[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 24 (Tuesday, February 7, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H1348-H1357]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
A TRIBUTE TO RONALD REAGAN
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from New York, [Mr. Solomon] is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I take this special order tonight to pay
tribute to a great American, the greatest American that I have ever
known, and that is President Ronald Reagan. As you know, I had intended
to hold this event last night as a birthday present for the former
President, but the House was occupied on an even better birthday
present, passage of the line item veto. And what better birthday
present
[[Page H1349]] could be offered to the President and to Mrs. Reagan
than to complete the unfinished business of the Reagan revolution?
I know I speak for every Member of this House, Mr. Speaker, and
virtually all Americans in offering President Reagan and his beloved
First Lady, Nancy, our prayers and our very best wishes on this very
wonderful occasion.
Mr. Speaker, what do you get for the man who has everything, so that
saying goes? Well, Mr. Speaker, as we observe President Reagan's
birthday, a better question is how do we appropriately honor a man who
has done so much for us, for our country and for the cause of freedom
around the world? Our tribute this evening should extend beyond the
President's accomplishments in office, although they are numerous, too
numerous to mention here tonight.
Let us examine Ronald Reagan's record with the benefit of historical
reflections. The story has been told that during his darkest hours,
President Nixon was reassured by those around him that history would
treat him well. Ever sharp and skeptical, President Nixon shot back,
``That depends on who is writing the history.'' In the case of Ronald
Reagan, Mr. Speaker, most of those writing the history of his
Presidency have done everything in their power to turn light into
darkness, achievement into failure and hope into despair.
Those of us who stood shoulder to shoulder with Ronald Reagan from
the very beginning are here today on the occasion of his 84th birthday
to say that we are not going to let them get away with it anymore.
Ronald Reagan's views now occupy the center, the main street, of
American politics. Look at some recent House votes, the balanced budget
amendment passed this House by 300 to 132; unfunded mandates reform to
implement the new federalism Ronald Reagan espoused passed this House
by a vote of 360 to 74, and the line item veto just the other day, 294
yeses to only 134 noes. All of these measures passed with substantial
Democratic support from the other side of the aisle as well, good
conservative Democrats voting for the Ronald Reagan programs that we
were unable to deliver a number of years ago.
And, yes, Mr. Speaker, throughout the proceedings of the 104th
Congress and, indeed, through the election of 1996, coming up, a
history debate has been resolved in favor of the ideals articulated by
President Reagan and his remarkable vision.
Over the last 15 years, President Reagan's goals were subject to the
most robust scrutiny that our system of democracy has to offer. During
the 1994 election, some liberal Democrats even campaigned against the
Contract With America on the basis that the contract was a continuation
of what, of the Reagan legacy. Can you imagine?
Well, Mr. Speaker, the actions of this Congress are evidence that
President Reagan's legacy has not
just endured that test of scrutiny and criticism but that it
flourishes today to the benefit of all Americans.
It is useful to look back, however, in order to more fully savor and
appreciate President Reagan's vision. American morale in the 1970's,
think back, could not have been lower. President Jimmy Carter declared
us in a state of malaise. Ronald Reagan's Presidency was what turned
things around. Ronald Reagan's economic policies triggered the largest
and longest peacetime extension of our economy in the history of the
this Nation.
Nineteen million new jobs were created. Incomes grew at all levels
and new industries and technologies flourished and exports exploded.
Why? Because President Reagan, he cut taxes, he slowed the growth of
domestic spending and regulation, and he restored faith in what he
liked to call the magic of the marketplace.
That magic then caught on all around the globe. Remember, my
colleagues, the world in 1980 was a very different place than it is
today. The Soviet Union was continuing a massive arms buildup,
bolstering the formidable number of missiles already pointed at the
West, and at cities right here in the United States of America. Soviet
troops were marching literally through Afghanistan. Do you remember
that? Eastern Europe suffered under the boot of totalitarian regimes,
and the Berlin Wall scarred the face of Europe.
The United States military was described back in those days as a
hollow force, and our citizens were held hostage by thugs in a place
called Iran. Do you remember that?
Our world today contains pockets of instability, but the simple fact
is that democratic tide that has swept this globe in the last 5 years
is a direct result of Ronald Reagan's Presidency. The man and his
policies were essential to freedom's march across this globe. It was
Ronald Reagan who faced down the nuclear freezeniks in this Congress
and in Western Europe by deploying the Pershing II in West Germany.
Eventually this deployment and a policy called Peace Through
Strength, Mr. Speaker, that you and I helped to formulate, forced the
Soviets to the bargaining table. The result in 1987 was the IMF Treaty,
the first agreement to eliminate an entire class of weapons. Ronald
Reagan turned out to be right on that issue.
It was Ronald Reagan who armed freedom fighters in Afghanistan and in
Nicaragua, allowing those nations to determine the course of their own
destiny. Ronald Reagan was right.
It was Ronald Reagan who said this country had a moral obligation to
defend its citizens from nuclear attack, and that we had to strive for
something better than that and the same policy of mutually assured
destruction with weapons aimed at every city in America. He said we
must work for the day when nuclear missiles were no longer pointed at
American cities.
But the experts laughed, and they ridiculed. ``This is nothing more
than a naive daydream of a silly old man.'' Do you remember reading
those headlines by the liberal press in this country? But you know
what, again, Ronald Reagan was right. President Reagan pointed out from
the start that the Soviet system was morally and financially bankrupt.
Such a system, he argued, could not bear the cost of occupying Eastern
Europe.
What was the ultimate result of Ronald Reagan's Peace Through
Strength policies? Well, as Ronald Reagan used to say, the Soviet Union
collapsed and captured nations all around this world were freed from
the atheistic tyranny of the tentacles of communism.
Once again, Ronald Reagan was right.
It was Ronald Reagan who stood under the shadow of the Berlin Wall,
which you all remember, and said, ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this
wall.'' I will never forget his saying that. The experts laughed again,
and decried his plea as a public relations stunt. Do you remember that?
But Ronald Reagan was right again as he always was. Ronald Reagan
encouraged us to maintain a strong defense in case the United States
was forced to defend its interests in any remote corner of the globe,
and after all, that is the reason this Republic of States was formed,
to provide for a common defense, to protect America's interests around
the world.
Given this, should anyone really be surprised that our Armed Forces
performed so well during the Persian Gulf war? President Bush and
General Schwartzkopf were able to lead our troops magnificently and to
bring them home with astonishingly low casualties. Do you remember
that? Once again, Ronald Reagan was right. Those of us who served in
the House at the time and fought President Reagan's fights right here
on this floor were so proud to do so.
I was honored that President Reagan signed my legislation to create
the Department of Veterans Affairs so that we could guarantee that,
with an all-volunteer military, it would work.
{time} 2030
As a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. I was so, so
proud to carry his water for a foreign policy respected around the
world by friends and foe alike, and it was a privilege to join these
battles, looking back at the enormous good that came of those policies.
But, Mr. Speaker, more than any specific policy, we must salute Ronald
Reagan's ability to bring out the best in us as a nation. He consoled
us on the evening of the Challenger disaster. Do you remember that? It
was a sad day in our history.
And on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day landing, Mr. Speaker,
President Reagan painted a vivid picture of the
[[Page H1350]] scene on that day and genuinely proposed that we, we
dedicate ourselves to the cause for which those soldiers gave a last
full measure of devotion.
He never offended us with staged prayers or phony flag placements.
His words and his gestures were all genuine, and, as proud as we should
be of his many accomplishments, Mr. Speaker, it is a sad commentary
that it took over 5 years longer, over 5 years longer, to tear down the
wall of resistance to the line-item veto and the balanced budget
amendment. It took 5 years longer than it did to tear down the Berlin
Wall and the Iron Curtain.
