[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 13 (Wednesday, January 31, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H991-H997]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        TRIBUTE TO RONALD REAGAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] is recognized for 
60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.


          congress must work together to end deficit spending

  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, we were to use this time for a special 
occasion that appears on the calendar in a few days, and we will get to 
that in a few minutes. But after hearing the rhetoric bandied about 
this floor this morning and on into the afternoon, I think it is 
important to make several points.
  First and foremost, when we talk about credit and credit ratings, 
when we talk about abdication of responsibility, Mr. Speaker, the 
problem is this: For too long those who have come to this Chamber have 
always found a reason to say yes; have always found a reason to spend 
more and more of the American taxpayers' money.
  For almost a half century, it has been fact in this city, in this 
Chamber, that it is always easier to say yes. It is always easier to 
say, oh, gee, we should be able to find some money for that. To that 
extent, we have now spent ourselves to almost $5 trillion of debt.
  No, Mr. Speaker, the ultimate abdication of responsibility is not 
facing up to this problem and saying, let us work together to change 
these ways. The ultimate abdication of responsibility would be to 
continue to heap debt upon debt upon those who have no voice in this 
Chamber, for they are generations yet unborn.
  We have heard a lot about bipartisanship. Let me congratulate the 
President and his budgeteers for something they did a couple of years 
ago, something called generational accounting, where the President 
asked his budgeteers to take a look at Government as it exists today 
and extrapolate what it would cost the average American taxpayer if 
nothing changed. The President's own budgeteers said, if nothing 
changes, the average American 25 years from now will surrender 82 
percent of his or her income in taxation to some level of government, 
to some governmental entity.
  Today the American taxpayer, the average American family pays more in 
taxes than on food, shelter, and clothing combined. Yet, our friends 
would come here and say, gee, if you want to make the Government work, 
we will just take more or hang on to more of people's hard-earned 
money, and we will get our act together.
  Yet the inescapable fact is, for every dollar raised in taxes for 
years, this Congress has spent $1.59. Now it is supposed to be 
different. My distinguished friend, the gentleman from Michigan, quoted 
Mark Twain. Mark Twain also said this: ``History does not repeat 
itself, but it rhymes.''
  Yes, momentous decisions await us in this Chamber. Yes, the American 
people deserve the best. Yes, the American people deserve a Government 
that will allow pro-growth policies by letting people hang on to more 
of their hard-earned money and at the same time deliver a one-two 
punch, not only allowing Americans to hang on to more of their money 
but, yes, curtailing the levels of spending.
  It is only extreme in the sense that it makes extremely good sense.
  Mr. Speaker, with that I yield to my friend from California.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to realize 
that, when we say 80 percent of people's income will have to be taken 
from them in taxes in the future in order to pay for government if we 
leave the situation the way it is, let us remember what that 80 percent 
will mean. That 80 percent will not be providing those future 
generations with services. What we are talking about is leaving future 
generations to pay a majority of their income simply to pay for the 
interest on the debt that we have left them.

  Mr. Speaker, we are basically condemning future generations of 
Americans to slavery. Our fellow Americans should take a look and see 
what we are talking about here. One is not a free person if one has to 
work half of one's life simply to pay the interest on the debt that 
someone else has given. That is what the young people of our country 
have to look forward to unless we are responsible.
  Our country will not be a prosperous country in a situation like 
that, and our people will not be a free people. It 

[[Page H992]]
is the freedom of our fellow Americans in the future that we are 
talking about. It is the freedom of our children and our children's 
children; not only their prosperity but their freedom as well.
  Let us note this: that we have heard a lot of talk today and a lot of 
names called. I heard one of our colleagues suggest that we are 
``masquerading as Congressmen.'' I heard another colleague say that we 
are just a ``bunch of extremists.'' This type of name calling should 
raise the red flag in American homes and say, wait a minute, what is 
going on here? Why do people have to call these types of names? What 
about the basic argument at hand?
  I think we should look at some of the basic things. We have been told 
today, for example, that 200,000 Federal employees have been cut by 
this administration. Well, we know almost all of those are a result of 
a reduction in our military forces. Is that being forthright with the 
American people, to claim that we have reduced the size of Government 
when in reality all we have done is reduced the size of the American 
military?
  Then we heard about the $500 billion cut in our deficit. Does anyone 
believe that in the last 2 years we have seen a reduction of $500 
billion in our deficit? That is absolutely ludicrous, to say that over 
these last 2 years we have seen a $500 billion cut in the deficit.
  Mr. Speaker, what reduction there has been in the deficit, however, 
might be attributed simply to, No. 1, the good economy that this 
President inherited, and, No. 2, the fact that the President passed, 
immediately upon entering office, one of the largest tax increases in 
American history. Before that has its chance to wreak havoc upon our 
economy, there seems to be a little bit more revenue coming in because 
of tax increases.

