[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 40 (Friday, March 3, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H2648-H2649]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              {time}  1545
                 ACCOMPLISHMENT OF REPUBLICAN CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Oxley). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Norwood] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. NORWOOD. Mr. Speaker, we have now completed 59 days of very hard 
work in this House, and as I sit back and ponder what we have 
accomplished in these 59 days I am really struck by the differences in 
what we on this side of the aisle are doing and what the Democrats are 
saying in opposition.
  We want to take this country forward. We want to protect our Nation's 
future by reducing our national debt. But from the other side we hear 
very meek defenses and sometimes very loud defenses of the status quo.
  We hear their cries to save the failed policies of the welfare state 
that they created over the last 40 years. And we hear their pleas to 
save the precious bureaucracy, for only the Federal bureaucrats know 
how to govern this Nation, they say.
  Mr. Speaker, we owe very near $5 trillion. We are adding another 
trillion every 4 years. We are paying almost $300 billion annually in 
interest on our debt. There is no greater thing we must fear than our 
debt.
  A trillion is a large number. I never can keep the zeros correct 
behind a trillion. But we owe almost $5 trillion, and maybe to put that 
in perspective just a little bit, I would say that if we tried to pay 
off $1 trillion of our debt and we chose to do that by paying $1 every 
second, we would pay off that trillion dollars in 144,000 years. And I 
remind my colleagues perhaps that organized agriculture only started on 
this planet 10,000 years ago.
  I hope that says to Members as it does to me that though 5 is small, 
trillion is a lot, and the young people in this room today surely must 
realize that if we continue on the path that we have been going we are 
spending their inheritance, and we are spending their future, and those 
of us who sit over here every day and listen to the mistruths on this 
side every day are simply trying to bring that in balance.
  The Federal bureaucrats who seem to run this Nation are people that 
are hired by us with our tax dollars. These people are nonelected 
officials, and it is not my opinion that they know what is best. In 
this great country, it is true that we are responsible for ourselves, 
we have individual responsibilities, and the great thing about this 
Nation is that we are free, and we should all be able to reach for the 
heavens and be all we can be according to our abilities and our 
willingness to work without interference from a Federal bureaucracy, 
and that is what we have been saying for 59 days.
  These people must get off our backs and quit taking our freedoms 
away.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like for you to consider all of the things that 
we have accomplished. On the first day of this Congress we passed 
reforms to make this body more responsible, to limit the power of the 
committee chairmen who for years, along with the Speaker have run this 
government, who had dictatorial control during their Democratic regime.
  We have cut the number of staffers, just like we said we would, and 
we have eliminated funding for the caucuses, just like we said we 
would. We have made this body more open and more responsible, all the 
while every day the Democrats gripe and complain.
  Mr. Speaker on January 26 we took a step in this body that the vast 
majority of Americans asked us to do. We passed the BBA, the balanced 
budget amendment, after trying for years, and I cannot tell you how 
excited I was that night when over 300 Members of this body cast their 
veto giving us finally a balanced budget amendment.
  It was exciting because the number was 300, in fact because it was a 
bipartisan effort, Members from both sides of the aisle finally 
realized that in order to get this Congress to have the guts to do what 
they are supposed to do there was no option left but to change the 
Constitution. Three hundred Members of this body voted for it. And this 
will basically restore fiscal sanity and bring us back from the brink 
of disaster that we peer over, and we do.
  It was a vote to save the children of this great Nation from a 
daunting future ahead of them, it was a vote to save my granddaughter 
from a very uncomfortable future. We did the right thing. I know we 
did. And even though the amendment did not pass the Senate yesterday, I 
know we in this body did what we said we would do. We did what 80 
percent of the Americans in this country asked us to do: We passed a 
balanced budget amendment.
  And I know that you are watching, I know that the American people are 
watching, they are watching C-SPAN in greater numbers than any time in 
the history of C-SPAN. They will remember who stopped this amendment.
  They will recognize that those in the Senate who voted against this 
amendment, though, said just a year ago they would gladly vote for a 
balanced budget amendment were some of the very same people that cut 
Social Security benefits to our senior citizens just last year by a tax 
increase; yet this year they say, no, we cannot have a balanced budget 
amendment because it might affect Social Security.
  The American people will remember the names of those who voted for 
the amendment last year and against it this year. The American people 
will remember. And there will be, ladies and gentlemen, there will be 
accountability for defeating the will of the majority.
  All the while a small group of Democrats in this body cried about the 
precious programs that they would lose because of a balanced budget 
amendment. It is almost as if these programs are more important to them 
than the fiscal security of this Nation.
  We heard much the same arguments when we passed the line-item veto 
and the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act. With the line-item veto we gave 
the President
 the same power possessed by most of the Nation's Governors. We gave 
the President an important tool in our fight against the deficit. We 
released the States from a choking grasp of unfunded Federal mandates 
and all the while the Democrats fretted that 
[[Page H2649]] we would take the power away from the Federal 
Government.
  Ladies and gentlemen, the power in this country is the power within 
the people's lands, not a Federal Government. In these 59 days we have 
made great strides in improving the quality of life in this Nation. Our 
crime bill, for example, will give local law enforcement the power to 
attack crime only as they know how. The National Security Restoration 
Act will ensure that no American soldier in the service of this Nation 
will die at the whim of an Egyptian bureaucrat.
  We have passed legislation to bring the massive regulatory 
bureaucracy under control, and thank God. We have released the American 
people from the mindless bureaucrats that inflict billions and billions 
of dollars of unnecessary burden on the American economy, large 
business, small business and all.
  In passing these acts we have kept our promise to the American 
people. We have put in more hours, held more hearings, cast more votes 
than any previous Congress had to this point in recent history. We have 
shown this Nation, with the work that we have done, that the U.S. House 
of Representatives can be an effective legislature.
  We have shown the American people that Government can get the 
important business of this Nation accomplished. And we are going to 
accomplish still more in the next 41 days.
  In the next 41 days we will reform the legal system to make our 
system more responsible and reduce the dragging effect that frivolous 
lawsuits have on this Nation. We are going to pass term limits to make 
legislators value public service over professional politics. We will 
take steps to treat seniors equitably with the Senior Citizens Equity 
Act, and yes, we will make reforms of our morally bankrupt welfare 
system.
  And we will continue to hear the guardians of the old order whine and 
cry as we dismantle the system that they created over 40 years. We will 
continue to hear Democrats tell the American people how the Federal 
Government always knows best, as they did in the unfunded mandates 
debate.
  We will continue to hear the Democrats say that local officials 
cannot be trusted to do the right thing, as they did in the crime bill 
debate. We will continue to hear the Democrats fight to save the power 
of the Federal bureaucrats, as they did in the regulatory reform 
debate.
  It is offensive to me to sit here and listen day in and day out as 
they trumpet the capabilities of the bureaucracy to make our life 
better, as they clamor for the necessity of a bureaucracy that lives in 
our daily lives from the minute we get up to the minute we go to bed.