Ronald Reagan inspired a generation of young people to ignore the
cynical bombardment of the media and hold dear the American heritage:
``hopeful, big-hearted, idealistic, daring, decent and fair,'' as he
described it during his second inaugural address.
Mr. Speaker, last night 1,000 supporters turned out for a birthday
party, including the former British Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher,
that I attended along with many of you to pay tribute to this great
President, Ronald Reagan. We were so fortunate to have him as our
President during that period of time in the history of our country, and
at this time I would yield to a Democrat, one of the finest Members of
this House, the gentleman from California [Mr. Condit]. He is an
outstanding Member.
Mr. CONDIT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr.
Solomon] for yielding to me.
Mr. Speaker, whether you are liberal or conservative, Democratic or
Republican, from California or elsewhere in the country--you always
knew where Ronald Reagan stood on any important issue.
One of his greatest achievements was restoring to our people a sense
of the greatness of America.
He was honest, he was forthright, he did not quibble and he was bold.
I have always been convinced our hostages were freed from Iran as
Reagan took the oath of office because the President had described in
great detail his contempt for the Ayatollah's regime. The Government of
Iran knew, when Reagan described them as Barbarians, our new President
would act if the hostages were not freed. They came home within hours
of his oath of office.
Reagan never suffered from a lack of ``the vision thing.'' In large
measure, the end of the cold war is the result of his steadfastness and
courage in difficult times. In a statement in 1976 on nuclear war, he
articulated his goal for all of us: ``Those . . . a hundred years from
now will know whether those missiles were fired. They will know whether
we met our challenge. Whether they have the freedoms that we have known
up until now will depend on what we do here.'' And, 100 years from now,
the answer will be that we met those challenges and Ronald Reagan led
us to that victory.
Those of us in California perhaps know Reagan better than most other
Americans. We embraced him in a special way. We got to vote for or
against the former President on nine separate occasions. In California,
a State known for its diverse communities, its fickle political
loyalties, and its great passion over various ideological issues,
Reagan was elected overwhelmingly, every one of those nine times.
Mr. Speaker, I say to the gentleman from New York, Mr. Solomon, I'm
delighted that you allowed me to stand here with you today to pay
tribute to, salute and pay tribute to, a great citizen of the Golden
State of California and a great American, Ronald Reagan.
Mr. SOLOMON. Mr. Speaker, I certainly want to thank the gentleman
from California [Mr. Condit], and he is a Member of the other political
party. I used to belong to that political party many years ago myself,
and I remember when, about the same time that Ronald Reagan saw the
light, so did I, but I just want to thank the gentleman for his
comments because certainly no President deserves more bipartisan
remembrance and support than Ronald Reagan. I can just stand here all
night and think of all the times that he has inspired me, but I can
recall one time:
As a matter of fact, I was over in Korea, and we had been over trying
to arrange in Vietnam to bring home the remains of fallen soldiers, and
we were socked in by bad weather. We could not get back, and it was for
the State of the Union Message, and that was the night that Ronald
Reagan picked up this heavy budget that was about so thick, and he
brought it up, and he dropped it like that on the table, and his finger
got caught underneath it, and he actually cracked the bone in his
finger.
But he was talking about the Federal Government and how it has grown
into such huge bureaucratic proportions, and Ronald Reagan never really
had the opportunity to make the corrections because he never really had
a Congress that would back him up. In 1981 and 1982, Mr. Speaker, he
accomplished more in the first 2 of his 8 years than in all the other
time, and unfortunately, because we did what we are going to do this
year, we made the cuts in the spending in this Congress that really
need to be made to bring us back to fiscal sanity around here.
We made those cuts, and unfortunately a lot of us got beat, and a lot
of good Democrats as well, those conservative Democrats that sit in
that corner right on that side of the aisle, and a lot of Republicans,
and consequently Ronald Reagan in the next 6 years, was dealing from a
point of compromise where he never could really finish the Reagan
revolution, and I am going to be speaking about that as I close out my
remarks in a few minutes, but right now I would like to yield to one of
the outstanding Members of this body. He is from Miami, FL. He is now a
member of the Committee on Rules with me, and we are so proud to have
him there because he is my kind of a guy.
He is like Ronald Reagan. He is a fighter, and he is a man of vision,
and I yield to the gentleman from Miami, FL [Mr. Diaz-Balart].
Mr. DIAZ-BALART. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman and say,
as chairman of the Rules Committee, you were instrumental and really
decisive in the fact that passage of the line-item veto was
accomplished on President Reagan's birthday, and I think that that was
so appropriate because, as you have mentioned, he fought so long for
passage of that, that weapon in the arsenal that will be needed to
balance the Federal budget, and what an appropriate birthday present it
was for President Reagan.
Mr. Speaker, at each moment in the history of the United States, when
the Nation has been in danger, great leaders have risen to guide the
Nation to safety.
{time} 2040
I think, as Chairman Solomon pointed out so wisely, it is appropriate
and really necessary to think back upon the condition of the Nation and
the world at the time that Ronald Reagan became President, at the time
that he was elected to the Presidency in 1980.
I think it is important to think back a minute to that moment. The
Soviets, as Chairman Solomon has mentioned, felt so emboldened, felt so
unthreatened and so unchecked, that for the first time in history, even
after so many instances and examples of aggression that they had
committed, for the first time in history they rolled their own tanks
directly into a nation not even in the Warsaw Pact, a nation that was
not even a slave nation, a satellite nation of the Soviet Union, into
Afghanistan. They just directly rolled their tanks in there and
surrounded, as you will recall, the Presidential palace, and they
blasted away, killed the President and first family there in
Afghanistan, and they just felt that they were completely unchecked.
That is along with the capture of our Embassy in Iran by those thugs,
as you so well mentioned, I think
that illustrates where we were at that point, the lack of respect with
which the United States was held in the world, and internally what was
reflected, creating that lack of respect, the era of malaise, as
Chairman Solomon pointed out.We saw in that era also how, for
example, just a few years before the Soviets felt so unchecked that
they moved into Africa through the Cuban Castro surrogates, in
violation of an agreement after so many years of struggle, for example,
in Angola, between the--against the colonial forces, the three
different groups there had an arrangement. Yet the communist group, the
MPLA, felt so unchecked, unthreatened, that they broke the
arrangement and called in the Soviets and Cubans, and they were taking
over Angola.
[[Page H1351]] Of course, we saw what happened in Ethiopia, Somalia,
and you mentioned El Salvador and Nicaragua.
In fact, I recall, at the time that President Reagan took office, an
analysis about El Salvador that pointed out the collapse of El Salvador
was imminent. There was nothing we could do. And in Nicaragua, of
course, the communists had already taken over. In Grenada, here in the
Caribbean as well, the communists had taken over. And then Ronald
Reagan became President. And he called the Soviet Union what it was.
I remember like you described him, Mr. Chairman, the experts, when
they laughed at President Reagan for calling the Soviet Union what it
was, the evil empire.
Now, if you ask the people of Russia or the other captive nations at
that time whether the Soviet Union was the evil empire, they certainly
knew the answer. But a lot of the so-called experts laughed at
President Reagan when he called the Soviet Union what it was. And he
worked in such a close alliance with that other figure, as we were
speaking before at the beginning of this special order, the other
instrumental figure in world history in this century, Pope John Paul
II. And he worked in close concert, in such a close relationship with
the Pope. And I remember reading a report after the Reagan Presidency
about how he put the intelligence community and every instrument of
American power that he could at the service of the Pope. And he said:
You listen to the Pope, because the Pope knows what is
going on in Eastern Europe and he knows how to deal with
those Communists. Listen to him.