                              {time}  1315

  It is absolutely ludicrous to suggest that this cut in the deficit 
has anything to do with a reduction in the size of Government or Vice 
President Gore's plan to reinvent Government. This is not an honest 
debate when we move forward like this. The American people should 
understand that what we have today and the reason we are in a budget 
confrontation, the reason people are talking about default, the reason 
the Federal Government was closed down is, there is a philosophical 
struggle going on in Washington, DC. And the democratic process is 
playing it out, just as our Founding Fathers intended this democratic 
process to work.
  The fact is that one group of people is demanding more and more 
Federal spending and an ever-increasing Government versus a shrinking 
proportion of take-home pay for the American people.
  On the other side, we Republicans believe that a free society means 
that people have a chance to take home some of their hard-earned 
dollars and make choices for themselves, how they will educate their 
children, how they will spend the money that they have earned, how they 
will allocate these limited resources. It is not a free society, as I 
say, if a greater and greater portion is taken away from someone who 
has earned that money. We are condemning our children to a future of 
virtual slavery unless we change that pattern.
  But changing the pattern is exactly what this is about. This 
President and the minority, who by the way had a chance to do anything 
they wanted to do for the last 2 years, they had the Presidency and 
both Houses of Congress, but the other side is so committed to bigger 
Government, to taking resources away from the people and giving them to 
bureaucrats and officials in Washington, who are bestowed, I guess, 
with some benevolence in that they understand how to use those 
resources, have a greater understanding than the people themselves who 
earned them. This is what they would like to do, and they want to do 
that so much, they are so committed to a bigger and bigger Government 
that they are willing to shut down the Federal Government. We hear time 
and time again of all of the consequences of the short shutdown that we 
faced with the Federal Government. The fact is, I understand that. You 
understand that. The majority understands that.
  We did our job. The reason the Government was shut down was that the 
President of the United States did not do his job because he was 
committed to bigger Government and higher taxes and more controls and 
more regulation and Washington, DC, the omnipotent Washington DC, 
rather than committed to the freedom and prosperity of the people.
  That is what is going on here. That is what is playing out. When you 
hear talk of default, the Republicans are forcing no default, just as 
the Republicans did not force the closing down of the Government. What 
we are doing, we are doing our very best to turn around a situation 
where if the United States continues to go in the direction that it is 
that we will be sacrificing the freedom and prosperity of young 
Americans and future generations.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend from California, 
again, for expounding on some of the rhetoric we heard this morning.
  One who preceded us in America's public affairs said it this way, Mr. 
Speaker:

       This is the issue, whether we believe in our capacity for 
     self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution 
     and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant 
     capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan 
     them ourselves.

  The truth of those words rings true. And it is in that spirit that we 
move today to our reason for taking this time, as Members of the 
majority, to commemorate the fact that on February 6, the great 
communicator, indeed one of the greatest Presidents ever to serve in 
the Oval Office, Ronald Wilson Reagan, will turn 85 years of age. There 
are so many inspiring factors, when one looks at the life of Ronald 
Reagan and his life in public service, but I look to his earlier years. 
Indeed, many, to offer this personal note, have looked at my career, 
those pundits and would-be potentates of the fourth estate inside this 
beltway, as some have written of my stewardship in this Congress, my 
heavens, he is a sportscaster.
  Well, let the record show that Ronald Reagan began his working career 
on the air in radio, first at WOC Davenport and then WHO Des Moines and 
indeed, the bulk of his duties entailed sportscasting.
  Now, I will be the first to admit, Mr. Speaker, that I am certainly 
no Ronald Reagan, but we are joined today in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, 
by those who have served President Reagan and those who continue to 
serve former President Reagan. I would be happy to yield some time 
again to my good friend from California, one of the surfing 
Congressmen, indeed, one of the surfing speechwriters who worked in the 
Reagan White House, who was present at the Reagan revolution, my good 
friend, Mr. Rohrabacher.
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. I thank the gentleman very much. I was blessed to be 
born in California and to have lived in California at the time when 
Ronald Reagan was Governor of that State. In fact, I worked on his very 
first campaign.
  I was the Los Angeles County high school chairman of Youth for 
Reagan. And one little anecdote that might give people a better sense 
of who we are talking about is that after that campaign, it was a very 
hard-fought campaign, Ronald Reagan was always told during his entire 
career that he would lose the election that he was in because he was an 
extremist. And we have heard that word bandied about here today.
  Ronald Reagan was always called an extremist and was always told that 
the American people would never elect him and that he could not win, 
that was always the argument against him in the Republican primaries.
  It was a hard-fought primary and Reagan won handily. During that 
primary in the youth group, in the youth movement that we had there 
working for Ronald Reagan, there was a conflict between the Young 
Republicans and the Young Americans for Freedom. And it was a very 
brutal conflict, even though we had a great man to work for. Everybody 
was fighting each other and some of us tried to just walk the precincts 
and pay attention to the job, but everybody seemed to get sucked into 
this battle.
  What happened was, the senior staff of the Reagan campaign determined 
after the primary that what they would do is eliminate Youth for Reagan 
and 

