[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 33 (Wednesday, February 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2030-H2031]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                       THE CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Lewis] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LEWIS of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, today marks the midway point in 
Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. It is an extremist document 
which sets back the clock. It is a contract which rewards the wealthy 
at the expense of our children, our senior citizens, the poor and hard 
working class Americans. Let's look back over the past 50 days and 
review what this band of extremists has done.
  The new majority has reduced the number of police that were to patrol 
our city streets through their crime bill--this is their Contract With 
America. They have proposed denying food to hungry school children 
through elimination of the School Lunch Program--this is their Contract 
With America. The Republican majority has passed a bill which will make 
it more difficult to protect our air and keep our water clean. They 
would cut nutrition programs for our senior citizens--these, too, are 
the Contract With America. The Republicans seek to gut the Corporation 
for Public Broadcasting which through its PBS stations provides 
educational television for us and our children--this is the Contract 
With America. And the Republicans have vowed ``to fight with all their 
being'' a small increase in the minimum wage, a wage which provides 
those who receive it a living standard 30% below the poverty level--
alas, this also is the Contract With America.
  And the new, extreme, Republicans have done all this while advocating 
tax cuts for the top 1% of Americans. This, my friends, all of this, is 
their Contract With America.
  Of course, not everything they have done these 50 days has been bad. 
The Congress did pass the
 Congressional Accountability Act which makes the Congress live by the 
same Labor and Civil Rights laws as those in the private sector. Of 
course, the last Congress, the Democratic Congress, passed the same 
bill with more than 400 votes.

  Mr. Speaker, if these are the accomplishments of the Republican 
Congress, if this is what they've done to us in the first 50 days, 
imagine what they'll do to us in the next 50 days and in the next two 
years.
  We need a government that is leaner, not a government that is meaner. 
We need a federal government that is less bureaucratic, not one that is 
less compassionate.
  Newt Gingrich and his Republican colleagues have gone too far. In 
their rush to the right, they have forgotten not just those on the 
left, but those in 
[[Page H2031]]  the middle. The vast majority of Americans not only 
want our government to be smaller, they want it to work better. They 
want a government that protects our children and looks out for our 
senior citizens. They want to insure that the air we breath and the 
water we drink are pure and clean. They want their neighborhoods to be 
safe and their kids to be able to go to college. They want to earn a 
decent wage and be able to save a little money at the end of each 
month. All of these things, Mr. Speaker, all of these are what the 
American people want. The Republican Contract With America does none of 
them.
  The American people deserve better than this extreme Contract With 
America. And the time has come that we not just pray and we not just 
speak. The time has come for action. I did not sign this contract. The 
American people did not sign this contract. The time for action is now.


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