[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 65 (Friday, April 7, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5553-S5554]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                         CONTRACT WITH AMERICA

 Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I rise to join my colleagues who have 
expressed their congratulations to our counterparts in the House who 
this week completed work on the ``Contract With America.''
  In the past few days, Mr. President, I have heard some powerful and 
stirring remarks from the other side about the nature of the ``Contract 
With America.'' I have heard allegations that Republicans are plotting 
to break ketchup bottles over children's heads, to snatch their school 
lunches from their grasping mouths, and to send the seniors of America 
into the streets to forage from garbage cans.
  Of course, this is an attempt to cast a judgment on the substance of 
the legislation that was brought forth under the contract. I would 
instead prefer to focus my remarks on what I consider to be the real 
point of the contract, which was a commitment by newly elected leaders 
to--hold on to your hats--to keep their campaign promises.
  Small wonder that this effort has produced so much discomfiture and 
fury on the other side. I remember a Presidential election in 1992, in 
which a Democratic Presidential candidate campaigned against the Bush 
policy in China, against the Bush policy in Bosnia, promised massive 
tax cuts--then delivered unprecedented tax increases--and on and on and 
on. And this is, to the mindset of the other side, what 
``responsibility'' is all about. You don't keep your campaign promises, 
because it would be ``irresponsible'' to do so.
  My view is rather quite different. My view of responsibility is that, 
while campaigning, one only makes promises that one intends to keep. 
But apparently it is a novel idea in Washington, and is described by 
phrases such as ``pandering'' and ``irresponsibility.''
  Now also, before discussing the substance of the contract itself, let 
me also commend by House colleagues for adhering to the principle that, 
whether or not the votes were there to pass these items, these matters 
should be brought forth for a vote. That was the real point of the 
contract--to bring matters up for a vote.
  I need not tell American citizens why that is so important, but I 
would like to refresh my colleagues' understanding of that point. The 
point is simply that the American public has a right to know where its 
representatives truly stand on these issues. That is a fundamental 
responsibility of representative democracy.
  This principle should be supported by all legislators, whether or not 
they agreed with all of the substantive content of the ``contract.'' 
Clearly, these were matters of importance to the American people. Many 
legislators--on both sides of the aisle--have run for office claiming 
that they supported such measures. They would say that they favored 
balanced budgets, favored the line-item veto, favored term limits, 
favored holding Congress accountable to the laws that it passed--and 
yet these measures were never passed. Those who voted for these 
legislators had a right to know who really favored these measures and 
who did not.
  I think it is a measure of how truly ``out of touch'' Washington has 
become if the definition of ``responsibility'' has become--``refusing 
to vote on matters of importance to the American people.'' What House 
Republicans have accomplished, essentially, is to demonstrate that they 
believed that Americans did have a right to know where their 
legislators really stood, instead of Congress' engaging in the age-old 
practice of refusing to bring matters to a vote simply because it was 
feared they would pass. That is not my idea of representative 
democracy--gimmicking the system to avoid having 
to cast a politically unpopular vote. And we saw a terrible lot of that 
in the House for 40 years.
  Finally, I would like to address the rather silly charge that the 
``Contract With America'' was a special boon for rich Americans only.
  If we run down the various items of the contract--and I do not 
support every single one of them--we see several measures that have 
nothing to do with being ``rich'' or ``poor.'' We simply see measures 
designed to give Washington some long-overdue accountability to the 
people we represent.
  For instance--the Congressional Accountability Act. I do not 
understand why it would be catering to the ``rich'' to make Congress 
accountable to the laws that it passes.
  Nor do I understand why a halt to unfunded Federal mandates is a 
special benefit for ``the rich.'' It is an irrelevant, nonsensical 
argument to say that somehow it is the height of egalitarianism for 
Washington to send endless unfunded mandates on to the States.
  The balanced budget amendment; there's another one. Simply the 
proposition that Government should live within its means. I would be 
very curious to know what tenet of economic theory holds that it is 
necessary for Government to go into hundreds of billions in debt every 
year in order to treat ``rich'' and ``poor'' appropriately.
  Even many of the attacks on the proposed tax cuts struck me as 
disingenuous, at times even hypocritical. Many Congressmen and Senators 
waxed eloquent about how unfair it was to give any sort of tax break to 
the ``rich,'' but when it comes to shelling out billions in Federal 
entitlement benefits to the ``rich,'' they are strangely silent. If it 
is unjust to have any sort of tax relief affecting anyone of means, 
please explain to me why a billionaire should get a full Social 
Security COLA, or to have 75 percent of his Medicare part B premium 
paid by the taxpayer. If you want to know where we have really indulged 
the ``rich,'' it's not through the Tax Code. It's through Government 
spending.
  So this was never about ``rich'' versus ``poor.'' It was about big 
Government versus small Government.
  In the end, Mr. President, many of the attacks on the Republican 
legislative effort are nothing more than the same shopworn, trite, 
ridiculous rhetoric of class warfare that got us into this spending 
nightmare, and most assuredly will not get us out.
  We will hear much more of it in the weeks to come.
  When we attempt to hold the growth of Government spending to a 
reasonable level--not to cut it, but just to restrain its growth--we 
will hear how we are ``cutting'' and ``slashing'' and so forth.
  I just cannot believe--and I say this in all earnestness to my 
Democratic colleagues and their pollsters--that the American people 
will swallow that one. I remember those charges during the 
 [[Page S5554]] Reagan years. Last I looked, we had a Federal budget 
of, now, $1.6 trillion. Doesn't look like a lot of ``slashing'' and 
``cutting'' to me. Does anyone seriously believe that the American 
public will buy the notion that we are tearing spending to ribbons when 
we have a Federal budget of $1.6 trillion? Something just doesn't add 
up there.
  The reality is that we have programs like Head Start that are going 
up 140 percent over the course of 6 years--and the opposition comes 
down here, still, to charge that it is being torn apart by Republican 
budget cuts.
  It is a mode of argument that simply will not work anymore. There is 
simply too much clear evidence to the contrary.
  There is still much to do to bring our Government's house into order. 
But by any measure, the first 100 days of this Congress have been a 
darn good start. We owe the House our rich congratulations.


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