[[Page H993]]
then they would just put all the young people into the organization 
that was based for everybody, for the adult volunteers of the campaign. 
I just felt terrible about this. I just did not know what to do.
  I had walked about 20 precincts myself. I had 120 kids in my area 
that had just worked their hearts out for Ronald Reagan and Youth for 
Reagan, and I was crestfallen. What was this going to mean? There would 
be no Youth for Reagan.
  I decided to talk to Ronald Reagan himself about this problem. And 
there I was, 17, I guess I was more like 18 years old. I got up one 
morning and went to Ronald Reagan's home at 2 or 3 in the morning. And 
I walked up this narrow driveway, and this shows you how different 
things are, there was not even a guard on the outside of the house. And 
I went to the backyard and camped out in the backyard. And I had a 
little sign.
  And the next morning about 7 in the morning, Nancy stuck her head out 
of the door and said, Who are you? I had this little sign and it said, 
Ronald Reagan, please speak to me. And she explained, she said, Now, 
look, my husband cannot come out; otherwise I know him, he will miss 
his breakfast or he will be late for the rest of the day.
  How can you argue with a wife who is concerned about her husband? And 
so she said, If you will go down and if you will leave now, I will make 
sure that you get an appointment with one of the top campaign people. 
You can discuss your problem with him.
  So OK, I started walking down that long driveway. And then behind me 
I heard a thump, thump, thump. And it was Ronald Reagan. His shirt was 
half off. There was shaving cream on his face. He said, Wait a minute, 
wait a minute. He said, If you can camp out on my back lawn all night, 
I can at least spend a couple minutes with you.
  Sure enough, he spent 5 minutes with me. And I would like to think 
that that was the 5 minutes that saved Youth for Reagan, because the 
adult organization did not take over. But this is just the type of man 
Ronald Reagan was. He had a wonderful heart. He thought about young 
people.
  We have just been discussing what will happen if we do not set our 
country on the right path. It will be our young people that suffer. 
Ronald Reagan knew this. Ronald Reagan's whole goal, when he became 
President of the United States, was to make sure that we passed onto 
our children a country that was more prosperous and a world that was 
more free and a world that was more likely to be at peace than the one 
that we inherited.
  President Clinton, by the way, has had an easy job of this. I know 
that our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will not accept 
this, but the fact is, President Clinton inherited a great economy, an 
economy that was growing, an economy that had almost no inflation. And 
in fact, he also inherited a world in which the United States was the 
supreme power and that the cold war was a memory, the cold war was 
over.
  For the first half of Mr. Clinton's Presidency, he had control of 
both Houses of Congress. His party could have done anything they 
wanted. This is so different than when Ronald Reagan took over as 
President. Ronald Reagan inherited a disaster. Our economy, I remember 
that, because I was a journalist at the time. I remember that in the 2 
years prior to Ronald Reagan becoming President, my income was reduced 
by 25 percent due to inflation.
  All those people who were not getting raises found out that with an 
inflation rate of 13 percent and 12 percent a year, that their income 
was going down, that they could not afford to live. In fact, one of the 
greatest drops in the economic well-being of minority Americans and 
less affluent Americans happened in the 2 years just prior to Ronald 
Reagan taking over as President.
  And when Reagan came to office, we faced this incredible economic 
catastrophe. We also faced an enemy intent on destroying the United 
States of America, an enemy that had been arming itself to the teeth 
for years, and a situation in which our own Armed Forces had been 
neglected out of some ideological commitment by the left. I guess the 
left at that time felt that a strong United States was an enemy of 
peace and not a friend of peace.
  Ronald Reagan had to turn that situation around or we would have been 
at war. He had to turn the situation around or our young people would 
never have had any chance of prosperity or the economic lives that we 
lived even in this generation would have continued to decline.
  On top of that, the Democrats had control of this body, of the House 
of Representatives, during his entire time as President. In fact, the 
Democrats did everything they could to undermine President Reagan. I 
know there is a lot of revisionist history going on these days about 
the cold war, but I will tell you this right now, that when Ronald 
Reagan tried to confront Soviet aggression, tried to rebuild America's 
strength, tried to do what he could to confront this bully that 
threatened all of mankind, we did not have the liberal wing of the 
Democratic Party on our side. In fact, they were doing everything they 
possibly could to undermine our effort.
  In fact, at the time in the domestic area, when Ronald Reagan 
proposed cuts, today we hear him blamed for the great deficit increase 
that happened during his years.

