[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 12 (Friday, January 20, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E144]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       SPEECH BY HEATHER HIGGINS

                                 ______


                           HON. NEWT GINGRICH

                               of georgia

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, January 20, 1995
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, this speech by Heather Higgins was 
delivered at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's Conference on 
Democracy in Virtual America, held on January 10, 1995. Heather Higgins 
is a senior fellow at the Progress and Freedom Foundation and the 
executive director of the Council on Culture and Community in New York. 
I commend it to my colleagues.

       Regarding the balanced budget amendment, I would commend to 
     all of you a piece that Milton Friedman had in the Wall 
     Street Journal earlier this week, pointing out that not all 
     balanced budget amendments are equal, that some are 
     singularly pernicious, if they do not have the necessary 
     constraints attached.
       I would hope that we would have a balanced budget, and a 
     balanced budget amendment, if it is so written, should be 
     part of a shift in the underlying philosophical premise--one 
     of several that I expect we will see--to accompany this 
     change in thinking, this third wave.
       We are rediscovering the understanding that it is not 
     ethical to expect some future generation to pay for you, that 
     the moral thing to do is to pay your own way as you go. And 
     so, within that context, I expect that we will be balancing 
     our budget.
       There are other ethical and philosophical shifts which I 
     think will accompany that. Another thing that I think you'll 
     see increasingly discussed in line with this is a flat tax 
     proposal. The reason being that I think that you're going to 
     see a redefinition of what constitutes fairness. Fairness 
     will no longer be taking more money from some people that you 
     do from others because they have more, but fairness will be 
     that all dollars are taxed the same, and it is up to you to 
     decide how much you're doing to earn, and therefore, how much 
     you're going to pay.
       That goes hand in hand with another idea: judge programs by 
     their results, not by their intentions. The intentions of a 
     progressive tax, for example, are well-intended, but the 
     results are not necessarily, in terms of revenue, what one 
     would hope.
       Similarly, in terms of most of our welfare programs, we 
     have judged people by the policy of good intentions, and the 
     politics of good intentions. In part, I think it is because 
     the left has always assumed that with sufficient will, 
     anything can be changed. And so, it becomes a question of 
     having enough will, enough good intention. And that's part of 
     the reason that people who don't share that will and that 
     intention are castigated and vilified so thoroughly. They are 
     clearly obstructing the progress that is inevitable.
       A third area where you could see real change in the 
     underlying philosophy, and I certainly hope that we will, is 
     that you will see that all Americans are treated first as 
     Americans, not as members of groups, not as members of 
     economic classes or particular races or genders. But we have 
     to go back to the idea that we are all Americans, and that 
     this is a land of possibility. And it is stupid to have 
     higher taxes on one group than on another, because 
     ultimately, we are not a static society.
       And we need to return to that notion that we are all equal 
     as citizens.
       That all falls within the context of a reemphasis on the 
     civil society. I think that you're going to find that 
     reemphasis taking place, in large part, because the 
     understanding is going to come about that capitalism can 
     never have a human face. No economic system can. No 
     government can. Only human beings can have human faces. And 
     that radically will shift how we structure our activities and 
     our organizations.
       So, for example, I think that one of the most exciting 
     facets of this change to a third wave is the Jeffersonian 
     vision which required a small community to function when he 
     was writing, now becomes technically possible in a much 
     larger society.
       You also will find, for example, within that vision, a 
     shift away from the ideas of entitlements and rights, which 
     are not, and never have been rights at all, to an idea of 
     moral obligation, which is a much higher calling. And I think 
     that that is where your human face will start to come in.
       And you will find, too, that compassion will be properly 
     defined as an individual activity, not as a societal or 
     governmental activity which, by definition, becomes a 
     contradiction in terms, and as far from compassion as one can 
     possibly get.


     

                          ____________________