[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 94 (Tuesday, July 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         THE POOR AREN'T POORER

  (Mr. EWING asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. EWING. Mr. Speaker, according to article in U.S. News & World 
Report, the poor didn't get poorer during the Reagan-Bush years. 
Despite the claims based on the class war mindset of this Democratic 
administration, the poor did better during the Republican 
administration than they will during the Clinton administration.
  Here is what the story says: ``Research by a number of prominent 
scholars suggests that much of the accepted wisdom about the poorest 
households is wrong. The tax changes and domestic-program cuts of 
Ronald Reagan and George Bush did not increase inequality; in fact, 
income inequality and poverty levels are significantly lower today than 
earlier in the century, and in many respects the material lot of poor 
families actually improved during the past two decades.''
  Mr. Speaker, this confirms what Republicans have been saying all 
along: Bigger government does not help the poor. Better opportunity 
does.
  And this opportunity is not promoted with job-killing employer 
mandates, business-killing higher taxes, and Big Government bureaucracy 
and excessive regulation on the private sector.

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