December 15, 1999
Web posted at: 4:00 p.m. EDT

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(CNN) - Representative J.C. Watts (R-OK) joined CNN.com on December 15, 1999, for one of two discussions with members of Congress to wrap up the1999 Congressional year. Watts joined the chat from Oklahoma and CNN.com provided a typist for him. The following is an edited transcript of the chat.

Chat Moderator: Welcome, Congressman Watts!

Rep. Watts: Hello, everyone. I'm delighted to be with you today.

Chat Moderator: Some people are calling this Congress the "Do Nothing Congress." How do you respond?

Rep. Watts: If strengthening our national defense, finding a way to put more dollars into education and send those dollars back home to where teachers and administrators can determine how those dollars are spent instead of Washington; if paying down our public debt, protecting people's social security retirement from the spenders in Washington, and giving the American people tax relief equates to a "do nothing congress," then I guess we were ineffective.

Question from mossohio: What would you say are Congress' greatest accomplishments in 99?

Rep. Watts: I personally believe that we did several important things. First, we defeated a proposal to raise taxes and fees. Also, we protected the Social Security surplus, which equates to people's retirement money. And we were able to give states more flexibility in spending education dollars. In addition, we paid down the public debt.

Paying down this public debit is important. Considering that we paid $300 billion in interest alone on our debt, paying it down will allow us to take that money that had been used to pay interest and use it to for retirement security, education, national defense, and improving our infrastructure. All these are critical things that we can do with money that no longer has to pay interest on the debt.

Question from EconomistNY: Congress may have protected the surplus, but what actions are you proposing to shore up the future of Social Security?

Rep. Watts: Good question. Our objective at the start of the 106th Congress was to first protect the surplus, not use it to pay the government's bills.

We wanted to set aside the surplus, and say that this surplus should only be used for Social Security and Medicare, nothing else. We have accomplished that over the past two years. Now that we have set those surplus dollars aside, I think we can have the debate or discussion as to how we reform the Social Security system. In 2014, Social Security will pay out more money than it takes in.

Under the current system, Social Security will be bankrupt about 2032. How do we avoid that? I think we have one of three or four options that we can exercise. We can cut benefits, but people have paid into the system, so they don't deserve to have their benefits cut.

Or, we can raise social security taxes. However, people are already paying 45 to 52 cents of every dollar they make into some government tax or fee, so I am opposed to additional taxes.

We could raise the retirement age, and we have already raised the retirement age from 65 to 67 for people born after 1960. Or, we could get more mileage out of our current income pool. The way to do that is to allow people to invest a portion of social security in a personal investment account, and this is the method I support. The fact that you would get a much better return on those dollars is a feasible way to get more mileage out of our current income pool.

Question from Steve: Presidential candidate McCain has proposed an overhaul to the health care system. Are you in favor of his proposed plan?

Rep. Watts: I don't know all the details of McCain's plan. There has to be some reforms implemented in our current health care system in order to stabilize it. There are different facets of health care to consider: medicare, medicaid, HMO reform. These are the facets that the nation is talking about. There are things that people are concerned about, but I cannot comment on the McCain proposal because I am not familiar with it.

Question from goou: What legislation would you like to see passed next year?

Rep. Watts: Whenever you are trying to pass legislation, it has to go through committee markups and debate, discussion, and other steps before getting to the floor.

There are several principles in dealing with legislation that we need to adhere to. One, we should not have any legislation that raises taxes or fees. Two, no legislation should use the social security retirement money to pay for.

Three, we should continue to work toward paying down our public debt. I will be working on legislation this spring, or the second half of the 106th Congress, called the American Community Renewal Act. This legislation targets underserved communities, poor communities, rural America in areas of savings, economic development, and home ownership.

It also allows faith-based organizations to get involved in helping to solve many of the problems that we are facing in society. People would have the option of using faith-based organizations for drug rehabilitation, getting kids out of gangs, doing things that help get families back together, or whatever the crisis might be. I believe that people should have the option of using faith-based entities.

