Jack Kingston: “I cannot tell you how many tax-funded lobbyist schemes come across our desks in our office every day. You know doggone…”

“I cannot tell you how many tax-funded lobbyist schemes come across our desks in our office every day. You know doggone good and well people are there at taxpayer expense. They are printing the forms and so forth. Billy Joel wrote a song: ``You Can Speak Your Mind, But Not on My Time.'' This reminds me of what the gentleman from Oklahoma [Mr. Istook] is saying: ``You can speak your mind, but not on my dime.'' We need to move on because I want to talk about this train wreck, but I do want to say one thing. I have offered an amendment to the Istook- McIntosh legislation. What it says is that if your organization spends less than $25,000 on political activity, then you can continue doing that. This way your local art museum, your local history museum, historic society, symphony, and so forth, they will not have any problem still calling you up, asking questions, and giving their valuable inputs and so forth. I think it is important for us to say we do not want to pick on the hometown folks because we need their input. But some of this Washington-based lobbying on taxpayer funds needs to stop.”