                              {time}  1330

  I remember very well what happened during those years. What happened 
was Ronald Reagan was personally attacked. He was villified, not for 
spending too much, not for creating a bigger deficit. The very same 
people who today call him those names and blame him for the deficit 
were the ones in charge of this House who were attacking Ronald Reagan 
for not spending enough money. They were the ones who pushed Ronald 
Reagan to the wall in order to get more money put into the budget, not 
less. It is funny now that we hear the revisionist history about Ronald 
Reagan being the one responsible for the deficit by the very same 
people who demanded more and more spending, and villified Ronald Reagan 
for fighting it.
  Worse than that, however, When Ronald Reagan tried to confront the 
Soviet Union, in our efforts, for example, before Ronald Reagan became 
President, there was a movement by the Soviets to dominate Europe with 
a buildup of intermediate range missiles. Immediately thereafter, after 
the Soviet Union expanded its military might, it called for what they 
call a nuclear freeze, which would have frozen them into a military 
superiority which would not put them in domination of Europe, and would 
have put them in a situation where the cold war would never have ended, 
because they would have been a dominant force on this planet.
  Ronald Reagan countered that with a proposal saying, ``Look, if we 
are going to limit nuclear weapons, and we are talking about 
intermediate range nuclear weapons, let us bring down the levels of 
nuclear weapons in Europe to zero, so both sides will be able to 
decrease their spending on the military, and you will not have to have 
any missiles in Europe on either side.''
  The proposal was considered seriously in the Soviet Union. Where it 
is not considered seriously was by the liberal wing of the Democratic 
Party who attacked Ronald Reagan publicly for offering this, saying 
that they knew that the Soviet Union would never seriously consider 
this, and that Ronald Reagan was just hiding his true intent, which was 
wasting money on the military.
  In fact, 5 years later the Soviet Union agreed to that arms control 
proposal, the zero option, and it was signed by President Reagan and 
Mr. Gorbachev into an agreement, a historic agreement, that signaled a 
change in the cold war. But that was not, that was not due to 
bipartisan, as we hear now, bipartisan support from the other side of 
the aisle. It was due despite the nitpicking and the public 
disagreement and the public undermining of the President's position.
  I well remember sitting in the White House when we were discussing 
having arms control negotiations and what was going on in the arms 
control negotiations with the Soviet Union, when we had demanded that 
they live up to their past treaty obligations. The Soviet Union had 
built a huge radar facility, in total violation of one of its treaty 
obligations to the United States, but yet, people, liberal Democrats on 
the other side of the aisle, came forward in this body to defend the 
Soviet 

[[Page H994]]
position, and to suggest that it was really the belligerence of Ronald 
Reagan and we extremists, which we hear all the time, extremists, which 
was at the heart of the cold war.
  Liberal Democrats were proclaiming that there was a moral equivalency 
between the United States and the Soviet Union. This was not the 
bipartisan support that we hear time and time again, now that the cold 
war is over. The fact is that there was not bipartisan support. There 
was some bipartisan support, because there were some Democrats that 
come over, but by and large, Ronald Reagan had a two-front war to fight 
in order to end the cold war.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentleman from 
California, for his unique perspective. Now we know it will be in the 
history books one day, and perhaps in the archives of those who follow 
American political endeavors, that our good friend, the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Rohrabacher], camped out on the back lawn of Ronald 
Reagan.
  A couple of points and then I will yield to the gentlewoman who has 
the distinction of having the former President as a constituent, at 
least part of the time. It is this notion of optimism. Dwight 
Eisenhower said that a great leader should always be optimistic; not a 
cockeyed optimist, to be sure, but one who believed in the basic 
goodness of people, and one who would defend the notions and the ideas 
he put forth.
  President Reagan said it this way. Before he ever became a candidate 
for office, quoting him now, ``They say the world has become too 
complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, 
but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we 
know is morally right.''
  As the gentleman from California outlined, facing considerable odds 
here at home domestically, facing the pundits and those who would fail 
to acknowledge the common sense of his policies, Ronald Reagan was 
willing to see a policy through. Because of his efforts, it has been 
said by our friend from Great Britain, the former Prime Minister, Mrs. 
Thatcher, if there is one individual responsible for the victory of the 
free world in the cold war, his name is Ronald Wilson Reagan.
  With that, I am happy to yield to my good friend and fellow freshman, 
the gentlewoman from California [Mrs. Seastrand]
  Mrs. SEASTRAND. Mr. Speaker, it is truly an honor to pay tribute to 
Ronald Reagan, and it is an honor that we do it here on the House 
floor. The gentleman from California talked about this involvement in 
trying to get the President elected. I have the unique pleasure to say, 
I go way back when, and I can remember stuffing those envelopes in the 
local headquarters for Ronald Reagan when he was running for Governor 
of California, and all the wonderful stories that, when we sit here and 
mull these things over and think about it, it is an honor, again, as I 
said to be here, and go way back when.

  Today, as the Republican Congress moves our agenda of fiscal 
responsibility and bureaucratic downsizing through the House of 
Representatives, we are reminded of the first revolution--the Reagan 
revolution--that swept through Washington during the 1980's. Many of 
the things President Reagan championed throughout his Presidency have 
found a home and a new life in the Republican Congress. Welfare reform, 
real spending cuts, the balanced budget amendment, giving more 
flexibility to the States, and the line-item veto were all regular 
features of the Reagan program stifled by the Democrat Congress.
  President Reagan's list of accomplishments seems unending. On the 
economic front, Reaganomics--as it was derided by his opponents--
produced the longest peacetime economic expansion since World War II 
and blew holes right through the traditional and current Democrat 
appeals to class warfare. The Reagan tax cuts reduced the top marginal 
income tax rate from 70 to 28 percent and took many low-income people 
off the tax rolls altogether. The double-digit inflation and soaring 
interest rates of the Carter years crumbled to record lows. As Mr. 
Reagan himself has pointed out on many occasions, his only regret was 
an inability to get Congress to cut spending.
  In foreign policy, Mr. Reagan's steadfast commitment to peace through 
strength sent an important signal to the world that United States would 
no longer stand back and watch an expansionist Soviet Union roll up 
more territory. From Afghanistan to Angola to Nicaragua, the Reagan 
Doctrine put the United States firmly behind the freedom fighters who 
sought to throw off the oppressive communists.
  President Reagan was truly the man of the decade during the 1980's. 
There was no single figure more responsible for ending the cold war 
than Ronald Reagan. One sterling example was the 1986 Reykjavik summit. 
For 2 days the United States and the Soviets negotiated the most 
comprehensive arms reduction treaty in history only to have Mikhail 
Gorbachev throw a big curve at the end--the United States would have to 
give up the Strategic Defense Initiative. Ronald Reagan stood before 
Gorbachev and the world, held his ground, and said no deal. More than 
any single moment of his Presidency that was the nail right through the 
heart of the Soviet empire. As Gorbachev himself later admitted, when 
the Soviets realized that Reagan could not be bowled over, the game had 
changed and they did not have the resources to keep up.
  President Reagan's policy of peace through strength was a hands down 
winner. It was a winner in spite of his critics. All during his 
Presidency Ronald Reagan withstood a vigorous assault from the left. 
But, through it all, he remained committed to restoring our Nation's 
defenses. There would be no further fears of a hollow army, and no lack 
of morale on the part of American serviceman. Having lived through four 
major wars in his lifetime, President Reagan was determined to make 
sure that our Armed Forces--those who would be asked to defend American 
interests at home and abroad at a moment's notice--had the resources, 
the respect, and the commitment from their government to do the job. As 
he so passionately and eloquently stated in perhaps his finest speech, 
the 40th anniversary of the Allied invasion at Normandy: ``We will 
always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, 
so we may always be free.''
  It was a great honor for me to introduce legislation earlier this 
year that has since been enacted into law, legislation naming the 
newest constructed Federal building located on the last undeveloped 
stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue--America's Main Street--the Ronald 
Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
  Ronald Reagan spoke of ``Main Street America'' as the ``millions who 
work so hard to support their families and keep our country together.'' 
He often talked of the rising tide of optimism in Main Street America 
and that is why it is fitting that we named this Federal building after 
him.
  The structure is designed by James Ingo Freed of Pei Cobb Freed & 
Partners; I.M. Pei designed the east wing of the National Gallery of 
Art and Freed designed the Holocaust Museum on 14th street and will be 
the centerpiece of downtown Washington. The building will dedicate 
500,000 square feet for an international trade center and will attract 
additional business and tourism to our Nation's Capital. It seems 
fitting that this building that will feature free trade should bear 
Ronald Reagan's name.

  Despite the arguments put forth by revisionist thinkers, President 
Reagan's place in history is secure. He stands next to the giants, 
Presidents like Roosevelt and Lincoln, who arrived at a time when the 
Nation desperately needed the passion and the leadership of a true 
believer. As he fights with courage, conviction, and that famous Reagan 
optimism against his current physical ailment, let us remember and pay 
tribute to a man who embodies the American Dream.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California, 
and reclaiming my time, I would ask if during the course of her busy 
day if she still has time to pause with us and reflect on those 
personal glimpses of President Reagan, she is more than welcome during 
the remainder of our time to do so.
  My good friend, the gentleman from California, reflecting and 
offering yet more personal glimpses, as well as policy analysis of 
those years, the Reagan years in the White House and those 

[[Page H995]]
years before, I am happy to yield to the gentleman from California [Mr. 
Rohrabacher].
  Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, it is such a pleasure to be here with 
the gentleman, and celebrating the birthday of this great American, who 
has done so much for my life personally and also for the lives of every 
American.
  People would like to know what kind of man Ronald Reagan was. I think 
I will make this a little personal as well as oriented towards his 
policy. I worked with him on his campaign in 1976 when he ran for 
President against Gerald Ford and lost. I remember one day when the 
President was speaking before a rally at a parking lot in North 
Carolina, where a young lady grabbed me by the arm and said, ``I am 
here with a group of blind children. They cannot see. They cannot 
really get up into this crowd to hear as much as they should be able 
to, so I have had to keep them back here on the side. I was wondering 
if it was possible for,'' and they called him Governor Reagan at that 
time, because he was not elected President yet, ``for Governor Reagan 
to come here and to shake hands with these young people.''
  As the rally was over, the press were getting into their buses, and I 
mentioned this to Mike Deaver, and Ronald Reagan was in earshot and 
heard me talking about these young blind children. He said ``Look, I 
don't want anybody in the press to come over there, because I don't 
want these young people to think that I'm trying to exploit young 
people, or blind children, for my candidacy, so do not tell the press 
anything. Let them get on the bus, and then I will go over there and 
meet with these young people and talk to them for a moment.''
  Sure enough, we jogged over to the side of the parking lot and there 
were about five children, probably 11 or 12 years old, that were blind. 
Ronald Reagan was speaking to them.

                              {time}  1345

  As he spoke to them, he said, would you like to touch my face? I will 
never forget that, because it would not have dawned on me to say that. 
It was not a thought that came to my mind. But he was so understanding 
and so sensitive that he knew that they could not see him unless they 
touched his face.
  Of course, they all wanted to touch his face. As they were there, 
these five blind children touching his face in the corner of that 
parking lot, I thought to myself, what politician in this country would 
not give millions of dollars to have his picture on the front of Time 
magazine or Newsweek magazine to have all of these children touching 
his face. It was such a heartfelt picture, it would have been a 
Pulitzer Prize. But, instead, Ronald Reagan knew that this was a 
private moment, and that he was talking to these young people, and if 
he was going to keep faith with them, he did not want them ever to have 
the thought that he was exploiting them for those purposes.
  I guess that is what our basic challenge was when we were working for 
Ronald Reagan as President. Before people could really see him, they 
had to feel Ronald Reagan, and the American people got a feel of Ronald 
Reagan. During his presidency, they knew that he was a good and decent 
man. Even though during his entire presidency, and during his campaigns 
he was maligned over and over again, as if trying to be responsible, 
trying to say that we cannot spend everything for everybody, that that 
in some way makes you a malicious person.
  Reagan was attacked over and over and over again, as if he did not 
have a good heart. But the American people saw that he had a good 
heart. They felt that. They knew that about him, just like those little 
blind children, when they touched his face, knew what this man looked 
like.
  Well, the American people knew what Ronald Reagan looked like on the 
inside. That is why they trusted him. To the degree that he was 
successful, it had a lot to do with the trust that the American people 
put in him. He spoke to them.
  I was Ronald Reagan's speech writer for 7 years. I had never written 
a speech for anyone else before I wrote a speech for Ronald Reagan as 
President of the United States. He was the one who taught me how to 
write. A lot of people, again maligning Ronald Reagan, tried to say 
that he was some sort of puppet and that he could not do anything 
without his cards.
  Well, the fact is, Ronald Reagan was an excellent writer. I always 
said that if he had not been president, he was a good enough writer to 
be a presidential speech writer. He taught us that.
  He was, as you had mentioned, an expert in communication, and that 
served him well, it served the country well. When Ronald Reagan took 
over the country, it was in a funk. The country and the American people 
had been told to lower their expectations. They had been told that all 
of the problems of the world dealt with our own faults as Americans. 
They were told that we could not succeed, that we were in a malaise, 
and Ronald Reagan, with his buoyant optimism and with his great sense 
of the people themselves and his ability to communicate, turned the 
American spirit around.
  People complained that the deficit expanded during Reagan's years. 
Again, he tried to cut it and the Congress would not do it. But on top 
of that, just figure out where our country would have been had the same 
policies been in place that the Democrats had in place before Reagan 
was elected and those same economic trends would have continued. Our 
deficit would have been twice as big, and our inflation rate would have 
destroyed the economic well-being and the standard of living of all of 
our people. So Ronald Reagan was successful at that.
  But perhaps what I am most proud of, through it all, Ronald Reagan 
was called a warmonger, called a militarist. He was portrayed as 
someone who wanted to spend money on all of these weapons. But in fact, 
Ronald Reagan was a champion of freedom and liberty, and in doing so, 
he was a champion of peace in the world. We have a more peaceful world 
today because of what he did, the stands he took.
  I remember when Ronald Reagan was castigated; and this side of the 
aisle, the Democrats who controlled the Congress at the time, did 
everything they could to undermine his policy of supporting freedom 
fighters in the various parts of the world who were fighting Soviet 
aggression. I mean, it made every sense to me that we should arm local 
people to defend themselves rather than send Americans all over the 
world to have to fight; and in fact, we drained the Soviet Empire of 
its military capabilities by forcing them to fight for their gains 
rather than just giving it to them and letting people surrender without 
a fight.
  In Nicaragua, where the Soviet Union was perched and ready to roll up 
Central America right into Mexico and to the borders of the United 
States, before Reagan was elected, in Nicaragua, the Communists were 
ready. The Soviet Union pumped billions of dollars of military aid into 
that country, and the Democrats on that side of the aisle undermined 
Reagan's effort over and over and over again to try to give the 
Nicaraguan people the right to fight for their own freedom.
  I have no understanding of why that happened, but in today's 
revisionist history, we are told that a bipartisan effort ended the 
cold war. There would have been no end to the cold war had there been a 
major Soviet offensive in Latin America that was victorious, and that 
would have happened had not Ronald Reagan come in and supported those 
who were struggling for freedom.
  Finally, let us not forget that it was Ronald Reagan's speeches and 
his ability to communicate to the world, his ability to champion the 
cause of freedom and to condemn communism. Ronald Reagan was the first 
President of the United States not just to condemn Soviet actions, but 
to condemn communism as an evil, tyrannical force on the planet. Let us 
not forget that those words, along with his policies, are what brought 
an end to the Soviet imperial empire that threatened our freedom and 
threatened the peace of the world.
  I will leave you with one last story of Ronald Reagan, because Reagan 
was called, he was called names, too, about his rhetoric. I have heard 
speeches over and over again about how he was a warmonger and his 
speeches were going to get us into trouble. But I remember very well 
the incident when Ronald Reagan was going to go to Berlin, and Reagan, 
one of his speech writers went to Berlin before him, and we came back.
  Ronald Reagan had mentioned that he thought that this was the place 
to 

[[Page H996]]
talk about the tearing down of the Berlin Wall. And we speech writers 
did our job; we gave him text.
  He approved it, and all of a sudden volcanoes began to erupt all over 
the world. Diplomats, foreign policy experts, George Shultz, our 
Secretary of State, you name it, everybody, the National Security 
Advisor to the President himself, they were just--they were screaming 
at the top of their lungs, do not do it. Do not tell Mr. Gorbachev to 
tear down the Wall, because it will be an insult to Gorbachev. He is 
our only hope.
  It was said by many that Gorbachev was the man who was making the 
world more peaceful, which is what we hear from the liberal side, and 
not Reagan and a commitment to freedom that was changing the world. 
Reagan in fact was told just the day before he gave the speech in 
Berlin by his own National Security Advisor to take out of his speech 
that reference to tearing down the Berlin Wall. He was handed another 
speech draft and told, Mr. President, you should use this draft instead 
of the one you have. And Ronald Reagan, being the leader that he was 
said, well, no, I think I will use the one I have.
  He went to Berlin, and he pointed to the Wall and he said, Mr. 
Gorbachev, if you believe in democracy and peace, tear down this wall. 
That strength of purpose and that commitment to freedom sent a shock 
wave around the world which unnerved the last vestiges of power in the 
Soviet Union and brought about the end of the cold war.
  Ronald Reagan made that decision on his own, against the advice of 
the experts, because he knew in his heart that saying and demanding the 
tearing down of the Berlin Wall made everything that he had done and 
everything America stood for real, not only to the people of the world, 
but to the leaders of the Soviet Union; and within a few days the CIA 
told us that Gorbachev had had a meeting and had been seriously 
discussing with his advisors how to move forward in bringing down the 
Berlin Wall as a symbol of peace. What a magnificent, magnificent 
victory.
  Then, one moment, I am going to tell you about my best day at the 
White House. I remember when Nathan Sharansky came to the White House. 
Many people do not know who Nathan Sharansky is. He used to be called 
Anatoly Sharansky and was a true hero of the cause of human liberty. He 
was a Jewish dissident in Russia, Soviet Russia, and he was thrown into 
the slammer, thrown into the gulag and told, all you have to do is sign 
a slip of paper saying that the Soviet Union is really a democracy and 
does not persecute Jews, and we will let you out of the gulag; and 
Sharansky refused to do so.
  When the word of this heroic stand of this individual got around the 
world, he became one of our heroes. He became in the 1980's not just a 
Jewish hero; he was a hero to all people who believed in liberty, 
especially to Ronald Reagan's speech writers.
  Well, when he was let loose from the gulag, it was because we traded 
a spy for him, a Russian spy. We got a heroic champion of freedom and 
they got some low-life spy who was trying to help Soviet tyranny. Boy, 
did we get the better part of that deal.
  Sharansky ended up coming to the White House to visit Ronald Reagan, 
and he told Ronald Reagan, he said, Mr. President, whatever you do, do 
not tone down your speeches, because apparently when he was at the 
bottom of despair, in the dark and damp dungeon of a gulag, he was 
slipped a small piece of paper and on that paper was written, President 
Reagan has called it an ``evil empire.'' And he said that is what gave 
him hope. That is what gave the world a reason to resist Soviet 
tyranny.
  Not only did Sharansky prevail, but all of the freedom-loving people 
prevailed, because Ronald Reagan had the courage to speak about the 
values and the principles of this country at a time of great adversity.
  So today, I am very pleased to join you and my other colleagues in 
saying ``happy birthday'' to my old boss, a man who may now have lost 
his memory, but will never be forgotten. Thank you.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank my friend from 
California for that heartfelt tribute, and for his willingness to share 
the very personal side of history, a history of this Nation, a history 
of this world, in which our former President, Ronald Reagan, served as 
a catalyst; a man who had the courage to point out the world as it was 
and the conviction to help change the world to the place it ought to 
be.
  I look here in this Chamber, Mr. Speaker, and I see another of our 
good friends who has joined us in this effort to continue the battle, 
to restore the notion of freedom and constitutional government to this 
great constitutional Republic, and for his perspectives on the service 
and stewardship of President Reagan. I am happy to yield time to the 
gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Gutknecht].
  Mr. GUTKNECHT. Well, I thank the gentleman from Minnesota. After 
listening to Mr. Rohrabacher from California, particularly that close, 
it is really very difficult to speak, because we all have our own 
personal recollections and memories.
  I had never been to Washington, I do not think, during the Reagan 
administration; I had never been to Washington until the Bush 
administration, so my memory is somewhat different.
  I appreciate your having this Special Order. We have heard a lot 
today about President Reagan as the great communicator. Sometimes we 
forget, and we remember the tremendous speeches that he gave and some 
of the powerful things that he said. But it is easy to forget that 
communication is always a two-way street.
  It seems to me that one of the parts that is forgotten about 
President Reagan is that he had a tremendous listening ear. He 
understood. He had an empathy for the American people that sometimes is 
forgotten.
  One of his favorite expressions, and I have stolen a lot of things 
from the President; one of his expressions that he used frequently, and 
I subsequently found out he got from John Adams, but I use it a lot. He 
said, facts are stubborn things. You know, we can ignore the facts, we 
can deny the facts, but ultimately facts are facts. And he deeply 
believed that.
  He also believed that ideas matter, that words have meaning, and that 
actions have consequences. As Mr. Rohrabacher talked about earlier, 
when he went to Berlin and he said, Mr. Gorbachev, if you mean what you 
say, then tear down this wall.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, it is good that we are here 
this morning in vigorous debate, and hearing my colleague, the 
gentleman from Michigan, who serves as the chair of a 130-person panel 
from the Republican Conference, it is interesting that he would say 
that we on this side of the aisle are frivolously representing to the 
American people that this is not a crisis.

