we had an ivan the terrible in the russian romanov dynasty. we had -- i'm sure they'd all like to be peter the great or kathryn the great, have the great after their name, but i guess we can make up names for them. the question is why. i think it's a question the administration ought to answer. i'm not the only one asking these questions. the statement from senator be robert byrd said the rapid and easy accumulation of power by white house staff can threaten the constitutional system of checks and balances. at the, white house staff has taken direction and control of problematic areas that are the statutory responsibility of senate confirmed officials. he's raising the same issue i was raising a few minutes ago. that is these people don't go through the confirmation process. there's no senators looking and seeing what kind of reputation these people have, what they are doing-with a -- doing -- what they have done in the past. where their area of expertise is. whether or not this is the most qualified person. whether it's a person who would mee

so, the romanovs in 300 years had 18 czars, the americans in 146 days have it 2 -- 22 czars. i'm very pleased to see that i'm not by myself today. i have a good friend, my good friend and colleague, classmate, steve king from iowa is here, steeveb's always ready to have some fun -- steve's always ready to have some fun. what do you think about all this? i yield you such time as you may wish to consume. mr. king: i so much appreciate you bringing this issue to the floor of the house of representatives and i appreciate the chance to address madam speaker in this subject matter. i have not seen this list of czars, i was actually, i think i went home for the weekend with 19 czars and arrived back in washington with 22 czars. there might have been three materialized over the weekend and i look down through this list and the first thing that hits me is, well, let's see, border czar, i'm a ranking member of the immigration subcommittee, never heard of him. go right down the list. a few i've heard of but not very many. i don't think they have a very high profile but czar, czar, czar,

1900, and i said to you in 1908, by the year 2000 all of the european empires will be gone, the romanovs, the turks, the great century will be the rise of american power, china and japan and korea will be great economic powers. and in the middle will be israel that is the great military force. they would carry me out, give me medication, and assure me if i tried to help myself i could be helped. [laughter] but it is not just the 19th century brick if at the beginning of the 18th century i would say to you by the end of this century, a great new global power would be the united states, if i said that in 1800, the ottoman empire is finished, you will not worry about it, the british will conquer africa and by the way india as well. again you would think me mad. because the worst way to approach to thinking about the future is to use common sense. [laughter] and that is the only overriding principle that i have discovered in history if i stand in 1980 and say 1990 the soviet union would collapse or in 1960 the united states would fight a war with the communist or the vietnamese, we would los