That relationship between Ronald Reagan and John Paul II was a
decisive relationship in the history of the world, and we saw what
happened. And he announced the strategic defense initiative. And the
experts laughed at him again and said that is not possible. And we know
now, just a few years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that it
was the Strategic Defense Initiative, along with the rest of the Reagan
policies that directly led to the explosion that occurred, the collapse
of the evil empire.
And he liberated Grenada. I was not in Congress, but I know, Mr.
Chairman, that you were, as was the Speaker and others, and how you had
to put up, and I see Congressman Hunter here as well that was in
Congress at that time, and how you had to put up defending at that time
the liberation of Grenada that the President had accomplished, had
carried out, against such ruthless attacks, ruthless attacks, from
Members in this body as well as in the media who did not want to
recognize the truth and the fact that Ronald Reagan was right, as
Chairman Solomon stated so eloquently this evening.
And he armed El Salvador, and he saved El Salvador; and he armed the
Afghanistan people, and he saved Afghanistan, and he armed the Africans
fighting against the Communists, and he saved them as well; and he
armed the Nicaraguans against all the pressures, and forced even the
Communists in Nicaragua to have elections there, the last thing that
they would have ever wanted to do. A great man had risen to lead the
greatest Nation on earth to safety, and to save the world. And the rest
is history now.
The year that Ronald Reagan left the Presidency, the Berlin Wall
collapsed. And then the Soviet empire itself, the evil empire itself
came tumbling down.
Now, some will say that it was among the greatest miracles of all
time, and it certainly was. Of course, the hand of providence was
involved. But it would not have happened without the direct
participation and the leadership of Ronald Reagan.
Chairman Solomon and Mr. Speaker, he inspired me. President Reagan
inspired me to become a Member of our party, as he inspired millions of
Americans throughout our country in so many important ways. And I thank
him from the bottom of my heart for all that he did for the United
States of America, and for freedom and for our posterity. Thank you so
much, Chairman Solomon.
Mr. SOLOMON. Congressman Diaz-Balart, I just want to tell you those
eloquent words mean so much to me, because I know you spoke them from
your heart.
You know, you mentioned Pope John Paul. There is another part of that
triangle, and her name was Maggie Thatcher. Between the Pope and Maggie
Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, they, more than any three people in this
world, are the very reason that democracy is breaking out all over the
world instead of the opposite, communism breaking out all over the
world.
It was the peace through strength movement that you spoke of that was
supported by our free market economy, by this democracy that works, as
opposed to a communist government. And because the Soviet Union could
not keep pace with us, that is what bankrupted them. That is what
brought them to their knees, and that is why democracy is breaking out
all over this world.
Let me recognize another part of the country, the State of Georgia,
and an outstanding sophomore Member of this body, Jack Kingston.
Mr. KINGSTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I certainly appreciate being
part of this great special order on a great American, and have enjoyed
listening
to you and Mr. Diaz-Balart and Duncan Hunter.My wife and I actually
met through College Republicans. We were so enthusiastic in 1979 with
the Reagan campaign, when he won, and Libby would say to me on many
occasions, ``Don't you just love this President? He's the first one in
our life we can be absolutely enthusiastically thrilled over,'' and so
forth, and she would go on and on and on about Ronald Reagan.
I finally said, ``Libby, I think you love Ronald Reagan more than you
love me.'' And she said, ``Yes, but I love you more than I love George
Bush.'' So she put it in perspective for me.
But as you have pointed out, it is absolutely true that Ronald Reagan
defeated the Soviet Union without firing a shot. And I think today that
the freedom that we have and the democracy that they are getting is
simply because of that war. It was the coldest of wars, and yet it was
so important. And as people look back and criticize the military
buildup during that period of time, that maybe they would prefer to
have a deficit than they would to have the deaths of young Americans
that would have happened had we continued on the road that we were on.
As you have pointed out, he did the same all over South America and
all over the world, and restored America to being a true world leader.
I have heard the saying many, many times that there shouldn't be a
policeman of the world, but if there is one, let it be America. And
that is what Ronald Reagan did. It was always peace through strength.
In addition to that, there is so much domestically. Creating 18
million jobs, the largest peacetime prosperity in the history of this
Nation. Bringing down interest rates. Interest rates in the late
seventies were 20 percent. When Libby and I went to buy our first house
in 1979, the interest rates were 16 percent.
{time} 2050
How many young couples can get on their feet with paying 16 percent
interest? It is very difficult to do. Inflation, 12 percent when he
took office. And he brought it down to the extent that now it is hardly
even a campaign discussion.
The Iranian hostage situation, remember now depressing that got to
Americans and how we were told, well, we just cannot go in there and
play cowboy anymore. Ronald Reagan did not have to. All he had do was
put on his uniform and then the Ayatollah got the message.
The great thing about Ronald Reagan, I would say, beyond those
accomplishments was that intangible American spirit that we have within
all of us that he reached in our heart of hearts and made us pull out.
The other night at this alumni dinner, there were so many people there
from all over the country who had returned to Washington to celebrate
Reagan's 84th birthday. There were many, many people there from all
over the country. One man who was not there is a constituent of mine,
Joe Tribble who was a Reagan appointee in the Department of Energy.
But like Joe Tribble, the people who were there the other night were
there not because they served in the Reagan administration. That was a
job and it
[[Page H1352]] was good times. It is because they were part of
something they believed in. And they were all there to say, here was a
guy who was a clear-cut thinker, a great American.
If you look at the PATCO situation, there would be so many Presidents
who would waffle on the air traffic controller strike. So many
Presidents and politicians in general who would say, I am not sure,
maybe they should have a right. Reagan said, they took an oath of
office that they would not strike. They struck. They are fired. It was
clear cut. You might not have always agreed with Ronald Reagan, but he
told you how he thought. He told you what he was going to do. And he
did it. And that was a strength that made him such a great American
leader and world leader, because at the time we had forgotten those
sort of things.
I had the great opportunity to meet him one time, Libby and I. I was
not serving in Congress with some of you guys, but Libby and I had an
opportunity to meet him in Savannah, GA, and had a chance to talk to
him, one on one.
What struck both of us is that he was a very sincere and very gentle
and very graceful man. He would be the kind of guy you would describe
as the last one to leave the foxhole, but the first one to open the
door for a lady or senior citizen. Absolutely had the touch.
You will remember the debate with Jimmy Carter, the famous ``there
you go again,'' just the graceful way of saying, you know, we have had
it, we have heard it.
In 1984, I was going door to door, running for the Georgia
Legislature. And I represented a very solid middle-class district and
still have the honor of representing most of those people in my
congressional or the congressional district that I represent. And I
would go to the door and people would say, are you Republican or
Democrat? And I would say, I am Republican. And they would say, I am
going to vote for you because I have had enough. And I was the first
Republican elected to the Georgia General Assembly from the 125th House
seat, but I can say clearly, it was because of Ronald Reagan.
Fortunately, I had the picture that Libby and I had with Ronald
Reagan, and we put it in a big ad in the paper that said, ``Reagan-
Kingston, let's face it, we need conservatives on all levels of
government.''
A good friend of mine who was working for my opponent at the time
told me, he said that ad sealed our fate. We knew that if you kept
running a picture of you and Ronald Reagan in there, even though you
were running for the State legislature, that would do us in.
So I would say, I will yield the floor because I know that the
gentleman from California [Mr. Hunter] wants to say a word or two. But
just a great American, somebody that you are happy to be on the ballot
with and happy to say, that is my President.
Mr. SOLOMON. The gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston] is just such a
great addition to this body, ever since he got here. We just appreciate
those words on behalf of Ronald Reagan.
