Jack Kingston

I want to conclude with this. Our vision is to have a balanced budget. We are not cutting the budget and we are not freezing it. We are increasing spending 3 trillion new dollars over the next 7 years. The President wants to increase it $4…

Also, what our program does is lets States have some flexibility. I was in Savannah talking to a caseworker a month ago, and he said, you know, I could use some flexibility. If you combine the WIC program with AFDC, I will have some money…

That is exactly right. Here is another example of a good program that went bad, the Earned Income Tax Credit. Now, the Earned Income Tax Credit, the idea was to get people off of public assistance. But since they would not be making as…

Here is another example of a program gone amuck. This was sent to me by Mr. E.R. Lott of Folkston, GA. It is a copy of a letter to the editor by Brenton Bradbury in Jacksonville to the Florida Times Union. It said, An expensively dressed…

We wanted to touch base also on this tax issue because I think that it is important to talk about it because we have heard so many times that it is a tax break for the rich. Now, President Clinton said as much as President Clinton says…

I guess since the Democrats voted for that social security tax increase, that is why they do not want to vote to repeal it?

What you are saying is we are repealing the Clinton Social Security tax increase.

Let me interrupt you one minute. As I recall, President Clinton increased taxes on Social Security in 1993.

Reclaiming my time a second, that is a good point, and that is why our budget goes from $4,800 to $7,100 per person with anticipation of the population increase, $4,800 to $7,100, which again is not a cut. Now, one of the questions is, OK…

I did want to respond to two things. Number one, we only need about 30 Democrats to reopen the government, because we can get some of these vetoes overridden and we can pass some more appropriations bills. So we hope that we can pick up…

I would say that is accurate, but I would also say it is a lot more difficult when we are trying to reduce and consolidate government than when we are spending or renewing "as is" with a 10-percent increase. But let us say the Committee on…

If I could have 10 seconds, I want to say one thing, just to nitpick. The President was on a golfing junket over New Year's at Hilton Head. He was not negotiating.

there are really two reasons why we need to balance the budget. The first one is that the interest is the third largest expenditure in the national budget each year. In 2 years we will be paying the bondholders on our national debt more…

I think certainly the President purposely led the Members of Congress to believe, and remember I believe there were 68 Democrats who voted with the Republicans to reopen the Government in November under the clear understanding that the…

I want to ask my colleagues this question, and I want them to think about it in the context of the debate in the last couple of weeks. Is the issue the Government shutdown or is the issue balancing the budget? It would appear to me, as I…

Let me throw that question right back at you: If we cannot lock in forever and this whole thing is going to be reversed in 10 months, then why can we not reopen the Government by you guys voting for the appropriations bills? It is that…

I think what is so important here is let us not go around saying that the Newt Gingrich freshmen Republicans have closed down the Government when you know, and the learned distinguished gentlewoman from New York knows, that is not the…

I asked that question because I just want you to really think about this. Should we not all, as a body, be outraged that the President, during that 3-week grace period, under the agreed handshake of, yes, I will put a 7-year balanced…

One of the things we have to remember as we hear, and the gentleman is a freshman, and I understand, I was listening to some of my Democrat colleagues calling your group a bunch of extremists and so forth. You know, what is interesting is…

first, I want to go over a resolution which has raised the eyebrows of a number of our colleagues here that the House leadership filed with the Committee on Rules today. It has been described as a resolution which will allow the House to…

we have all worked very hard on this committee to try to get the District of Columbia back to work and get the appropriations bill passed and so forth. Unfortunately, it is one of the bills that is getting caught in this massive debate…

What I am concerned about right now is that the interest on the national debt is the third largest expenditure in our entire budget right now. And that interest will exceed military spending in the next 2 years if we do not get it under…

Let me answer the question. If you have 30 days, and I am not one who says no CR. I am very concerned about these out-of-work employees. But my concern is that if we gave you 30 days, would you and your colleagues here tonight have a…

I wanted to answer the question with something practical, not necessarily philosophical, but strategically important, and that is when we had the November shutdown, the 6-day shutdown, you will remember we had a continuing resolution…

Are you saying then the only thing we are arguing is the coalition budget versus the Republican budget? If we can establish that, I bet we could wind this thing up.