[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 26130-26131]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                 ENJOYING SERVICE AS MEMBER OF CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I rise today, because it is one of my last 
opportunities as a Member of this body to address my colleagues about 
whatever I might want to, and today I particularly want to say how much 
I have enjoyed my service as a messenger over the last 20 years. What a 
great honor and privilege it has been to have been a Member of this 
body.
  I made many friends. I fought many battles on the floor of this 
House, and I would like to believe that my service will be left as very 
constructive. We had lots of things that happened in my tenure in 
serving the eighth district of Florida and prior to that, the fifth 
district; but we actually closed during that period of time nearly 
40,000 cases for constituents in casework; nearly 400 high school 
interns came to Washington, D.C. to meet the Members of Congress, visit 
the House floor, attend congressional hearings and tour historic 
monuments, memorials, under my intern program; 422 high school students 
have received nominations during those years for my office to the 
Nation's military academies; 199 have received appointments; 15 senior 
interns participated in the Congressional Senior Intern Program to gain 
a firsthand look at how our government works and to provide valuable 
opinions on important issues; 8 High School pages have participated in 
the Congressional Page Program; 19 congressional art competitions have 
led to 19 works of high school art students hanging in the halls of 
this Congress.
  I am proud of all of those. I am certainly proud of the staff work 
that has been done both personal staff and committee staff on my behalf 
and on the behalf of my constituents in the Nation over these years.
  I can stand before you today and site legislative accomplishments and 
specifics; I am not going to do that. I look ahead more than I look 
back. I always have, and when one door closes another one opens. And I 
think that is what this Nation is about.
  It is our young people that is what it is about. It is about the next 
generation, that is why we all serve in public life, that is why I 
served, that is what I am most proud of.
  The contributions each of us make as we pass may be a small 
contribution now, but that can grow much greater later. And it is the 
duty, I think, of every American to participate in the electoral 
process and in the process of governance. Sometimes it may be in public 
office, sometimes it may be being no more than voting, but I hope that 
most young people who come forward in the near term will participate 
much more vigorously, getting involved in elections, being participants 
in their communities and community activities and in many other ways.
  When they do so, I would like to believe that they will look at the 
next few years as pivotal years. We are the greatest free Nation in the 
history of the world. Our Founding Fathers gave us a Constitution with 
its checks and balances that make us like no other Nation. We have 
opportunities for everyone. Equal opportunities, if you just take 
advantage of them.
  We are not perfect. Nobody is, but when you look around the world, 
you will see what a great Nation we have and what a great government we 
have.

                              {time}  1745

  In our institutions, I think that better government, not bigger 
government should rule the day; that when decisions can be made at the 
local level of government, that is where they should be made: the city 
level, the county level, the State level, the local school boards. Only 
as a last resort does Washington do it and only, of course, under 
certain constitutional circumstances.
  I think that is the guiding principle that our Founding Fathers gave 
us, and it is one that I hope we all will cherish into the future. I 
believe that, in the nearer term, to make that more meaningful for all 
of us, there are several things that need to be done. I have to leave 
that to my colleagues in the next Congress since I will not be here for 
that.
  One of those is, of course, principled in the idea of choice. I 
happen to believe that choices should be maximized for individuals. The 
government should be not making decisions for us, especially in 
Washington, where we can make them for ourselves. Whether that is in 
the realm of education, whether that is in the realm of Medicare or 
Social Security or whatever it is, the more choices that we can give to 
people to make them themselves rather than government making those 
decisions, rather than the government being our parent, if you will, 
the better off we will all be.

[[Page 26131]]

  That is the same with local government. I believe that we should, as 
a Congress and as a Nation, at the Federal level delegate 
responsibility back to the States and the cities and the counties and 
let them make those decisions with the legislation we have here rather 
than making all the rules up either legislatively or administratively. 
I am for less regulation, less rules, more openness and more 
opportunity for locals to make those decisions and individuals to do 
it.
  I think it is important in that same realm that we have tax 
simplification. We talk a lot about tax reform. I have since been here. 
I certainly do not believe we ought to have a tax on capital gains at 
all or double taxation on dividends or a tax on earned interest. I 
certainly do not think that we should have an estate or death tax or 
marriage penalty tax. It is important to reform those.
  I think it is also important to have across-the-board tax cuts where 
ultimately everyone makes choices and decisions rather than targeted 
tax cuts where the government makes the choice only if one complies 
with this rule or that rule. But in the long run, the important part of 
tax reform is to make it simpler.
  I would love to see a day, and I envision one, where every American 
can fill out their taxes, whatever it may be, be it income tax or sales 
tax or whatever, on a single sheet of paper. That is something that I 
would like to see. But as important as all of that is, I also believe 
that we have to rebuild our defenses. I believe that they have been 
built down way too far.
  The next big challenge for this Congress, despite its differences, 
and it will have them, will be how do we rebuild those defenses the 
right way, to rebuild morale that is at its lowest point in years and 
years.
  I urge my colleagues to do so, and I wish them well in making those 
decisions for our Nation's future.

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