[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 14 (Tuesday, January 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H543-H544]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


             THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT REAL ISSUES DISCUSSED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to the President's 
speech tonight. Not because he is going to deliver a great speech, 
because he always does, and not because of the excitement I am going to 
feel as an average citizen who 1 year ago was knocking door to door in 
a grassroots campaign to get here, because I will be excited, and not 
because his speech will reflect undoubtedly the conservative revolution 
of the 1994 election, because it will.
  I look forward to the President's speech tonight because I am really 
curious and genuinely want to know if there is a member of the old 
guard out there that actually has a new idea on where to take this 
country.
  For the past 3 weeks, since I have been here, I have been hearing 
speeches about Connie Chung and book deals and Nazi historians and now 
Energizer bunnies, when the fact of the matter is all of those things 
are nothing more than a smokescreen to deflect attention away from the 
fact that we as Republicans are putting forward an aggressive agenda 
that America wants.
  I am curious. What does the Connie Chung debate do for children in 
inner cities that are hungry? What is the Speaker's book deal going to 
do for the average citizen, middle-class citizen that is having trouble 
going from paycheck to paycheck paying their bills, trying to put aside 
a few dollars for their children's education, trying to put aside a few 
dollars for retirement? What does it do? It does absolutely nothing.
  What does it do to answer the difficult questions that are going to 
be facing us on how we balance our budget, how we make this Federal 
Government do what average middle-class citizens have had to do 
forever, and, that is, balance their checkbooks. It does absolutely 
nothing.
  I cannot believe that the party of F.D.R. and the party of Harry 
Truman and of J.F.K. and of Bobby Kennedy, I cannot believe they cannot 
come up here and speak to the issues that will affect this country and 
this land.
  I understand about partisan politics. I understand that it certainly 
happened on both sides of the aisle. But I would ask Members of the 
Democratic Party to follow the example of the gentlewoman from 
Connecticut, who came up a few short minutes ago and actually discussed 
welfare reform and talked about why she believed the Republicans' 
version of welfare reform did not make sense. Did I agree with her? No. 
Did I get something out of her discussion, though? Yes. It is a 
starting point for us to debate the issues.
   [[Page H544]] I am not overstating the issue when I say that there 
are children that are literally starving in our inner cities. I am not 
overstating the issue when I say you can go across this world to Third 
World countries and find Third World country citizens that are living 
better than many citizens in the South Bronx, that are living better 
than many of our citizens in South Central L.A., that are living better 
than many Americans across this country that go to bed every night 
fearing for their lives, wondering whether they will wake up in the 
morning alive, whether their children will wake up in the morning 
alive, what will happen to their children when they go to school, when 
they have to pass drug dealers to go to school and make the decision 
every step along the line. Do I play by the rules, do I play fair? What 
do I do?
  Those are the questions that are supposed to be brought to the floor 
of this House. And when you talk about a book deal and compare it to 
Speaker Wright's book deal, what are you doing? Read the Washington 
Post. The Washington Post this week editorialized that the book deal 
was not the same as Speaker Wright's book deal, that it may have been 
bad politics but it was not inherently illegal, or improper, or 
unethical.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time in 1995 for us to turn our eyes and ears and 
open our minds to the real issues that are facing this country? That as 
we are $4 trillion in debt, as our inner cities are crumbling, it is 
time to address the issues that really matter. That is what Americans 
demand of us and that is what we want.


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