Let me say that the next speaker, the gentleman from California [Mr.
Hunter] never is a man of one or two words.
He is a man of many words. All of what he says always makes sense. He
is one of the most valuable Members of this body. He has served on the
Committee on Armed Services since he arrived here. And when I was on
the Foreign Affairs Committee, we were pretty good tandem in carrying
the water for Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to yield to the gentleman from California
[Mr. Hunter].
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] for
yielding.
I have to say that you were my leader in the Reagan revolution on the
House floor and did a wonderful job. The gentleman from Georgia, who
has mentioned all the great accomplishments of Ronald Reagan, he
himself standing here obviously is part of that Reagan record of
accomplishment, because it was the great conservative message that he
exuded that helped to bring the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Kingston]
to this place and myself.
Mr. KINGSTON. I know my time is up, but the thing that Ronald Reagan
did, as much as anything, was let you believe in the American dream
again. And one of my dreams, my mother was a Republican Party leader
for many years, when I was a small boy, one of my dreams was to be a
Member of Congress. And I think Ronald Reagan assured me that the
American dream was alive and well. And so you are correct on a very
personal level.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank the gentleman. I know we may be out of time
shortly. I just would advise my friends, I am going to take an hour and
we can continue for a few minutes, if my friends have some other things
to say.
But you mentioned about the freeing of the world, a great part of the
world under Ronald Reagan. The interesting thing is even though his
adversaries classified him as a friend of the rich and the Republican
fat cats and all of those derogatory things that they said, he really
was a man of the people and not just a man of the average people in
America, the middle class in America, but around the world.
Because of his policies of peace through strength and pushing the
Russian bear back and refusing to allow our allies to be intimidated by
the Soviet Union and finally breaking down the Soviet Union, he created
a situation in which literally millions of families around the world no
longer had to sit huddled at their dinner table waiting for that knock
on the door from a representative of their police state involving
themselves in that family's affairs, taking off members of that family
to the gulags, to the jails, to the prisons, because of their beliefs,
because of their religious beliefs, their desire for freedom or their
desire simply not to be ruled by a particular
dictatorship or proletarian state.So Ronald Reagan freed literally
tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people around this world who
had very little relationship to the United States.
And he did that, I might say, by rebuilding America's defense budget.
I think it is appropriate that on his birthday, we reflect on the
great things that he did in rebuilding national defense from that level
in the 1970's, when we had 1,000 petty officers every month leaving the
Navy because they could not support their families on what the Carter
administration was paying them.
I remember he brought us from that period when we had about 50
percent of our combat aircraft that were not fully mission capable
because we had been cannibalizing those aircraft to get spare parts.
And it is fitting and proper that we should talk about him today when
President Clinton has dropped his defense budget on this Congress,
because President Clinton's defense budget, I think, takes us back to
those Carter days or starts us back to those Carter days. It is
literally $100 billion in real terms, approximately $100 billion less
than the budgets that we had in the middle of the Reagan
administration.
In fact, most of President Clinton's cuts that he gives great
ballyhoo to have been taken from national security, taken from national
defense.
What did Ronald Reagan do? I can remember when the Soviet Union very
aggressively in the mid-1980's was ringing our neighbors in western
Europe with their SS-20 missiles. And they were greatly intimidating
our neighbors. And Ronald Reagan moved forward against the advice of
all the liberal Members of Congress and liberal pundits and liberal
defense experts. He moved forward to put our own ground-launched cruise
missiles and Pershing missiles in Europe. That is, he stood up to the
Soviet Union, and an apocalyptic situation was predicted by those on
the left.
They said, now you can have it. You are going to bring the country
down. We are going to have a conflict with the Soviet Union. Yet a few
days later, Mr. Gorbachev was on the phone and wanted to talk.
Those talks blossomed into arms control treaties, real arms control
treaties in which we trusted but verified. And they brought peace to a
great deal of the world and ultimately resulted in our defense budgets
coming down, although I think this President has taken them far below
where they should prudently be.
Ronald Reagan saved a ton of defense money by being strong at the
right time.
[[Page H1353]] {time} 2100
I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Mr. SOLOMON. The gentleman from California is so right. Even when we
attempted to rescue the hostages being held in Iran, as the gentleman
mentioned, we had to actually cannibalize about seven helicopter
gunships to get five that would work. Three of those failed and so did
the mission. That was typical of what was happening when we were losing
back in those days all of our noncommissioned officers and officers
because they could not afford to stay in the military. They were on
food stamps.
That is where the peace through strength movement came in. We rebuilt
our military, we funded it properly, and that is what brought freedom
throughout this world.
Mr. Speaker, there is another Member here who is a new Member of this
body. He has only been here for 5 weeks, but I can tell you, there are
73 new Republicans in this House. This one I really appreciate. He
replaced a Democrat named Tim Penny. Tim Penny worked with me in
sponsoring a lot of legislation to try to get this sea of red ink under
control that is in this budget here today, presented
by President Clinton.
I would like to recognize him now for a few minutes, the gentleman
from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht].
Mr. GUTKNECHT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York, [Mr.
Solomon] so much.
I am so excited and proud to be part of this discussion tonight,
because I think I speak on behalf of an awful lot of the freshman class
this year, that Ronald Reagan was such a leader and such a symbol and
such an inspiration to all of us.
In fact, I must tell you in our own family one of our most cherished
possessions is an autographed picture that we have of Ronald Reagan,
and it is prominently displayed. My wife, Mary, really is one of Ronald
Reagan's biggest fans.
I am just so happy to be here to talk a little bit about some of the
things that I remember most about President Reagan, both before he
became President, and listening to the gentleman from California [Mr.
Hunter] earlier tell the story about the national defense.
I will never forget, I was just thinking about getting into politics
in a serious way in 1979. Former Congressman Vin Weber hosted an event
up in Minnesota. One of the people who was invited to speak was a
gentleman by the name of John Lehman. This was before President Reagan
became President.
I will never forget what he talked about. He literally laid out the
Reagan defense doctrine that day. It became really the cornerstone, I
think, of the Reagan foreign policy. What he said was that it was time
that we look the Soviets in the eye, eyeball to eyeball, and say simply
this: If it is an arms race that you want, it is an arms race you will
get. It is an arms race you cannot win, and it is an arms race which
ultimately will bankrupt your economy.
That was, in a sense, I believe, the cornerstone of the Reagan
foreign policy and the cornerstone of the Reagan defense buildup. I
think now that we have seen, and many would have never guessed that we
would see the day when, as we did a few years ago on Christmas Day,
when the red flag came down for the last time over the Kremlin, that we
would see the death of communism in our lifetime.
However, it is largely because President Reagan had the vision and
the foresight to enunciate that policy and to stick by it, even when
some of his own advisors had encouraged him to abandon, for example,
SDI, or what some would call Star Wars.
Another memory that I have of President Reagan, I remember, again
before I entered the political arena and ran for the legislature, in
1980, in January, I was in Nuone, MN. Some of you were probably here
for the inaugural. I will never forget that inaugural address. I pulled
the car off by the side of the road and listened on the radio to the
inaugural address.
I will never forget how he closed that inaugural address. I think we
ought to remind ourselves of it often, because I think it typified
President Reagan, his beliefs, his values, and I think he spoke so
clearly to the American people when he told the story of the young man
from Wisconsin who had written on his diary during World War I, that he
was going to work and he was going to fight and he was going to serve
as if the entire outcome of the long and bloody battle depended upon
him and him alone.