Question from Do: Our kids are killing each other. What will Congress do to address their lack of respect for life?

Rep. Watts: We must be willing to do more than just look at how these kids are committing these crimes, but we must look at WHY kids are doing these things. In looking at why some 16 or 17-year olds have this disrespect for life, I believe that it stems from the fact that we have encouraged a pretty cavalier attitude about death over the past 35 or 40 years.

I think we have ask the tough questions about the social policies that we have advocated over the past 35 or 40 years. I don't think we can continue to advocate an attitude of "anything goes" or if it feels good do it. We cannot continue promoting or supporting a "if you can't handle it, then drink or do drugs" attitude, either. Ultimately, we can no longer continue to pretend that we have no personal responsibility.

Personal responsibility does not mean that you are perfect. It means that if I or you make a choice, then we have to be responsible for that choice, not blame other people for the choices we make.

Also, I am not willing to write off all young people because for every 17-year old that ends up on the cover of Time Magazine for some bad decision or something bad that they did in their school, I can show you half a million young people that get up every day thinking about how they are going to make a positive contribution to their school, community, state, church, synagogue, etc. I am not willing to paint young people with a broad brush and say they are bad.

We have to look deeper than just how kids are doing bad things, but look at why.

Question from Douglas: Recently Governor Bush came out strongly against gun control as a measure towards curbing youth violence. He stated that he felt "certain jail" was the best deterrent. Do you agree with him on this?

Rep. Watts: I think Gov. Bush makes a very point. Gun control - look at what happened Columbine. Klebold and Harris violated 20 different gun laws in that incident. We are being naive to think that another gun law would have prevented that tragedy.

What we need to do is continue encouraging good police work, giving gun safety courses, creating opportunity for people. We have to be more involved as a community. Looking at numbers over the past four years from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, gun-related deaths have plummeted. As a matter of fact, we are the lowest level of gun violence in 30 years.

As I said, we need to look at WHY these kids are doing these things. That's the great question.

Question from lukeduke: What do you think that Congress's main goals will be in the upcoming session?

Rep. Watts: I think we are going to try to continue building on the legitimate successes that we had in the first half of the 106th Congress. The president vetoed our tax relief package, even though we were only proposing to give back 3 pennies to the working men and women of the country. So we need to get that passed again.

We need to continue paying down our public debt. I think we will see Congress do more to pay down this debt.

Also, Congress will be addressing things that will protect Social Security retirement account. The fourth thing that I have not mentioned yet is that I will be proposing an effort to use our oversight process to do things to make sure that we are saving money, not abusing money, and that we are not spending money on fraudulent activity. I think it is important that the government be accountable in its budgeting, just like every other American has to do each week or each month.

Around the first of November, we found out from General Accounting Office audit, there is $800 billion in government assets unaccounted for. When real Americans go to the grocery store every day, every week and use coupons to save money on a box of cereal, I think it is important that Washington do things to save money, cut out the waste, fraud, and abuse so that we can have more dollars to fund to critical areas of our federal government, i.e., health care, veterans benefits, national defense, etc.

Question from Vice: Will the Republicans make character a central issue in 2000?

Rep. Watts: I don't think that character is just important to Republicans. I think character is important to the American people. It should always be an issue to the American people.

In spite of what we thought here a year ago, we have found that the American people never said that character was not important. I think people do want their leaders to be men and women of character.

Let me also add that this does not mean that our leaders are going to be perfect. They are not perfect servants, but public servants. Occasionally they are going to make bad choices, make public errors. But that is where personal responsibility comes in. When our faults and failures and shortcomings are revealed, then we have to be personally responsible for them.

Question from drm: Some have said you might be a vice presidential candidate for 2000. How do you respond?

Rep. Watts: I am trying to uncomplicate my life!

Chat Moderator: Thank you, Congressman Watts!

Rep. Watts: Thank you for having me.