[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 145 (Friday, October 7, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: October 7, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                         THE CHARGE OF GRIDLOCK

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I would like also to say a few words in 
response to our President.
  Our President today held a press conference and we, as Members of 
Congress, were apparently very much on his mind. In fact, the AP story 
says:

       President Clinton today ridiculed Republicans in Congress 
     for blocking his legislative agenda, accusing them of 
     embracing a policy of stop it, slow it, kill it, or just talk 
     it to death.

  He then accuses Republicans of wanting to take America back to the 
Reagan-Bush years.
  Mr. President, I want to thank President Clinton for that 
advertisement. In truth, I would like to take America further than 
Presidents Reagan and Bush ever took it, but I think most Americans 
would like to go back to the Reagan years. I think if they had a choice 
between the Reagan years and the direction of the Clinton years they 
would choose the Reagan years.
  And our President notes that his contract is with the American people 
for the future. I would say, Mr. President, not very long into the 
future.
  I would like to respond very briefly to this charge of gridlock. I 
find it absolutely astounding that, in Washington, DC, progress is 
measured by how many bills you pass, by how many taxes you raise, by 
how much money you spend, by how many new agencies and bureaucracies 
you create.
  I would imagine that if we could go out into America on Main Street 
in Mexia, Texas, that we would find that their idea of progress is 
exactly the opposite.
  I hope that someday we have a Congress where a President will stand 
up and say: This Congress repealed 641 laws; this Congress terminated 
so many agencies; this Congress closed so many departments; this 
Congress cut so much spending; this Congress cut so much in the way of 
taxes.
  I believe that this idea that seems fixed in the minds of Washington 
and, quite frankly, in the national media, that to say ``no'' is a bad 
thing is out of touch with reality.
  I believe more than anything else that this Congress will be 
remembered for having killed the President's health care plan. I would 
like to remind my colleagues that the President's health care plan did 
not die because the President was not a great salesman. The President 
is a great salesman. The First Lady is even a better salesman. The 
President has the biggest megaphone in history.
  The President's health care plan died because, try as he did, the 
President could never convince the American people that we ought to 
tear down the greatest health care system in history and rebuild it in 
the image of the Post Office. The American people wanted the 
President's health care plan stopped.
  In my opinion, when this Congress is remembered--and I believe some 
elements of it will be--it is going to be remembered most as the 
Congress that, at the critical moment, when we were going down the 
wrong road at 100 miles an hour headed towards socialized medicine, we 
had a few Members who were willing to stand up and say ``no.''
  I remember vividly 13 months ago we had a bunch of Republican 
pollsters come to Capitol Hill and say, ``It's political suicide to 
stand up and say you're opposed to the President's health care plan. 
You can't take this thing on head-on. In some form it is going to pass 
and what you have got to try to do is to make marginal changes.''
  All three of the major auto makers were for the President's health 
care plan because they were being bought off by the taxpayer picking up 
health care for their early retirees. The American Medical Association 
could not make up its mind where it stood on a fundamental issue of our 
time: Do you believe in private medicine? The American Hospital 
Association was going to have the Government come in and solve all its 
problems. Big business was, at best, not helpful and in many cases was 
neutral in the whole debate.
  But an interesting thing happened on the way to a Government takeover 
of the health care system. And the interesting thing that happened is 
the average American citizen got involved in the debate. People all 
over America started to think about what it was going to be like when 
Government made health care decisions for them.
  At the peak of that debate, I got 7,000 first-class letters a day. At 
the peak of that debate, from 6 in the morning to midnight, every phone 
in my office and every other office on Capitol Hill rang off the hook 
and people basically had one message--stop the Clinton health care 
plan.
  And I am happy to say, Mr. President, that we stopped the President's 
health care plan.
  So when the President is standing up and lamenting the death of his 
health care plan as being an evidence of lack of progress in this 
Congress, I do not believe that Bill Clinton is speaking for the 
American people. I believe when Americans go to bed at night and they 
get down on their knees and they thank the good Lord for good things 
that have happened to them, one of the things they thank him for is 
that we defeated the President's health care bill.
  I can remember vividly, Mr. President, when President Clinton gave 
the speech that we all saw on television where he pounded the podium 
and said, ``Whenever I want something done, all the Republicans can say 
is no, no, no, no, no.''
  Well, I think when the American people on November 8 go back and look 
at the list the President wanted us to say yes to--whether you are 
talking about taxing Social Security or taxing gasoline or taxing small 
business or a so-called stimulus package that would have built ice-
skating rink warming huts in Connecticut and alpine slides in Puerto 
Rico, or whether you are talking about U.N. control of U.S. troops or 
invading Haiti--I think, when the American people look at that list of 
items, that their answer is remarkably similar to the answer that the 
President accuses Republicans of having given, and that answer is no, 
no, no, no, no.
  We are going to have a vote on health care, but not in this Congress. 
In fact, yesterday, when we had the adoption of a motion to proceed, it 
formally killed the President's health care plan by taking it off the 
