[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 107 (Friday, August 5, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 5, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                        OUR FORGETFUL ELECTORATE

                                 ______


                            HON. JACK BROOKS

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 5, 1994

  Mr. BROOKS. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend David Broder for his 
thoughtful column of August 3, 1994, entitled ``Our Forgetful 
Electorate.'' One year ago, this Congress passed President Clinton's 
budget and economic plan in the face of overwhelming Republican 
opposition. Since that date, our economy has achieved a 2.5-percent 
inflation rate, a 6-percent unemployment rate, and an increasing 
economic growth rate that's been adding 200,000 new jobs a month. This 
is an important editorial review of our economy. President Clinton was 
right last year to propose his economic plan and Congress was right in 
passing his budget. We have a healthy economy and it's due in large 
measure to President Clinton's forthright leadership. I recommend this 
column to my colleagues and I'd like to place it in the Record at this 
point.

       If one of the defects in the workings of our democracy is 
     the lack of accountability for members of Congress, the 
     voters are much more to blame than the politicians. Memories 
     are just too short.
       In the 1992 election, for example, far more members of 
     Congress were punished for their overdrafts in the House bank 
     than for their votes on the resolution authorizing the use of 
     force in the 1991 Persian Gulf showdown with Saddam Hussein. 
     I thought--and wrote--back then that the Democratic Party 
     would and should be held accountable for the fact that large 
     majorities of its members in both the House and Senate 
     opposed authorizing offensive action against Iraq when 
     President Bush sought Congress' approval.
       Democratic leaders predicted then that not one of their 
     incumbents would be defeated for opposing the war, and they 
     were right. But the voters were wrong to ignore the signal. 
     The Democrats' institutional failure to recognize what was--
     even before the lightning military victory--a clear-cut case 
     of justified use of force was significant. Even though Albert 
     Gore Jr., as a senator, supported Bush's action and Bill 
     Clinton, as a governor, implied that was also his view, the 
     government they head--reflecting the waverings of their 
     party--has failed to set forth any clear criteria for the 
     manner, time, place and conditions for U.S. military 
     intervention. Thus, the confusion of U.S. policy in the past 
     18 months in Bosnia, Somalia, Korea, Haiti and other hot 
     spots around the globe was foreshadowed by the Democrats' 
     dithering on the gulf.
       Whatever voters do, the press has a responsibility to keep 
     score on which party was right and which was wrong on big 
     policy questions. The biggest one since Clinton became 
     president occurred a year ago this week, with the passage of 
     his budget and economic plan. The party lines were drawn even 
     more sharply than on the Persian Gulf War; every single 
     Republican in the House and Senate opposed that budget. They 
     not only opposed it, they denounced it.
       Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) called it a 
     ``terrible bill. . . . It's not good for the economy, and 
     it's going to be terrible for small business.'' ``We have a 
     sick economy,'' said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), 
     ``and now we're bleeding it.''
       Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato (R-N.Y.) was particularly scathing 
     on the final day of Senate debate. He set up a blank chart, 
     which he said listed all the real deficit reductions in the 
     bill, and, imitating a carnival barker, bellowed, ``Step 
     right up, ladies and gentlemen, with Magical Bill and his 
     band of liberal magicians. . . . Smoke and mirrors!''
       It was much the same the day before, when the House voted, 
     Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas), who would be chairman of the Ways 
     and Means Committee in a Republican Congress, said, ``The 
     president claims the vast majority of these taxes will hurt 
     only the rich, and that is baloney. . . . Americans know 
     these new tax increases are job-killing poison for the 
     economy.''
       Rep. Richard Armey (R-Tex.), chairman of the House 
     Republican Conference and the top Republican on the Joint 
     Economic Committee, said, ``Taxes will go up. The economy 
     will sputter along . . . and the deficit will reach another 
     record high. . . . It is a recipe for disaster.''
       And Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), in line to be speaker if 
     the House goes Republican, said, ``If I were only a 
     Republican partisan, I would hope that this tax increase bill 
     would pass by one or two votes so that every Democrat who 
     voted yes would bear the responsibility for a massive tax 
     increase and the job-killing recession it will lead to.''
       The budget did pass the House by two votes, the Senate by 
     one. And where are we now? A year later, unemployment is at 6 
     percent, a 3\1/2\-year low. Inflation in the last year has 
     been averaging 2.5 percent, as low as it ever gets. After 
     spurting in the last quarter of 1993, following passage of 
     the budget, the economy has been growing at a steady pace, 
     between 3 percent and 4 percent, for the past six months. It 
     has been adding more than 200,000 net new jobs a month.
       Business investment in new plants and equipment--a key to 
     future productivity and wage increases--rose 13.4 percent 
     over the past year. Last year saw the largest number of new 
     business incorporations since World War II. According to the 
     Congressional Budget Office, the federal deficit for the 
     current fiscal year has been cut from $291 billion (the 
     estimate when Clinton came in) to $223 billion; the deficit 
     for next year, from $284 billion to $171 billion. The higher 
     income taxes of which the Republicans warned were paid this 
     year by 1.2 percent of those filing--the wealthiest 1.4 
     million--exactly as the administration had insisted. Millions 
     more of the working poor had their taxes cut, raising them 
     above the poverty line.
       None of this proves that the Democrats will be right next 
     time on the economy any more than the Persian Gulf vote 
     proved they will always be wrong on national security 
     matters. But it is foolish to ignore politicians' records. If 
     we want accountability, we have to remember what they said 
     and how they voted.

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