[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 62 (Tuesday, April 4, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H4110-H4111]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                           CAMPAIGN PROMISES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Foley). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Hoke] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOKE. Mr. Speaker, do you remember back in the Presidential 
campaign of 1992 when President Clinton made a number of promises to 
the American people? He promised that he was going to give us a middle-
class tax cut. He promised that he was going to lift the senior 
citizens earning test. He promised that he would enact a line-item 
veto. He promised that he would balance the budget.
  He did not say he was going to balance the budget overnight. He said 
he was going to balance the budget.
  Let us look at the record. Let us look at the record.
  He reneged on the middle-class tax cut promise. In fact, he raised 
taxes, attempted to raise taxes in a very, very broad form way. Did not 
get away with that in terms of the Btu tax but still, in fact, did 
raise taxes. He reneged on the middle-class tax cut.
  No. 2, he did not lift the senior citizens earning test. Instead, 
what he did do was he cut Social Security benefits by $24.8 billion, 
$25 billion that he cut social security benefits by.
  And when pushed to lift the senior citizens earning test which, by 
the way, Mr. Speaker, is the amount of money up to which you are not 
penalized for working as a senior, right now that ceiling that limit is 
$11,200. We are going to raise it tomorrow in a vote on this floor to 
$30,000. We are going to do what President Clinton said he was going to 
do when he was running for the President, see, and he stole it with 
promises that he broke.
  No. 3, he promised a line-item veto. He never ever offered that as a 
bill. He never offered that legislation. He did not put himself into it 
when it did come up on the floor of the 103d Congress. It was not 
enacted. We got a kind of enhanced rescission package. We passed a 
line-item veto about a month ago, right here, 104th Congress.
  Finally, he said he was going to balance the budget. He has not given 
a halfhearted attempt at that. The budget he just submitted increases 
the deficit by $200 billion a year for the next 5 years, and it starts 
to skyrocket at about $400 billion.
  When we came out with these things: A balanced budget amendment, 
which we passed in this House; a line-item veto which we passed in this 
House; lifting the senior citizens earning limit and the middle-class-
tax cut; when we came out with that last fall as an agenda which we 
were willing to sign our names to, saying that if you give us the honor 
of representing you American people in the U.S. Congress, here is what 
we are going to do. We call this our Contract With America.
  Those same four things that were in his promises broken, promises to 
the American people, how did he characterize them? How did he 
characterize them, Mr. Speaker?
  I will tell you how he did. He called it a contract on America. The 
same promises that he had used falsely, falsely to get elected 2 years 
earlier he then characterized as a contract on America.
  [[Page H4111]] Well, Mr. Speaker, it is not a contract on America. In 
fact, it is a Contract With America. And not only that, but we are 
actually fulfilling the broken promises of Mr. Clinton from 2 years 
ago.
  We are giving a middle-class tax cut. We are lifting the senior 
citizens earnings limit. We are restoring the $25 billion in cuts that 
he made to Social Security benefits. We have enacted the line-item 
veto, and we are balancing the budget.
  I will yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Well if the gentleman will yield, there is another key 
element, and that is the welfare reform. The President did say he would 
end welfare as we know it, yet never submitted a welfare bill. And so 
that would mean 5 planks in the 10-plank Republican Contract With 
America the President actually ran on as candidate Clinton in 1992.
  Mr. HOKE. The gentleman is completely correct. As I was sitting here 
making my notes, I was trying to remember what was the fifth item, and 
that is exactly right.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman will yield further, I think that, 
essentially, when you consider what happened to the balanced budget 
amendment in the other body, three Democrat Senators voted against the 
balanced budget amendment. If the President did not fight the balanced 
budget amendment I think it is very possible, given the fact that he is 
a great salesman, that he could twist some arms and pick up the one,
 two, three or four votes that are needed to get the thing over the 
top.

  Mr. HOKE. As the gentleman well knows, not only did the President not 
fight to twist some arms to get the balanced budget amendment passed 
but, in fact, he worked day and night tirelessly, as hard as he 
possibly could, to make sure the balanced budget amendment failed.
  Mr. KINGSTON. What is also ironic, while he is out saying the 
Republican welfare reform is mean or inadequate or whatever, not only 
has he not offered an alternative but then he goes on to talk about our 
program and how good it is. But he did not use the word Republican. He 
says, this is what we need: work programs and programs that will end 
the cycle and get the dad into the picture and identified and so forth.
  I think it is disappointing, but you were talking about senior 
citizens and to increase the Social Security tax as your first year in 
office and then to fight trying to repeal that tax increase does have a 
degree of hypocrisy to it.
  Mr. HOKE. What we are going to do tomorrow on the floor, we are going 
to repeal that device that the President passed just a year ago. And I 
see my time is expired, but we are going to repeal those cuts, and we 
are going to restore those cuts so that senior citizens get their due.

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