agenda of this Congress. But it had died a long time ago.
  But the President is going to get his vote on health care and he is 
going to get that vote on November 8, because I think the American 
people understand that the President has not changed his mind and the 
President has not changed his heart on health care. The President still 
wants a Government-dominated health care plan. He still has a dream of 
Government running the health care system. And in the next Congress he 
is going to make a proposal that is going to be remarkably similar in 
everything but its name to the proposal that he made in this Congress.
  If people are opposed to that plan, they have an opportunity to go 
out and vote on November 8. They have an opportunity to vote for people 
who will not vote for the President's health care plan, and they have 
an opportunity, it seems to me, to vote for a new approach in health 
care reform.
  This criticism that somehow saying no to the President's plan--
whether that plan is a tax increase or spending increase or is 
Government-dominated health care--this idea that that is a negative 
thing, it seems to me, is out of touch with reality and with the 
American people.
  When you are on the wrong road going in the wrong direction, speeding 
up does not help you. The only thing that helps you is to stop, get 
directions, turn around, and get on the right road going in the right 
direction.
  I believe that this Congress, more than anything else, has done a 
good job in stopping the President's proposal, stopping the President's 
ability to have the Government take over and run the health care 
system, stopping the President's ability to spend money on programs 
that we do not need, that we cannot afford. And I believe when people 
look back at this Congress, the best things we did were the things 
where we said no.
  The President says today, which I guess is a recognition on his part 
that we are about to have a lot more Republicans in Congress, that he 
wants to work with Republicans. Let me assure the President that we 
want to work with him.
  When the President supported NAFTA--and might I say that it was a 
delayed, beleaguered support to begin with, until the issue built up a 
head of steam--I am proud to say that it was Republicans who stood up 
and first supported the President on NAFTA. If the President will start 
doing what he said he would do in the campaign, with programs like 
truly reinventing Government, reducing the bureaucracy, expanding the 
freedom of the people, letting working Americans keep more of what they 
earn by passing a middle-class tax cut, being a new kind of Democrat--
when the President does the things he promised to do in the campaign he 
is going to have a lot more Republican support than he has had. But the 
President has not had Republican support and will not have Republican 
support so long as the President is trying to do things that he told 
the American people that he would not do.
  I believe the American people have become convinced that the 
President was elected under false pretenses; that the President told 
the American people that he was a new kind of Democrat but he has 
turned out to be not a new kind of Democrat; that the President told 
the American people he was going to cut middle-class taxes but he 
raised taxes on middle-class retirees by taxing Social Security, when 
he taxed gasoline, when he taxed small business. When the President 
said he was going to cut wasteful spending I do not think the American 
people had the so-called stimulus package, or the so-called crime 
package in mind.
  When the President said he was going to get tough on criminals, I do 
not think the American people conceived that as meaning $5 billion more 
social spending, nor do I believe the American people thought that 
entailed overturning mandatory minimum sentencing for drug felons who, 
in many cases, are trying to sell drugs at the door of every junior 
high school in America.
  So, if the President wants to work with Congress and wants to work 
with Republicans, it seems to me that the President needs to get back 
to the agenda that he outlined in the campaign. I am happy to say that 
when the President has moved away from that agenda he has had strong 
Republican opposition. And as long as Bill Clinton is trying to raise 
taxes, increase spending, tear down defense, use the American military 
as a police force in a foreign land, and have the Government take over 
and run the health care system, he is going to face the strong 
opposition of Republicans, and more importantly he is going to face the 
strong opposition of the American people.
  One final point. I know many of my colleagues want to speak. But let 
me make this point. When the President sent his health care bill to 
Congress he and members of his administration said: If Republicans 
oppose this bill they are going to be held accountable at the polls.
  We opposed the bill and we killed the bill. Hold us accountable. But 
hold accountable the people who were for the bill. Hold accountable the 
Democrats who wanted the Government to take over and run the health 
care system. Hold accountable those people who signed on to the bill 
who, today, all over the country, are running away from it. Health care 
is an issue in this campaign. It is a dominant issue. Because the only 
time the American people are going to have a vote on health care 
directly is when they go to the polls on November 8. If they do not 
want the Clinton health care plan they have an opportunity to go to the 
polls and vote for the people who opposed it and vote against the 
people who were for it. I just have a feeling that is exactly what the 
American people are going to do.
  So, I am delighted to have had an opportunity to come down and 
respond to the President. I always try to work with the President when 
I support what he is doing. But I do not support most of the things 
that the President is trying to do. But, more important, the American 
people do not support it. All the President has to do to get more 
support from the American people and more support from Republicans is 
to do more of the things he said he would do in the election and fewer 
of the things that he has done since he has been President.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware is recognized.

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