Then President Reagan closed, and I think this is a direct quote, I
had this committed to memory, I may not have it exactly right, but I
believe the words were these. He said:
Our problems do not require that kind of sacrifice. They
do, however, require our best
effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves, to
believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; that
together, with God's help, we can resolve the problems
which confront us now. And after all, why shouldn't we
believe that? We are Americans.
I've got to tell you, those words burned in my ears and they burned
in my consciousness. I think it is one of the reasons that I ultimately
ran for the State legislature, and by the grace of God, ultimately ran
for the United States Congress, and I am so proud to be here today.
One of my favorite expressions from Ronald Reagan, and I use it
often, if you talk to my staff, and we used it in the campaign, we use
it around the office a lot, I believe originally came from Benjamin
Franklin. President Reagan used it often. He said ``Facts are stubborn
things. You know, we can ignore the facts, we can deny the facts, but
ultimately facts are facts.''
As he pursued his agenda, as he pursued the things that he wanted to
do for this country, he stuck by the facts. I think, Mr. Speaker, many
people called him the great communicator. He was a great communicator,
but he was a great communicator principally because he stuck to the
facts and he talked in simple terms that the American people can
understand.
As a matter of fact, another story that I always like to remind
people of with President Reagan was when he went to Reykjavik and he
negotiated with Mikhail Gorbachev. I remember the stumbling block was
SDI. Again, the press was fond of using the term Star Wars.
Essentially, we could have a large reduction in nuclear arms if only
President Reagan were willing to give up on this misguided notion that
he called Star Wars.
Ultimately, the meeting broke down and they were not able to solve
many of the big issues. I will never forget, the national press was
saying, essentially, This old man was unwilling to give up on this
crazy idea, Star Wars, and as a result, we didn't get that peace
treaty, the press was having a field day, and they were trying to make
light of all of what had happened, trying to make President Reagan look
bad.
The next night he came back and he spoke to the American people. He
spoke in very simple terms. He said that the SDI, the Strategic Defense
Initiative, was America's insurance policy against Soviet cheating. The
interesting thing was, the next day all the polls were taken, the
overnight polls, and about 85 percent of the American people understood
exactly what the President meant and they agreed with him. Than all of
the ballyhoo stopped.
Facts are stubborn things. One of the real tragedies, I would say to
the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] about what is happening
today, many people are trying to rewrite the facts. They are trying to
rewrite the myths about what really happened in the eighties.
The eighties was a very special time. I don't want to be redundant. I
suspect some of the issues have been covered earlier. However, when we
look at what really happened with the economy during the eighties, we
continue to hear that it was the decade of greed, and during the
eighties the rich got richer and the poor got poorer.
The facts do not simply bear that out. The truth of the matter is
that real per capita income during the eighties went up by 15.7
percent, and average family income increased by more than $15,000. In
fact, if you look at the poverty rate, it dropped from 13.7 to 12.1
percent.
The budget deficit, believe it or not, was only $152.5 billion during
his last year. Now we are looking at $200 billion plus budget deficits,
on to the end of this decade, and we are saying that it was because of
the Reagan buildup.
[[Page H1354]] When you talk about taxes, we keep hearing that the
rich didn't pay their fair share during the decade of greed, but the
average tax payment for the lowest 50 percent of earners fell by 26
percent between 1981 and 1988, and we removed 6 million low-income
families from the tax rolls during the eighties.
The other myth is that social spending was slashed. We talk about all
the Reagan cuts of social spending. Unfortunately, I would say, over 45
percent of the $1.9 trillion in new expenditures during that period
went to social spending.
We hear the myth of charitable giving, that Americans were greedier
in the eighties, but the truth of the matter is that charitable giving
rose $48.7 billion during the eighties, a 55-percent increase.
Mr. Speaker, it was a very special time. President Reagan was a very
special President. In fact, one of my last memories I would like to
share with you tonight, my wife and I talk about this often, was when
he finally left office.
I talked about when he was sworn in, but when he left the office for
the last time, out here on the steps of the Capitol, he turned around
and saluted. I remember saying to my wife at that time, I said ``Mary,
you know, he was a long time coming. He will be a long time gone.''
Mr. Speaker, if I could, I would like to close my remarks here with a
quote, and I would like to submit for the Congressional Record a column
which was written by Jeff Bell, because he said more in a few words
about Ronald Reagan and he said it better than I can say it. I would
like to submit for the record this column.
However, I would like to close, if I could, with the last paragraph,
because I think it says so much about President Reagan:
``Unfashionable, misunderstood, or held in contempt by political elites
of all stripes, never respected by the press, patronized privately,
even by his own aides, Mr. Reagan soldiered on with his populist vision
and unexpected moves, essentially alone at the top, for eight years of
the most pivotal years in world history. This was more than enough.''
Thank you, Mr. Speaker; thank you, I would say to the gentleman from
New York; and thank you, President Reagan.
The article referred to is as follows:
[From the Wall Street Journal, Dec. 27, 1989]
Man of the Decade? Man of the Century!
(By Jeffrey Bell)
As European communism collapses, it would seem logical that
credit would be given to the man who led the winning side
during the decisive period. This shows no sign of happening.
Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt died just before the
end of the great struggles they won. Ronald Reagan has lived
to see not just ideological victory over communism, but what
increasingly appears to be a vindication of his seemingly
most outlandish hopes for a democratic world. Yet few people
give Mr. Reagan himself much credit.
Perhaps this shouldn't be so surprising. In one way, the
treatment of his presidency in the year since it ended is a
continuation of the pattern of Mr. Reagan's entire political
career, which led his opponents (and a solid majority of his
allies) to underestimate him and his ability every step of
the way. The dynamic of underestimation is helped along by
the foibles of his wife, in particular the taste for luxury
embodied by the Reagans' recent multi-million dollar trip to
Japan, engineered by Mrs. Reagan and her long-time friend,
Charles Z. Wick. Harmful as this sort of thing to Mr.
Reagan's post-presidential image, in the long run it will be
relatively unimportant to the story of Mr. Reagan's
presidency.
winner of the cold war
Clare Boothe Luce once remarked that any great presidency
can be summed up in a sentence or so. Lincoln: He destroyed
slavery and saved the Union, thus preserving and enhancing
democracy's example to the world. Reagan: By making democracy
vigorous again--ideologically, economically, militarily--he
won the Cold War and ended the century-long era in which
socialism appealed to popular opinion.
How did Mr. Reagan manage to do these things in his eight
years? Did he in fact do them at all, or did a combination of
circumstances cause these things to take shape during his
watch?
Both of the above are true. Historic opportunities
presented themselves to Mr. Reagan--and he took advantage of
every single one of them. The result was a global revolution.
Mr. Reagan cut the top personal tax rate in this country
from 70% to 28%. He ended inflation and achieved a seven-
year-long expansion that created 20 million new jobs. He
asserted traditional values, unapolo- getically. He revived
patriotic sentiment and remade the Supreme Court. In the
Webster abortion decision, his appointees delivered a crucial
defeat to judicial elitism.
In foreign policy, Mr. Reagan was frustrated in Lebanon and
Nicaragua, but ultimately nowhere else. He rolled back
communism in Grenada. His Strategic Defense Initiative set
technological limits on Soviet hopes for strategic dominance.
In Afghanistan, Angola and Cambodia, the Reagan Doctrine
served notice that Soviet advances were no longer
irreversible.
In Mr. Reagan's first term, the Brezhnev-Andropov Soviet
regime showed a tendency to push matters in the direction of
global confrontation, particularly in its boastful reaction
to the Korean Airliner shootdown of 1983. In the face of this
frightening Soviet attitude, Mr. Reagan showed no inclination
to compromise on anything--SDI, the defense buildup, the
deployment of Pershing-IIs in Western Europe or the Reagan
Doctrine.
