June 7, 1995 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H 5687

What we tried to do with the timber

amendment that we had was to give

the Forest Service the tools and the responsibility to move into the forests

and move out the dead and diseased

trees. The President today in his veto

message said, and I am quoting, ‘‘I

have done more for logging than any

other single person in this country.’’

Well, the President told us his first

term here in 1993 that he was cutting

the budget deficit with his $100 billion

tax increase; then he came to Congress

and said he was increasing the deficit

by over $1 trillion in his 4 years in office. He told us that he was working to

balance the budget, and he did not. He

has told this Congress many things. His

story in foreign policy and Bosnia has

changed no fewer than six times just in

the last few weeks, so when he says

that he has done more for helping the

forests, the unemployed forest people

in the Pacific Northwest or other parts

of the country, it should be taken with

a grain of salt by now. Certainly if you

ask the forest families, the tens of

thousands of people who are unemployed because of his misinformation

and policy he has put in place in the

Pacific Northwest, they will tell you

very quickly how much he has done for

the resource in this Nation

So, those of us in Congress by a vote

of 277 in the House, which is almost

two-thirds of this body, spoke out for

forest health, and today the President

has vetoed that.

It will come back to him. It will be

back if there is another rescission

package brought forth. It will be back

in the Interior appropriations bill, because those of us that recognize the

true science in silviculture, the health

of our national forests, and recognize

the phony misinformation that the

President is getting, is wrong, we are

going to see that that legislation is put

back before him again and again.

His closing statement in his veto

message was that we had with our timber amendment abolished all environmental legislation. Clearly, he could

not have studied this himself. He took

this right out of the radical environmental fringe that houses itself in

Washington and puts out so much misinformation. It is ludicrous to think

that a timber salvage amendment

could abolish all of the environmental

legislation that this country has

passed in the last 20 years. It boggles

the mind to think that we could even

do it, much less have done it.

So I would ask the President to go

back and reconsider what he has just

said and the misinformation, and sign

this bill for the families of America

and the resources of this country and

our forest health.

previous order of the House, the gentleman from California [Mr. H

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

f UNTER] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

[Mr. HUNTER addressed the House.

His remarks will appear hereafter in

the Extensions of Remarks.]

CONSTITUENTS INTERESTED IN A

BALANCED BUDGET

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a

previous order of the House, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. KINGSTON] is

recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. KINGSTON. Mr. Speaker, during

the 10 days that we were home for the

break, the many constituents that I

met with had concerns on a lot of different subjects, budget matters, they

are very concerned about us balancing

the budget. I said many, many times

over the last 10 days that the third

largest expenditure of our national

budget is interest on the debt. And in 2

years that interest on the debt will exceed all military spending, all of the

expenditures for the Coast Guard, the

Army, the Navy, the Marines, and the

Air Force and so forth. We will pay

more money, more interest money to

the bond holders on the national debt

than we will for all of the armed services. I think this is absolutely atrocious, and found that most constituents agree. They want us, they are

screaming for us to balance this budget. They realize that there will be some

reductions in spending, some reductions in projections, and some elimination in consolidations of various programs, and yet what the folks of the

First District of Georgia are saying is

if you are going to balance the budget

and you are going to do it across the

board, that is fine. Do not do it on the

backs of the veterans, do not do it on

the backs of elderly, do not do it on the

backs of children, do it across the

board.

When I explain to them the Kasich

budget proposal, in most cases people

said that is a balanced approach, that

is the way to handle this tremendous

problem, because as we look at spending over a trillion dollars more than

the current budget allocation in the

next 7 years, people understand that in

many cases we are not talking about

budget cuts but we are talking about

reducing the projected increase.

b 2115

And yet people want that budget balanced.

They are also interested in this tax

relief. It is a shame that the United

States other body on the other side of

the hall has not quite caught on the

American people are sick and tired of

paying taxes.

The average middle-class family paid

a 2 percent tax burden in the 1950’s as

a percentage of Federal income tax. In

the 1970’s, that 2 percent went to 16

percent. In the 1990’s, it is 24 percent.

The middle-class families of America

today are paying 40 to 50 percent of

their income in taxes, and they are

sick and tired of it. they cannot afford

it.

And most families, both spouses are

working simply because of the economic necessity of paying taxes. It

does not get them ahead, it just keeps

them standing still and breaking even.

The middle class needs relief. The tax

relief bill passed by the House actually

benefitted 75 percent of the American

people in the middle-class category.

We have got to help the middle class,

and our package does that. But more

importantly than that, giving the people their own money back, not

confiscating it from them in the first

place, allows them to buy more hamburgers, more CD players, more cars,

more houses. When they do that, businesses expand. They create jobs. New

workers create new revenue. History

shows, and I went back to 1956, the

Treasury Department numbers, and

looked at it. Our revenues have increased every time taxes were low; the

revenues to the national budget actually increased.

And what is so important about that

is that our projection is that if the

economy grows over 1 percent more

than the current projection, then in

the next 7 years we will have another

$640 billion of revenue added to the current budget, and if that is the case, it

will be a lot easier to balance the budget without further reductions and caps

and so forth.

Although many people are saying,

‘‘Do not worry about those cuts,’’ because one of the major objectives we

want out of the 104th Congress is to reduce the size of government. People are

tired of government micromanagement. They are tired of Washington

bureaucrats telling them how to run

the show. They are saying, ‘‘We can

handle our problems just fine on a local

basis. Let our local nonprofits or our

for-profits handle it. Let our local city

councils and county commissions handle it. Let State governments do it.

Take things, particularly major decisionmaking, out of Washington.’’

Another thing I found that the folks

in the First District of Georgia are

very concerned about is welfare reform.

Simply put, they just do not want people who are able to work paid for not

working. The middle-class families are

out there working 40, 50, 60 hours a

week, breaking their back. They are

tired of doing it for the benefit of a

huge Washington bureaucracy and

able-bodied public assistance recipients. They are tired of it.

If somebody needs a helping hand, we

want to help them. But if they are just

going to take a free ride, then it is

time to tell them to get off the train

and help start fueling the engine with

the rest of us.

Madam Speaker, I found these things

over and over again, not just during

the current district work break but all

along as I have been in public office,

that people are saying this is what we

want, this is what we want out of

Washington, ‘‘We want less; we want

more personal freedom.’’

By unanimous consent, leave of abLEAVE OF ABSENCE

fsence was granted to: