[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 97 (Wednesday, June 14, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1234]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                              CHEER LEADER

                                 ______


                          HON. BERNARD SANDERS

                               of vermont

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 13, 1995
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I am submitting a copy of an article which 
appeared in the Brattleboro Reformer, Brattleboro, VT today. I think 
that it will be of interest to many and request that it be included in 
the Record.
          [From the Brattleboro (VT) Reformer, June 13, 1995]

                              Cheer Leader

       Of all the fishermen, in all the rivers, in all the states 
     of the union, why did it have to be Tim Kipp in the 
     Androscoggin River in Milan, N.H., when Speaker of the House 
     Newt Gingrich stopped Sunday to chat?
       Kipp, a history teacher at BUHS, is Brattleboro point man 
     for Vermont's independent Congressman Bernard Sanders. Well 
     to the left, his presence in the middle of a river was 
     probably the first time in years Kipp has been in the 
     mainstream. He was waist deep in water and up to here in 
     indignation when Gingrich, in New Hampshire testing the 
     political waters, paused for a photo op. It didn't help that 
     the very waters Kipp was fishing are imperiled by an anti-
     environment initiative championed by the conservative 
     speaker.
       Gingrich, a pawn of Murphy's Law, did not know whom he was 
     greeting when he waved hello.
       Kipp seethed back: ``Your politics are some of the meanest 
     politics I have ever heard. You make Calvin Coolidge look 
     like a liberal.''
       Gingrich dismissed Kipp's testy greeting with an intriguing 
     summary: ``The guy is from Vermont and he didn't have that 
     cheerful New Hampshire conservatism.'' The key word here is 
     ``cheerful.''
       To be cheerful in the face of assaults on the environment 
     and cruel cuts to veterans, children, the elderly, the poor 
     and the sick is evidence of either viciousness or delusion. 
     We trust it is delusion that is behind ``cheerful New 
     Hampshire conservatism.'' Certainly, delusion--plus smoke and 
     mirrors--are the main underpinnings of the Republican 
     congressional agenda. Thus would tax breaks for the wealthy 
     help reduce the budget. Thus would denying the needy 
     simultaneously empower them.
       Lately, Gingrich has been hustling a picturesque, even 
     uplifting, vision of an alternative to a national social 
     welfare system he regards as crushingly expensive and lacking 
     a moral soul. In Gingrich's America, private charities would 
     shelter the homeless, feed the hungry and lend a hand to the 
     lame and halt. The welfare state would be dismantled. 
     Government employees would be replaced by volunteers 
     sustained only by their sense of mission.
       According to the leaders of the charities that would be 
     called upon to fill the breach left by an obliterated welfare 
     system, however, Gingrich is, well deluded.
       Officials of numerous national charitable institutions--
     Catholic Charities USA, the Salvation Army, the American Red 
     Cross, among others--say private donations to their agencies 
     have dropped off in recent years. Both tax laws and a 
     precarious economy discourage giving, and volunteerism is 
     down in an economy where there are too few non-working 
     Americans with extra time on their hands.
       It's hard to be cheerful in the face of the truth, but 
     somebody has to balance the happy horsefeathers offered by 
     the speaker. Maybe Kipp should go on a speaking tour of New 
     Hampshire and Newt ``Don't Worry, Be Happy'' Gingrich should 
     go fishing.
     

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