Gilbert Gutknecht: “The good news about this freshman class, and we are happy to have the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] as an…”

“The good news about this freshman class, and we are happy to have the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] as an honorary member, is we are staying on offense, whether we are talking about campaign finance reform, lockbox reform, budget reform, and we are leading by example. As you say, we actually cut our own franking privileges by one-third in this Congress. We cut total legislative appropriations by $155 million, and again, you know, in a place where we talk about billions, that may not seem like a lot of money, but if we would reduce the entire Federal budget by that same percentage point, we would pay off the debt or we would get to a zero deficit within about 5 years rather than 7 years, and let me also say that we are contributing more to our pensions. We are reducing congressional pensions. I have a bill, and I hope you will all help me get it passed, which will limit pension accrual for Members of Congress to 12 years, which will mean the end of $100,000 pensions. It will mean the maximum pension a Member could collect would be $27,000.”