May 3, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD—HOUSE H 4541

Can they go to Kansas? In Kansas

you have families who are farm families, and they have been averaging

$30,000 to $40,000 in government checks

over the last decade. According to an

article in the New York Times, they

get $30,000 to $40,000 for doing nothing,

except what they do raises the price of

food, and we pay more for food in New

York because we are keeping the price

of farm products high by subsidizing

them with taxpayers’ money.

There is something barbaric about

paying people not to grow food and

driving up the price so the poorest people have to pay more money. The farm

price program was created by the New

Deal, by Franklin Roosevelt, when

farmers were poor, to save poor farmers, when large numbers of people lived

on the land. But now we have less than

2 percent of the population of the United States living on farms, and we are

spending billions of dollars to take

care of those pretty well-to-do farmers

and the agribusinesses.

I want to read one more editorial

from the New York Times about the

farm program. This is a program which

we all accept nobody wants to cut. Recently the President made a trip to

Iowa, and he pledged that he would defend Federal farm subsidies to the end.

The New York Times editorial says

that farmers, quoting the New York

Times, farmers are the Nation’s richest

welfare recipients.

Farmers are the Nation’s richest welfare

recipients. Full-time farmers typically earn

four times as much as nonfarm families.

The Federal Government pays farmers and

huge agribusinesses not to grow crops or

send food abroad. Mr. Clinton says that is a

nifty way to boost exports, but taxpayers

who foot the bill might take exception.

The Federal program stifles food production, which jacks up prices and hurts both

consumers and the economy. The farm program costs taxpayers about $10 billion a year

and adds an equal amount to food bills, driving up the price of milk, fruit, sugar and

many other necessities by about 10 percent.

That quote was from the New York

Times editorial, which is entitled ‘‘Mr.

Clinton Bows to Farmers.’’

Many of those farmers live in Kansas,

the State of Kansas. Can we send New

York City’s poor to Kansas to share in

the welfare checks that the farmers

get? Our welfare checks average no

more than $600 for a family of three a

month, so surely the welfare recipients

in New York would greatly benefit if

they could get welfare checks at the

level of the checks that are being received by the farmers in Kansas.

Mr. Giuliano should know that there

is nowhere else for the poor to go. They

will not take them in Kansas; in Texas;

in Groton, CT; in Marietta, GA. They

have a right to stay in New York City.

The inhabitants have a right, the citizens have rights.

If a government cannot take care of

the needs of their citizens, they cannot

provide decent services, they cannot

provide educational opportunities, then

that government should resign. The

public officials who cannot do that

should resign. Do not exhort the people

to leave. That is barbaric. That is not

ethnic cleansing, it is economic cleansing, since you want all the poor to go.

First we had the tax on the illegal

immigrants. Then we had a tax on the

legal immigrants. Now we want all

poor people to go. That is barbaric. We

must resist that kind of barbarism.

In closing, what I am saying is that

the budget process is taking place at

every level in the country. In New

York State, the budget was supposed to

be completed and submitted on April 1.

Now it is more than a month later and

it is not completed because there is a

struggle under way in New York State

between the elite oppressive minority—

you have the same elite oppressive minority with the philosophy that the

poor are expendable, that you can

throw overboard certain people. You

have the high-technology barbarians in

control in New York State, and in New

York City, in city hall you have the

same philosophy in the mayor.

Yes, there are budget cuts that have

to be made. Yes, there is a need to balance the budget, and Democrats should

not get off the hook. We should come

forward with proposals about how the

budget should be balanced. We should

not hesitate to talk about revenue.

In New York City, the State has always robbed the city blind in terms of

revenue, doing very little for the city.

They have taken far too much from the

city. In New York City, you have a

Port of New York City, a Port Authority of New York-New Jersey which

owns all the most valuable land where

the airport is and the ships dock. Revenue that ought to be going to the city

is going to the Port Authority. That

ought to be corrected.

In New York City, you have two- and

three-family homeowners who pay

taxes which are far lower, about onefourth the taxes that are being paid by

the people who live in the suburbs surrounding New York. You have a number of ways that revenue could be increased.

Yes, we do need to decrease expenditures. Yes, we do need to adjust programs. There is not a program that has

ever been invented that could not be

trimmed, could not be adjusted, could

not be refined. All that should take

place in an atmosphere of an evolutionary process, and not a revolutionary

process which says that ‘‘We are going

to destroy, we are going to slash and

burn, we are going to have a blitzkrieg

attack on all the social programs that

were invented, that were developed

over the last 60 years.’’

We do not need to go into the budget

process next week with so much dread,

so much fear, so much foreboding. We

do not have to look forward to a process that is going to tear down and

wreck the best that America has ever

built.

b 1415

It could be very different. We could

go forward with a philosophy of FDR

ringing in our ears. There is nothing

radical or new. The ‘‘FDR’s Economic

Bill of Rights,’’ I ran across it in a

magazine the other day, and I will just

close with this. Franklin Delano Roosevelt said many years ago:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights

under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of

station, or race or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job

in the industries, or shops or farms or mines

of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of farmers to raise and sell their

products at a return which will give them

and their families a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and

small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom

from unfair competition and domination by

monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent

home;

The right of adequate medical care and the

opportunity to achieve and enjoy good

health;

The right of adequate protection from the

economic fears of old age, and sickness, and

accident and unemployment;

And finally, the right to a good education.

All of these ideas were espoused by

Franklin Roosevelt many years ago.

You have heard the Speaker of this

House quote Roosevelt and speak of

him admirably as a person who created

new order in our society. Why does he

want to tear down an order that was

created by Franklin Roosevelt as we go

forward in the budget process and appropriations process? This Nation is

great because carefully, painstakingly

we built a system that demonstrated

we care about everybody in America.

Let us not let the oppressive elite minority destroy what has been put there

by and for a caring majority.

APPOINTMENT AS MEMBERS OF

UNITED STATES DELEGATION OF

fMEXICO-UNITED STATES INTERPARLIAMENTARY GROUP

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr.

REGULA). Without objection, and pursuant to the provisions of 22 U.S.C. 276h,

the Chair announces the Speaker’s appointment of the following Members of

the House as members of the United

States delegation of the Mexico-United

States Interparliamentary Group for

the first session of the 104th Congress:

Mr. BALLENGER of North Carolina, vice

chairman; Mr. GILMAN of New York;

Mr. DREIER of California; Mr. SALMON

of Arizona; Mr. HAYWORTH of Arizona;

Mr. BROWNBACK of Kansas; Mr. DE LA

GARZA of Texas; Mr. GEJDENSON of Connecticut; Mr. COLEMAN of Texas; Mr.

MILLER of California; and Mr. RANGEL

of New York.

There was no objection.