[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 17]
[House]
[Page 25449]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 THE PROBLEM WITH THE POLITICS OF DIVISION INSTEAD OF THE POLITICS OF 
                                 UNITY

  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, let me just say this, that under the plan 
proposed by Governor Bush, the janitor, the worker in the restaurant, 
would, in fact, get great sums of tax relief. But more importantly, 
rather than this class division, rather than the politics of envy, the 
Bush promise is to make that restaurant worker the restaurant owner. 
That is the biggest difference between the Bush vision and the Gore 
vision, which keeps the poor, poor. And that is the problem when we 
have the politics of division instead of the politics of unity. I think 
that is what this is all about.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, we want to talk a little bit about what we are 
doing here on a Sunday night, and joining me are my colleagues from 
Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Colorado; and we are going to ask the 
question, we are here because how much is enough, Mr. President? Last 
year the Labor and Education bill, Health and Human Resources, had a 
sum of $96 billion.

                              {time}  2130

  This year, negotiating with the President, we are up to $106 billion. 
But it is not enough for the President and Mr. Gore. They want more 
money.
  So I will ask my colleague from Arizona, how much is enough? How much 
does the President want to spend?
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Well, if my friend from Georgia will yield, that 
remains the question, because, the fact is, we are not getting a clear 
and compelling signal from the White House or from our friends on the 
left.
  You see, we worked together to achieve a consensus in many areas, 
especially on the bill we passed just last week, which offered not only 
tax relief, but Medicare refinement and improvement to strengthen 
Medicare payments to hospitals and home health care facilities and 
nursing homes, but also something the President embraced when he came 
to Phoenix, Arizona, the so-called ``new markets initiative.'' 
Community empowerment. So we had a very broad bipartisan piece of 
legislation there, and yet we hear now that the President says he 
intends to veto the legislation.
  So, sadly, the answer to the question that my friend from Georgia 
poses tonight has no quantifiable answer.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. KINGSTON. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I would like to first of all say that as I 
was stepping out of the Committee on Rules upstairs, I could hear 
without the electronic means my friend from Georgia talk about the fact 
that the Vice President is pursuing policies that will help to keep 
poor people poor, which I think is right on target. That is the one 
thing I heard, so I compliment the gentleman on offering the truth.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the gentleman for yielding to me, 
and to congratulate my colleagues for the time that they are taking 
this evening to enlighten the American people on these very important 
issues.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman from Michigan 
(Mr. Hoekstra), does he know how much is enough? I want to refer to our 
chart again. How much is enough, Mr. President? How much do you want to 
spend?
  Mr. HOEKSTRA. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, I think what 
we are finding, especially in the area of education, where I have spent 
a lot of time and our subcommittee has spent a lot of time, it is no 
longer an issue about money, but, for the President, how much is 
enough? How much more authority does he want to move from a local and 
State level to Washington?
  We know that he would love to start getting Washington involved in 
school construction, get Washington involved in hiring teachers. So for 
the President, it is not an issue of money anymore. Republicans have 
said we will match him on money.
  ``Enough is enough'' now for the President is only when we move the 
decision-making for how we spend those dollars from the local level to 
the Department of Education here in Washington. That is now where the 
President is saying, ``I need more and I want more.''
  Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman 
from Michigan for that, because one of our major issues that is 
outstanding right now with the President is the fact that he wants 
school construction to be federally controlled; and we want to leave it 
locally controlled, where less dollars will be spent and local people 
will decide what needs to be built. It should not be in the hands of 
Washington bureaucrats.
  I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota (Mr. Thune).
  Mr. THUNE. Mr. Speaker, how much is enough? That is the question of 
the evening. Well, I would suggest to the gentleman from Georgia that 
is really a moving target. We do not know, because the President 
insists upon every bill that comes down there, this much more, this 
much more. I think whatever the number was yesterday, it just increased 
by about 20 percent today.
  But if one looks at why we are still here, and the gentleman from 
Michigan is absolutely right, this really is about whether or not you 
want to consolidate more power in Washington or whether you want to 
distribute power back to the people who live in our States and our 
communities, our families. That is the issue of the day.

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