[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 20]
[House]
[Page 28922]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            ONE PENNY ON A DOLLAR WILL SAVE SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Fletcher). 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 start off by just kind of 
rebutting my distinguished colleague. The Wall Street Journal is a 
great newspaper, but, tell me, have my colleagues ever read a newspaper 
that does not sometimes get it wrong; does not stretch the truth?
  Here is a report from the Congressional Budget Office. Now, I know 
the good folks at the Wall Street Journal know everything there is 
about Congress and spending and so forth, but these people are actually 
hired to do this job, they are the ones who are in the room. CBO stands 
for Congressional Budget Office, and they have certified that the 
Republican budget does not raid the Social Security Trust Fund, as have 
the Democrat budgets for the past 40 years. Here is what it says: 
Projected on-budget surplus under the congressional scoring, the way it 
is done, $1 billion, and this is as of October 27, 1999.
  Now, it is real odd to me that people who have been voting against 
every single appropriations bill because they do not spend enough money 
are now coming in here in the 11th hour and trying to rewrite the 
rules. Where was this fiscal austerity back during the September and 
October debates? All we heard from the liberal side of the aisle was, 
``You don't spend enough money, so we are going to vote no.''
  Well, hello, where does the money come from? Social Security. We have 
held the line on it, we have passed the appropriation bills, 13 of them 
on Republican votes, because we could not get our Democrat colleagues 
to join us because it did not spend enough money for them.
  Yes, there have been a few defectors, and we appreciate them, but we 
started this year taking the President on. He said from the well of the 
House let us spend 40 percent, actually I think it was 38 percent, of 
the Social Security surplus on a whole line of new entitlement 
programs. But the Republicans' key goal is to not spend the Social 
Security surplus. That is a quote. That is a direct quote from the 
White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, and that was as of October 20.
  Now, that is coming from the folks who do not exactly like 
Republicans down on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. We are not going to spend 
the Social Security surplus.
  Now, what have we proposed doing? We have proposed reducing the size 
of the government budget. For every $1 we have asked the bureaucracies 
in Washington to cut out a penny, and they can do it. Here is an 
example of one place they could do it. Now, we have heard there is 
absolutely no waste, but this is the President's trip to Africa. He 
went on a number of trips this year. He went to China and spent $18.8 
million, took 500 people; went to Chile, spent $10.5 million; went to 
Africa and spent $42.8 million, and took 1300 of his dearest and 
closest Federal Government friends. Now, there were other people. This 
does not include Secret Service or Peace Corps, this only includes 
Federal Government employees.
  Now, under our radical budget, the President next year would say 13 
of those friends will have to stay home. One example would be the mayor 
of Denver. The mayor of Denver goes to Africa with the President. Why? 
Is Colorado so important to our African policy? If so, why not let the 
good people of Denver pass a hat and pay his freight? Thirteen hundred 
people went to Africa for $42.8 million. There is not a Member of this 
House who would say that was a wise expenditure of money, and there is 
not a member of this White House who would say he could not cut some of 
that out.
  Or what about the $3 million ducks in Hawaii? The U.S. Department of 
Interior bought an island off of Hawaii for $30 million. The purpose 
was so ducks could breed on it. The only problem was only 10 ducks took 
advantage of this new honeymoon package. So what we have are ducks, $3 
million each, over there having a big time. Now, we need to find a Hugh 
Hefner kind of duck who can promote this thing a little bit and maybe 
we can get it down to $1 million or $2 million a duck.
  I think back in South Georgia we would probably call this a waste of 
money, and I suspect the folks would in Kansas, New York, and all over 
the place.
  What is this really about? This is about trying to get Washington on 
line with the American people, the people who drive an extra two blocks 
to fill up their tank for $1.07 a gallon instead of $1.15 a gallon; the 
people who do not buy a new suit until the clothes are on sale; the 
people who go out to eat when they have a coupon and order chicken 
instead of steak; and the people who do not buy any running shoes 
unless they are the discontinued brand or marked down 50 percent; and 
the parents who raise their kids to turn off the light when they leave 
a room, and do not run the water when they brush their teeth.
  We are saying to Washington that they should live their lives like 
the American people. If we can, we can find a lot more than a penny on 
a dollar and we can save Social Security.

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