                              {time}  1400

  Those words were barely even reported here in Washington and in the 
western press. It was passed along and does not appear anywhere in the 
lists of famous quotations, so that expression was almost forgotten 
here in the West. But those words had meaning, and they rolled across 
Eastern Europe all the way to Moscow, and ultimately the reverberation 
of those words brought that wall down.
  I will always remember, and I have got to be brief because I have to 
run, but again I appreciate so much the gentleman having this special 
order today. But I remember the day that Ronald Reagan was sworn in as 
our President in his first inaugural address. I remember I was 
traveling in central Minnesota and I pulled the car off the side of the 
road to listen to that speech. It was one of the most powerful and most 
moving speeches I have ever heard.
  In fact I was in New Ulm, MN when I heard the speech, and I will 
always remember. In fact I do not have it in front of me and I cannot 
do it word for word, but I will paraphrase only slightly the last 
paragraph of that speech.
  Some may remember he talked about a young man from Wisconsin who 
during World War I had written on his diary that he was going to work 
and he was going to fight and he was going to serve as if the entire 
outcome of that long and bloody war depended upon him and him alone. 
President Reagan closed his inaugural address with these words.
  He said,

       Our problems do not require that kind of sacrifice. They 
     do, however, require our best effort and our willingness to 
     believe in ourselves, to believe in our capacity to perform 
     great deeds, that together, with God's help, we can resolve 
     the problems which confront us now. And, after all, why 
     shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans.

  Those words were powerful then; they are powerful today. I think the 
most important thing about that sentence is that he believed in us, he 
believed in the American people, he believed in those deep core values 
that 

[[Page H997]]
made this country work, and he talked about them often. He talked about 
the values of faith, of family, of freedom, of work and personal 
responsibility, and he believed deeply that Government policy ought to 
reinforce those values and that liberal programs, no matter how well 
intentioned, have had the net practical effect of undermining those 
values.
  I remember, too, the day that he left office. It was a poignant 
moment for me, because I was watching when President Bush was sworn in, 
and at the end of the ceremony he and Mrs. Reagan walked out on the 
east side of this building. They turned around and he saluted to 
President Bush. Then he got up on the stairs to get on the helicopter 
which was to take him to the airport to take him back to California.
  I will never forget, I was watching this, my wife and I, who are both 
big Ronald Reagan fans, and I turned to my wife Mary and I said, ``You 
know, he was a long time coming, he'll be a long time gone.'' It will 
be a long time before we see a President like President Reagan who 
could communicate so clearly to the American people, and indeed to the 
world. I want to thank the gentleman from Arizona for having this 
special order.
  I want to thank you, Mr. President, for all that you did for me, all 
that you did for the American people, and all that you did for all the 
freedom-loving people of the world. You will always be a blessing to us 
and you will always be that symbol that speaks to the best in the 
American people, that appeals to our best hopes, not our worst fears. I 
thank you, Mr. President. I wish you a happy birthday, and may God 
bless you.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Reclaiming my time, I would like to thank the gentleman 
from Minnesota for his perspective. It is worth noting, as the 
gentleman from Minnesota points out, Mr. Speaker, that President 
Reagan's observations still make the point today. Indeed, in a speech 
delivered about a year ago the President said these words, and I think 
they still pertain to our situation today:

       After watching the State of the Union address the other 
     night, I'm reminded of the old adage that imitation is the 
     sincerest form of flattery. Only in this case it's not 
     flattery but grand larceny, the intellectual theft of ideas 
     that you and I recognize as our own. Speech delivery counts 
     for little on the world stage unless you have the convictions 
     and, yes, the vision to see beyond the front row seats.

  How important that is, Mr. Speaker. My friend from Minnesota was 
absolutely correct. Words do mean something. Promises must be made but, 
more importantly, promises must be kept. It is the vision that 
President Reagan spoke of in his inaugural address, on that day in 
January of 1981, that made the point so well:

       It is not my intention to do away with government. It is, 
     rather, to make it work, work with us, not over us, stand by 
     our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must 
     provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not 
     stifle it.

  Indeed as the words are bandied about on this floor, as the epithets 
are hurled, remarks of blackmail and extortion and extremist, let us 
remember the observation of Mark Twain, that history does not repeat 
itself but it rhymes. And as President Reagan embraced the vision of 
Abraham Lincoln, that the American people once fully informed would 
make the right decision, let us dedicate our work and our labors in 
this legislative branch of Government to that same endeavor, 
recognizing that good people can disagree, recognizing that in a free 
society debate leads to decision, and also recognizing the 
contributions of a great American.
  Mr. Speaker, let us wish the happiest of birthdays to Ronald Wilson 
Reagan as he approaches his 85th, and let us remember his example and 
do all that we can to ensure that his vision of America, a vision that 
harkens back to our founders, is remembered, not for its novelty, not 
for cutting back, to seem to embrace antiquity, but because it embraces 
the basic goodness of the American people and an undying optimism that 
is uniquely American. Happy birthday, Ronald Reagan.

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