But when Mikhail Gorbachev succeeded to the Soviet
leadership in March 1985. Mr. Reagan quickly discerned--
before it was evident to almost anyone else--the possibility
of a profound change. His repeated assertion of this
possibility won him much ridicule through most of his second
term, from his natural allies most of all. Particularly after
Reykjavik. Mr. Reagan ran into much criticism in this country
and in Europe for his indulgent attitude toward the Soviet
leader.
But Mr. Gorbachev, perhaps surprisingly, turned out to be
the sort of leader highly susceptible to praise and approval
from his antagonists. His growing willingness to unleash the
human forces in his empire will undoubtedly win him a major
place in history, whatever happens to him personally from now
on. But that same history will evaluate Mr. Reagan's handling
of Mr. Gorbachev as one of the masterpieces of 20th-century
diplomacy.
Mr. Reagan's greatest foreign-policy failure was the Iran-
Contra scandal, in particular his attempt to trade arms for
hostages. When Mr. Reagan tried to retrieve the situation,
with the Kuwaiti tanker reflagging of 1967, initially just
about everyone saw his efforts as absurd. The press did. The
allies did. The Democrats did. His fellow conservatives did.
Even the Navy Department did.
But Mr. Reagan, who genially ignored his critics when he
was determined on a course of action, once again was right.
The operation was chaotic and seemed to have little
rationale, but its target succumbed. In agreeing in 1988 to a
cease-fire in the eight-year-old war against Iraq, the
Ayatoliah Khomeini likened the action to drinking a cup of
poison--a cup necessitated by Mr. Reagan's move into the
Gulf. This must be the closest thing in recent politics to an
international concession speech. This tribute from Mr.
Reagan's most implacable and resourceful enemy was a cut
above anything said on behalf of the policy at home.
But that was always the way in the Reagan years. A radical
or unexpected Reagan initiative would be greeted with
reactions ranging from disbelief to ridicule. It was open
season during the execution of the policy, which, as is so
often the case with radical or counter- intuitive policies,
invariably ran into many hitches. Then, upon the success of
the policy, there fell a dead silence as to Mr. Reagan's
earlier role in it. Mr. Reagan liked to joke about how the
word ``Reaganomics'' suddenly disappeared as the magnitude of
the 1982-89 expansion became clear.
Mr. Reagan was full of jokes and stories, and never seemed
to take anything said about him personally, but he was deadly
serious about his goals. He loved to talk politics and issues
almost all his adult life, but never sought office until he
was 55. He steadily developed and forwarded his agenda, with
many setbacks, until he was 69. Then he became the oldest man
ever to take office as president, and (despite a fearful
wound) served until he was nearly 78, as the most
consistently effective president since Lincoln.
Still, Mr. Reagan the political leader has been
underestimated even by many who recognize his achievements.
They note his lack of interest in the details of policy, and
the role of talented aides in forcing through a number of his
programs. Yet how odd that Mr. Reagan's success continued
through a succession of four White House chiefs of staff and
six national security advisers who differed widely from each
other in knowledge, style and policy.
Perhaps even more revealing is that in some of his most
distinctive policies--tax rate reduction, abortion, SDI, the
Reagan Doctrine, the Kuwaiti reflagging, the decision to
address human-rights activists during the Moscow summit, to
name a few--Mr. Reagan acted against the expressed opinions
of nearly all his close advisers. Historians may conclude
that Mr. Reagan's lack of interest in administrative details
masked a laser-like ability to separate the important from
the transitory, and to focus on the important.
the world his oyster
Perhaps the greatest irony of all is that the one area
where virtually everybody thought him deficient--foreign
policy--may prove to be his most lasting success. In a moment
of bemusement a couple of years ago, the Washington Post
remarked in an editorial that when Mr. Reagan ventured
aboard, he found not just the nation but the world was his
oyster.
[[Page H1355]] His successes at home and abroad were
intimately related. It was partly, of course, that domestic
revitalization fed into renewed American assertiveness on the
world scene. But it was also that, unlike nearly everyone
else in U.S. politics in the 1980s, Mr. Reagan thought
foreigners aspired to a fully democratic life just as much as
Americans did. His Wilsonian-FDR global populism, the element
of his ideology least shared by U.S. elites of both the right
and left, is what ties together the ``hawkish'' Reagan of the
first term and the ``naive'' Reagan of the second, and made
the two work toward the same end: the globalization of
democratic values.
Unfashionable, misunderstood or held in contempt by
political elites of all stripes, never respected by the
press, patronized privately by most of his own aides, Mr.
Reagan soldiered on with his populist vision and unexpected
moves, essentially alone at the top. For eight of the most
pivotal years of world history, this was more than enough.
{time} 2110
Mr. SOLOMON. I say to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] I
really want to thank you for those eloquent remarks.
You know, I only regret that Ronald Reagan could not be in office
here today with this new Republican majority backed up by 40 or 50
conservative Democrats. Look what we have done in just 5 weeks, and
think what we could do over the next several years if Ronald Reagan
were still President.
You know, the first week we were here, I will say this to the
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht] because it came with his help,
we began to shrink the size and power of the Federal Government and
started it with the Congress.
The second week we were here we passed an accountability act which
foists the same laws on the Congress that we foist on the American
people. What a message that sent.
The third week we did the impossible, we passed the balanced budget
amendment, something Ronald Reagan wanted so much.
And the fourth week we passed unfunded mandates, something that was
impossible to pass before the new Republican majority took over.
And look what happened on Ronald Reagan's birthday yesterday, that
line item veto. You know, if we had Ronald Reagan here, think what we
could do for the next 2 years, welfare reform, product liability
reform, capital gains tax reductions, tort reform. We could go on and
on and on.
Since we are running out of time, Mr. Speaker, let me say in the
epilog of Ronald Reagan's autobiography on American life, the President
recalled his thoughts as he boarded the plane to California after
George Bush's inauguration, and I have a picture of him saluting
hanging on my wall with he and his wife Nancy boarding that helicopter.
You know, he described a feeling of incompleteness, that there was
still work to be done, a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution,
and a line item veto for the President to cut out unnecessary spending.
Well, Mr. Speaker, this House passed a balanced budget amendment on
January 26, and as I said before, the line item veto passed yesterday.
We have done President Reagan's unfinished business. We are just
getting warmed up. Over the next several months and years we will
finish the Reagan revolution of shrinking the size and the power of
this Government and returning the power back to the States and local
governments and letting the private sector run and work the way it
should, you know.
Mr. Speaker and Members, I would like to close with a quote from
Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address and suggest it apply to this
104th Congress as we continue the second Reagan revolution. I say to
the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht], here is the exact
language, and you were not far off, he said, ``We have every right to
dream heroic dreams, to believe in ourselves and to believe in our
capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together, with God's
help, we can and we will resolve the problems which now confront us.''
And after all, why should we not believe that? Because we are
Americans.
Mr. President, we wish you a very, very happy 84th anniversary,
birthday. Thank you so much for what you have done for America. America
will never forget you.
Mr. QUILLEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from New York for
organizing this special order to pay tribute to one of the 20th
century's greatest world leader's former President Ronald Reagan.
Yesterday was President Reagan's 88th birthday and as we honor him, I
want to express sincere thanks on behalf of myself and everyone in my
congressional district for the visionary leadership that he gave to
this Nation during the 8 years he was its Chief Executive.
I had been in Congress for 2 years when Ronald Reagan formally
entered the American political scene by giving his thrilling televised
speech in support of Barry Goldwater in 1964. His heartfelt statement
of his conservative political beliefs made likeminded conservatives
like myself look up and see a standard bearer whom we would be able to
rally behind in the future.
