in local control, we believe in sending the 
dollars back to the teacher in the classroom, not sending more dollars 
to the Washington bureaucracy so you can have more Washington 
bureaucrats telling local school boards how to teach Johnny how to 
read.
  On saving the Social Security: Number 1, firewall it. Make sure that 
that Social Security surplus is designated for its intended purposes 
and not used for roads and bridges.
  And on tax reductions we believe that the middle class is working too 
hard to earn their money and that we are wasting too much of it. I 
believe that it is important for us to have a good government present, 
I believe we have to fund a lot of essential programs, but what the 
taxpayers who are working 50 and 60 hours a week resent, and rightfully 
so, is the duplication and waste in government, and we have got to cut 
down some of the absurdities in our government.
  And on the military, we have to have the strongest Army in the world. 
America has to be the defender of freedom and democracy around the 
globe. Unfortunately we did say, okay, let us be the policemen of the 
world; it is just the way it is.
  We need to have a military that has modern equipment, we need to have 
a military that is ready, and we need to have quality of life for our 
soldiers. We lose lots and lots of soldiers every year because they can 
get better jobs at higher pay and they do not have to worry about being 
deployed all over the globe the way this administration seems to deploy 
people.
  This administration's approach to foreign policy is let us deploy 
American troops and leave them there permanently. If we are going to 
commit American troops to an area, let us go for an objective, let us 
have a time frame, let us have a plan for lasting peace and stability 
once we leave, but let us leave.
  And then finally on agriculture, America needs to have support of an 
abundant and lasting food supply. We have one of the greatest 
agricultural economies in the world. America has only spent 11 cents of 
the dollar that they earn on food and on groceries, and yet we forget 
the American farmer. We need to have crop insurance reform, we need to 
look at some of the unfair trade practices of our foreign importers, 
and we need to do everything we can to unshackle the farmer from some 
of the unnecessary regulations that they are operating under.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to yield the floor to my friend and colleague 
from Tennessee (Mr. Duncan) who wants to talk about the surplus.
  Mr. DUNCAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding, and just a few 
minutes ago, Mr. Speaker, I pointed out that Newsweek magazine said a 
little over a week ago that if we enacted everything that the President 
has promised in the last few days, we would have a $2.3 trillion 
shortfall in the next 15 years and totally really wreck our good 
economy. But I mentioned a column that I want to include in the Record 
by nationally syndicated columnist Charley Reese, and I want to read a 
portion of that column at this time.
  He said after the State of the Union in his column:

       So, starting with two lies, the President then proceeds to 
     spend a nonexistent surplus stretching 15 years into the 
     future. Even if this year's surplus were real, there is no 
     way to predict that the surpluses will continue for 15 years 
     into the future. That is pure fantasy.
       The President's promising this and promising that, all 
     financed by a nonexistent future surplus, is a perfect 
     example of demagoguery. Furthermore, everything he proposed, 
     except spending more on defense, is unconstitutional.
       Yes, I know that nobody pays any attention to the 
     Constitution except lawyers trying to get around it,

and so forth.
  But he continues in this column, Mr. Reese does. He says: 

       It's dismaying that more people can't see through this 
     thinly disguised con game Washington politicians are playing. 
     All this amounts to is blatant vote-buying, as corrupt as if 
     they were standing outside the voting booths, stuffing $20 
     bills into people's pockets. It amounts to robbing Jane to 
     buy the vote of Betsy.

                              {time}  1315

  I tell you, as I said a minute ago, if we do what the children and 
what the families of this country need, we will hold back on this and 
not go into all of this ridiculous and wasteful spending, so that our 
good economic times can continue. But it will be so easy to end these 
good times if we fall off and go along with all of these high sounding 
and wonderful promises that have been made over the last few days.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think it is very 
important for us to remember, Mr. Speaker, that that surplus largely 
comes from Social Security, and what we want to do is protect Social 
Security, pay down the debt and then look at tax reduction for the 
middle class, because there is so much waste and duplication of 
government.

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