Date: 1998-03-04
Speaker: BOB SCHAFFER (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Colorado

Mr. Speaker. tonight I am joined by some of my colleagues from the freshman Republican class. which includes individuals who were elected in 1996 and were sworn in at the beginning of 1997. This class is one that has come to this microphone often during special orders to talk about the agendas that we have set forward and that we are fighting to promote here in Congress. but more recently. we have had the opportunity to spend a considerable amount of time back at home in our respective districts. holding and conducting a number of town meetings and visiting with constituents. and speaking about the issues that are taking place here. and describing ou activities to our constituents. So tonight our focus is primarily to report back to the Congress and to our colleagues about those things we have heard from our constituents. and to in fact explain the attitudes and opinions and beliefs of those constituents to the rest of the House. With that in mind I am joined tonight by the gentleman from South Dakota and also the gentleman from great State of Minnesota. Mr. ROY BLUNT. is here. We may be joined by another gentleman from the State of Michigan. who has suggested he may join us tonight. I just wanted to have a general discussion with the Members here. and yield time back and forth and talk about the things we have heard. As for me. conducting several town meetings and visiting throughout the country. throughout the district. rather. the concern for the key issue in the country of the national debt seemed to be first and foremost on peoples minds. at about $5.5 trillion. That debt. when divided by the number of citizens in the country. comes to about $20.000 per man. woman. and child. People are quite concerned about providing some real relief with that debt. People are encouraged by the news that we have heard and the reports that the economy has done so well and has allowed the American taxpayers to catch up with the spending of Congress. so we anticipate a budget surplus. that is to suggest that the debt may be eliminated. and that is. again. according to the way the government does its accounting. But the real question is what to do with a surplus if one is found to exist. What I am hearing for the most part is that people would like to see us find some strategy to retire that debt. either pay it off directly. to try to find a way to relieve the tax burden on the American people in a way that allows them to be more productive. and generate more revenue to the Federal Government through tax relief. and a number of other strategies that have been suggested to me. People would still like to see us move forward on our goals to provide further tax relief. to rein in the abuses at the IRS. and to begin treating taxpayers as though we are innocent until the IRS proves we might be guilty. rather than the other way around. as the burden is unfairly placed on taxpayers today when there is some question over tax obligation and liability. Education was the third key issue that I had heard back in my district. We have had a lot of discussion about the government trying to usurp an independent national testing strategy that we have today. with independent operations that provide national benchmarks for our schools. The Clinton administration. as we know. has been trying to establish a national testing procedure through the U.S. Department of Education in a governmentowned sort of fashion. Many people in my district. in fact most people who are familiar with the proposal. have flatly rejected it and believe that we ought to defer authority back to our States and really focus on the freedom to teach and liberty to learn at the most local level. So that is a general sense of the key issues that have been raised in my town meetings. Mr. Speaker. I yield to the gentleman from South Dakota to tell us what he has been hearing.