I was already very familiar with his career as an actor and
television spokesman, and I continued to follow his effortless switch
to the public arena when he ran for governor of California in 1966. The
astounding margin by which he upset an incumbent governor put everyone
who watched on notice that a political force be reckoned with had
arrived.
After his 8 successful years as governor of our most populous state,
Ronald Reagan devoted all of his considerable energies to seeking the
Nation's highest office. In 1980, during a dark time for our Nation, he
waged a successful campaign to set the ship of state on the proper
course again.
The Republican landslide that seized Washington in the wake of the
Reagan victory created heady times for conservatives, and we waged many
battles here on the floor of the House to bring about the changes that
President Reagan spoke of in his revolutionary campaign. And although
the President's party did not then control this chamber, for a brief
period of time, his ideas did.
During the President's first year of office, his leadership enabled
us to set America on the course that would win the Cold War and turn
loose the engine of economic freedom. The work that he did then made it
possible for the new Republican majority here in the House to have the
cohesive agenda for its first 100 days that is energizing this country.
Mr. Speaker, as President Reagan battles illness at his California
home, it is altogether proper that we gather to honor him and his
legacy in this way. I know that all of my constituents join me in
sending our heartiest congratulations on his birthday, and to this
great American, we wish Godspeed.
Mr. SHADEGG. Mr. Speaker, I am honored to be able to participate in
this tribute to a great American--Ronald Reagan--and to his continuing
legacy. Through my father's lifelong association with Senator Barry
Goldwater, I first met then Governor Reagan in 1968 on my way to the
Republican National Convention in Miami. He impressed me then and he
impresses me today. There can be little doubt that it was his
commitment to downsizing government, renewing federalism, restoring
America's defenses and re-establishing our belief in ourselves that led
to the tide that swept Republicans to victory on November 8 and put
this House under the control of the Republican party for the first time
in 40 years.
As we debate the Contract with America, whose central features are
intended to bring fiscal discipline to Congress and the country, I am
absolutely confident that the Reagan record will stand the test of
time. Under the policies of Ronald Reagan, America experienced the
longest period of peacetime expansion in our history. This expansion
created 19 million new jobs ad more than doubled the U.S. economy.
Regardless of all attempts to rewrite the Reagan legacy, the central
fact is that Ronald Reagan's policies benefited more people at every
economic level than ever before.
Had Congress had the discipline to rein in domestic spending during
the Reagan years, not only would we have defeated the Evil Empire, but
we also would have avoided the serious deficits and mounting debt which
now threaten our security.
Thanks to Ronald Reagan more of the world is free today than ever
before and as a result, people who were once prisoners of tyranny and
our enemies are now our trading partners. It was his vision for the
Strategic Defense Initiative that is being pursued today to protect our
troops on the battlefield; and it was his commitment to peace through
strength that brought the cold war to an end.
Ronald Reagan reminded us daily and by example what it means to be an
American. He is still reminding us today.
It is for all of these reasons and for all of the others that will be
discussed in this tribute that the Goldwater Institute, a Phoenix-based
public policy institute, will present to him their prestigious
Goldwater Award. The award is presented to an individual whose efforts
have significantly promoted the principles that Senator Goldwater
championed through out his career: Limited government, economic freedom
and individual responsibility.
This year the award will be presented on April 21 and will be
accepted by Former First
[[Page H1356]] Lady Nancy Reagan. The award ceremony will be a true
celebration of the movement for limited government. Barry Goldwater,
the man largely responsible for launching the movement, will honor
President Reagan, who brought the movement to victory. And, the keynote
address will be given by our Speaker, Newt Gingrich, the man whose task
it is now to carry this movement into the future.
Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor former President
Ronald Reagan. I am proud to have this opportunity to speak about our
40th president who was born 84 years ago, in my home State of Illinois.
At the age of 9 his family moved from Topica and settled in Dixon, IL
where he played football and basketball, ran track, served as president
of the student body, and first performed as an actor. Continuing his
education in Illinois, Ronald Reagan graduated from Eureka College in
1932 with a degree in economics and sociology.
From humble beginnings, Ronald Wilson Reagan went on to become a
sportscaster, actor, governor of California, and President of the
United States.
Sworn in at the age of 69, Ronald Reagan was the oldest President
ever elected. As one of America's most popular Presidents, Reagan
presided over a period of great fiscal growth as he revitalized the
American economy. Through his efforts, the American people enjoyed
great prosperity, while he steered the country through the delicate
times of the cold war.
Mr. Speaker, the state of Illinois is proud to have Ronald Wilson
Reagan as a native Illinoisan. It is for this reason and all of his
great services to the United States of America, that efforts are being
made by the Illinois Senate to have Interstate Route 57 designated as
the Ronald Reagan Highway. Stretching from the great city of Chicago,
through the fields of middle America, to the beautiful scenic land of
southern Illinois the Interstate offers a view of both the Land of
Lincoln and the birthplace and early home of Ronald Reagan.
I urge my former colleagues of the Illinois State House to pass the
legislation honoring Ronald Reagan and name Interstate Highway 57 after
him.
Mr. ALLARD. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join in this celebration of
President Reagan's 84th birthday. Ronald Reagan's place in history is
secure. With each passing year, his stature as a leader grows.
President Reagan's most important contribution was the leadership he
provided during the West's long struggle with totalitarian communism.
When he called the Soviet Union an evil empire media pundits scorned
him. Today, we all know that he was right. But President Reagan
provided far more than rhetoric in the struggle against communism. In
1980, America was dangerously weak and demoralized. President Reagan
understood this and he directed the strengthening of all aspects of our
military, coordinating our efforts with other members of the Western
alliance.
Following the end of World War II, country after country fell to
communism. All of Eastern Europe fell, much of Asia fell, and inroads
were even made in Africa and Latin America. the Iron Curtain went up,
and freedom was on the defensive. This all ended in 1981. From the
point when Ronald Reagan entered the White House, no additional
territory fell to the Communists. From that point forward the tide
began to turn. On all fronts, the Reagan administration backed the
forces of freedom. Solidarity in Poland was helped, the Afghan freedom
fighters were helped, Grenada was liberated, and democratic struggles
throughout Latin America were supported. The Soviet Union was
confronted by a Western alliance that had finally awaken to the dangers
of appeasement. The alliance was greatly strengthened by the friendship
and support of President Reagan's close friend and ally, British Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher. The west won the cold war, and Ronald
Reagan deserves much of the credit.
President Reagan's second great triumph was his economic plan. We was
the first modern President to directly challenge the notion that more
government was good. In his view, Government does not solve problems,
it subsidizes them. While this view is widely held today, it was
ridiculed throughout the 1960's and 1970's. During those years, Reagan
was nearly alone in his struggle against the endless growth of
government. But he never altered his message. Unlike other politicians,
he stood firm, and gradually the country moved his way. That is what
made him a leader.
The Reagan program of lower taxes and less regulation was a
tremendous success. In the early Reagan years all income taxes were cut
across-the-board by 25 percent. The decade to follow witnessed the
longest peacetime economic expansion in the history of our Nation. All
income groups experienced significant income gains from 1980 to 1989.
Twenty million new jobs were created, and the vast majority were high-
paying professional, production, and technical jobs.
In the late 1970's inflation was as high as 18 percent, and interest
rates rose to 21 percent. The Reagan economic program brought both of
these down dramatically. The 1970's malaise brought on by high
inflation, skyrocketing interest rates, high unemployment, and high
taxes was replaced by an economy that fostered opportunity, growth, and
optimism.