                              {time}  1600

  The hardworking folks back at home know better. The Federal 
Government has never been the cure-all the Democrats would like for you 
to think. The Federal Government is more often than not a nightmare 
waiting to happen to the hardworking people of this Nation.
  The American people know better, and that is why the Democrats are in 
the minority today.
  Ah, but now, Mr. Speaker, they have finally found a way to disguise 
this bankrupt argument that the Federal Government knows best. They 
have found a way to disguise their love of the Federal bureaucracy. We 
are now beginning to hear arguments that Republicans are out to starve 
the American children. Mr. Speaker, this is utter and complete 
nonsense.
  I was on this floor last night for 1 hour listening to one lie right 
after the other about our nutrition programs, lies told by people who 
know better. If the American people knew how much the Democrats are 
willing to distort the truth to save the bureaucracy, they would be 
absolutely outraged. Yes, we are combining many nutritional programs 
into block grants; yes, we are sending the moneys back to the States 
where the teachers and the dietitians and the superintendents know 
best.
  But, no, we are not sending less, we are sending more. We are 
increasing the funding because it involves children. But if you listen 
to the other side, you do not get the truth. Mr. Speaker, it is 
exasperating to have to put up with the rhetoric the other side hurls 
at us. I voted in committee to increase the funding for child nutrition 
programs, to increase the funding child nutrition programs are getting. 
Yet people are calling my office worried that we are gutting these 
programs. Why? We are not. Where do they read such things? Where do 
they hear such things? It is not happening.
  We are increasing funding and eliminating the wasteful Federal 
bureaucracy to help get more money to the States, more money for food, 
not for bureaucrats. The charge that we are cutting funding is patently 
false. Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, Americans should consider why Democrats 
have sought to distort reality to protect Federal bureaucrats. Could it 
be, Mr. Speaker, for financial reasons? Could it be because Democrats 
receive millions and millions of dollars in campaign funding from 
bureaucrats? Could it be because these contributions to Democrats 
outnumber contributions to Republicans by a margin of 9 to 1?
  Could it be that Democrats have a vested interest in protecting 
Federal bureaucrats?
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply ask that the American people look at the 
facts. It is a fact that we are putting more money into child 
nutrition, it is a fact that our bill dismantles part of the Federal 
bureaucracy and it is a fact that Democrats receive significant 
campaign contributions from Federal bureaucrats.
  All I ask is that the American people consider the facts.
  Mr. Speaker, this Congress will continue to do what is best for 
America, this 104th Congress will. We will continue to keep the 
promises we made to make this Nation a better place, even in the face 
of distorted arguments made by the other side.
  Mr. Speaker, if the Democrats really cared about children, they would 
stop fighting to save the bureaucracy and engage in an honest 
discussion about how to improve our welfare system.
  For the good of this Nation, I surely hope they will join us in doing 
what is right for America.


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