[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 142 (Tuesday, October 4, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 4, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
           TAX-AND-SPEND PARTY MISSES THE MARK ON REAGAN ERA

  (Mr. HEFLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HEFLEY. Mr. Speaker, last week when Republicans unveiled their 
contract with America, Democrats went scurrying to the nearest camera 
to deride it. Their biggest complaint: Adoption of the GOP package 
might bring us back to the bad old days of President Ronald Reagan.
  You remember those days. Those were the days when we witnessed the 
longest period of sustained economic growth in our Nation's history. 
Those were the days when we reversed the dangerous course charted by 
the Carter administration--a tax-and-spend program which gave us 
double-digit inflation, double-digit interest rates, and double-digit 
unemployment.
  Democrats like to talk about the Reagan deficits. What they don't 
tell you is that the Democrats controlled this House then, as they do 
now. They controlled the purse strings then, as they do now. Never, in 
his 8 years in office, did President Reagan get the spending cuts he 
asked for. Never did the Democrats give him the budget he submitted to 
Congress.
  It's always amusing to see Democrat leaders rise up in righteous 
indignation and pontificate about the Reagan budget deficits--the 
deficits they created and refused to cut.
  Mr. Speaker, if the tax-and-spend party wants to criticize 
Republicans for offering the American people a real reform package, 
they're going to have to do a little better than that.

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