President Reagan rallied our Nation. He reminded each of us of our
proud history and heritage. He was never afraid to proclaim his love
for America. Most important, he stood up for what he believed. He knew
the importance of strength and resolve. The result was the most
successful Presidency in decades. As Reagan himself reminded us:
History comes and goes, but principles endure and inspire
future generations to defend liberty, not as a gift from
government, but a blessing from our creator.
Happy birthday Mr. President.
Mr. SOUDER. Mr. Speaker, I rise to pay tribute to the 40th President
of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Many have called our new freshman
class the children of the Reagan revolution or the real Reagan
revolution.
Ideologically, this is true. We are committed to the principles upon
which Ronald Reagan was the chief spokesman: reduce the size of
Government, cut taxes, rebuild not undermine our Nation's strong moral
and family base, and stand for a strong America. In my case, it goes
beyond the generalization. In 1964, just after my 15th birthday, I
heard Ronald Reagan's famous speech for Barry Goldwater for President.
Like many others, I was moved to action.
First, I took $5 of my hard-earned ``pop-bottle sorting'' money I
earned at our family's general store and sent it to Goldwater. Second,
I was activated and never looked back. After Goldwater's shocking
defeat--he did pretty well in my hometown of Grabill--I organized a
Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Leo High School, one of the
Nation's first high school YAF chapters.
At our 1968 Leo High School commencement, as senior class president,
I was asked to speak. In my draft remarks was a quote from then
Governor of California Ronald Reagan, with the comment, ``who will
someday make a great President of the United States.'' Our faculty
advisor, Mrs. Mumma, said to delete it or I couldn't speak. It was
deleted off my cards, but I ad-libbed it anyway, being a somewhat
independent person.
At the 1971 YAF national convention, I was part of a group of
conservatives pushing Reagan to run in 1972. In 1976, I helped in his
surprise victory in the Indiana Presidential primary for President.
President Gerald Ford was respected in Indiana, as our neighbor from
Michigan, but our hearts were with Reagan. A friend of mine, who had
also been a Reagan backer since 1968, won the 4th Congressional
District Republican primary in that same election. That Reagan fan went
on to upset an incumbent member of Congress in the fall. I now hold my
friend, and fellow Reaganite, Dan Quayle's old congressional seat.
In 1980, Dan Quayle went on to defeat an incumbent U.S. Senator and
another friend of Reagan won the 4th District Congressional seat. After
Quayle was elected Vice-President, our friend Dan Coats moved up to the
U.S. Senate.
This is the Indiana version of the Reagan revolution. To those who
thought the Reagan revolution was over, prepare yourselves. Dan Quayle
is obviously still an important player and Dan Coats is in the Senate,
and I am joined in the Indiana House delegation by my distinguished
freshman colleague Dave McIntosh, who worked in the Reagan
administration.
After a short break, we are back. The legacy of Ronald Reagan will
live on, led by the first State for Reagan--Indiana.
Mrs. FOWLER. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to former
President Ronald Reagan, who celebrated his 84th birthday yesterday.
President Reagan has always loomed larger-than-life on the political
landscape of this Nation, and though he has retired from the spotlight,
his many contributions to our Nation are still being felt today. His
enlightened world-view and his commitment to our national security
ultimately resulted in the end of the cold war and the spread of
democracy around the world.
And the conservative ideals upon which he based the Reagan revolution
are experiencing a renaissance, as both citizens and lawmakers realize
that the big-government, bureaucratic approach to problem-solving is
not working.
I know that this must be a bittersweet birthday for President Reagan,
as he faces what is perhaps his greatest challenge. However, I am also
sure that he derives a great deal of comfort from knowing that he has
his devoted wife at his side, that he is remembered in the prayers of a
grateful Nation, and that, once again,
[[Page H1357]] on the horizon of this great Nation, there is a glimmer
of morning in America.
Happy birthday, Mr. President, and thank you.
Mr. CRANE. Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan's Presidency brought a fresh
breath of renewed freedom to this country shackled by regulation,
inflation, high interest rates, and higher taxes at the time of his
first inauguration.
It was the policies of Ronald Reagan which brought about the greatest
national upset of the century--the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ronald
Reagan toppled the reign of an evil empire which its own citizens
sought but who were helpless to free themselves from--the dictatorship
which Lenin and Stalin had set upon them.
He kept his faith in America.
Ronald Reagan gave this country its biggest tax cut in the first year
of his presidency. The Reagan cut stimulated the dynamic growth of the
decade that followed, an explosion which created 20 million jobs.
Ronald Reagan adhered faithfully to traditional American family
values. He was adamant against abortion.
It was Ronald Reagan who touched off the debate on free trade. His
leadership in this area brought about our first free-trade agreement
with Canada. The NAFTA pact followed.
I personally have been a Ronald Reagan supporter for over a quarter
of a century. I battled in vain to gain him the Republican nomination
for President in 1968 in Miami Beach, and in 1976 in Kansas City. When
I withdrew from the presidential campaign in 1980, I threw all my
support behind him.
Ronald Reagan--a native of my own home State of Illinois--was ever
the optimist who recognized that the United States still represents the
world's best hope.
Mr. FUNDERBURK. Mr. Speaker, I join with my colleagues in sending
grateful happy birthday wishes to President Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Speaker, there are a few figures in each century who transcend
their times. Americans point to Washington and Jefferson, Britons to
Winston Churchill. As we celebrate his eighty-fourth birthday, it is
past time to add the name of Ronald Reagan to liberty's pantheon.
It is hard to remember what it was like before Ronald Reagan came to
Washington. The 1970's were a decade of disillusionment. Communism was
on the march. Democratic government and the rule of law were in
retreat. We were even questioning our purpose as Americans.
Yet, there came a great wind of change in 1980 which left America and
the globe transformed beyond all recognition. Ronald Reagan led the
way. Like Churchill before him, he gave free people the voice they
thought they had lost. His ideas produced an economic dynamism
Americans had not seen for decades. He exuded confidence in the
American spirit. He harbored no inhibitions about the use of American
power and he stood guard as the iron curtain crumbled before our eyes.
Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan mirrored the thoughts, desires, and faith
of ordinary Americans. He recognized as they did, that America is ``the
bright shining city on the hill.'' Happy birthday, Mr. President. May
you have many more.
Mr. PACKARD. Mr. Speaker, today we celebrate President Ronald
Reagan's birthday. During his administration, President Reagan
rekindled our Founding Fathers' guiding principles of limited
government. In his inaugural speech President Reagan reminded Americans
that ``we are a nation that has a government--not the other way
around.''
I began my congressional service under his administration. I came
here sharing Reagan's vision of American renewal. Today, his insight
continues to drive the work of the 104th Congress as we press for less
spending, less taxes, and less regulation. His philosophy echoes in the
mandate Americans sent Congress in November. His values provided the
underpinnings for the Republican Contract With America.
Under decades of liberal leadership, the Congress forced the American
people to carry the weight of a bloated, wasteful government. Under
Reagan's leadership the American people found relief from the liberal
tax-and-spend machine and a sense of national renewal.
During the 97th Congress, President Reagan initiated the line-item
veto by choosing to hold the line on wasteful spending. He sent House
Joint Resolution 357--the continuing resolution providing
appropriations for fiscal year 1982--back to Congress. He courageously
tried to protect the American taxpayer from unnecessary spending.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, the budget-busting liberal Congress chose
to ignore his warnings and continued to produce wasteful, bloated
budgets year after year.
The Republican-controlled 104th Congress has the opportunity to roll
back the big spenders in Congress. President Reagan showed us the way.
Now we must take the lead and pass the line-item veto.
Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to recognize President Reagan for his
political and personal achievements. His freedom agenda, our Republican
Contract With America, is alive within the walls of Congress. Happy
birthday, President Reagan.
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