[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 59 (Thursday, May 2, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H4409-H4411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Upton). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of May 12, 1995, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Scarborough] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, it is certainly good to be here this 
morning and I certainly did enjoy the comments of the gentlewoman from 
Texas on gas prices, minimum wage, and other issues which I am also 
going to be addressing this hour, but I will be addressing them for a 
slightly different perspective. It may surprise the gentlewoman, many 
on her side of the aisle and also many in this audience that the 
arguments that I will be making today on gas prices, on gas taxes, on 
the minimum wage, on Medicare, on tax cuts, on a variety of issues are 
the same exact positions that Governor Bill Clinton took in 1992. But, 
of course, between 1992 and 1996, now that it is time to get reelected, 
things have changed.
  Every time I walk in here, I am very honored to be a Member of 
Congress and honored by the history. This has been a great experience 
for me. It has been great to visit the monuments to Jefferson and to 
Washington and to Lincoln and to others who have made great changes in 
this country.
  I think this is a good, decent Congress. I think it is a noble 
Government. I think that many, many Members try to do their best to 
make sure that working-class Americans do not suffer because of what 
Washington does. But, unfortunately, for the past 40 years Washington 
has done more to damage working-class Americans than anybody else.
  The gentlewoman talked about the Contract With America and talked 
about the Contract With America in very disparaging terms. All last 
year people talked about Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America 
and, in the same sentence, talked about how horrible it was.
  I guess my biggest frustration, as much as I have loved being in 
Washington, DC, has been how short some people's attention spans can 
be. Because let us talk for a second about the Contract With America. 
Let us talk about these items that are supposedly so radical, that 
Democrats claim to be so destructive and radical. Let us have a quick 
refresher course on what the Contract With America was about.
  The first thing it was about was balancing the budget and ending 40 
years of waste and abuse, 40 years of deficit spending where this 
Congress, run by Democrats, passed deficit budgets for 40 years.
  Now, of course they had to get a lot of Republican Presidents to sign 
those bills. I suggest that when we are $5 trillion in debt, there is 
enough blame to go around for both parties. But let me say this. In 
1994, part one of the Contract With America was, we said, ``Enough is 
enough. We are going to stop stealing money from our children and 
grandchildren.''
  I have got two boys, ages 5 and 8, who right now have about a $20,000 
debt on their head because this Government has not had the decency to 
balance its budgets. We are spending so much more money than we have 
and we are sending our check to our children. We are $5 trillion in 
debt.
  I must admit I am not very good in math. That is why I went to law 
school instead of becoming an engineer, and I guess that is why I got 
in politics. I am not good with math. I try to deal in images and 
stories.
  I had an interesting story told to me, an interesting illustration to 
explain to me what $5 trillion meant. This is what it means. If 
somebody made $1 million every day from the day that Jesus Christ was 
born to today, May 2, 1996, he would not make enough money to pay off 
our Federal debt.

  Let me repeat that. If someone made $1 million every day from the day 
that Jesus Christ was born until today, he would not make enough money 
to pay off our Federal debt.
  Mr. Speaker, it gets worse. You can work another 2,000 years, making 
$1 million a day for the next 2,000 years, and still be unable to pay 
off how much we owe by the Federal debt.
  Democrats think that it is radical and have said that that plank of 
the Contract With America was radical because we wanted to balance the 
budget in 7 years. There are still many here, believe it or not, 
despite the fact that we are $5 trillion in debt, who are telling us we 
do not need to balance the budget in 7 years, that it is too harsh.
  Mr. Speaker, we are being too harsh on our children. It may be too 
harsh on their political fortunes to finally show a little bit of 
discipline and stop sending our bills to children and grandchildren, 
but it is not too harsh for an America that wants to take care of their 
future generations.
  And if you do not really care about children and grandchildren and 
the 21st century, you are just in it for today, I will also appeal to 
your greedy instincts. If we follow the first plank in the Contract 
With America and pass the Balanced Budget Amendment and pass those 
budget deals that we passed, it will also cause interest rates to go 
down 2 percent. That causes the economy to explode.
  We passed the first balanced budget in a generation and the President 
vetoed it. He did not like it. He said we were moving too quickly. He 
said last year that he has studied it and you just cannot balance the 
budget in 7 years. That is what he said last summer.
  In 1992, he was on ``Larry King Live'' and Larry King asked the 
Governor, he said, ``Governor Clinton, will the Clinton administration, 
if elected, give us a balanced budget?''
  He said, ``Yes, Larry, I will balance the budget in 5 years.''
  Mr. Speaker, his 5 years are just about up. He did not balance the 
budget. He went back on his word, he vetoed the first balanced budget 
plan sent to a President in a generation, and now is claiming once 
again that he wants a balanced budget.
  Facts are stubborn things, Mr. President. Let those who have ears to 
hear, hear.
  He has changed his position so many times on this issue that it is 
almost impossible to keep up with him.
  Another plank that we had in the Contract With America was tax cuts 
for middle-class Americans. It is very interesting because we are 
talking about the gas tax today. The former speaker talked about how 
they wanted to get gas prices down. They were trying to figure out, 
``How can we get gas prices down?''
  What the Democrats will not tell us is that they voted for about a 5-
cent a gallon tax increase which costs this economy billions and 
billions of dollars.
  The gentlewoman probably thinks raising gas taxes in 1993 was the 
right thing to do. I know the Democrats did. I know Al Gore did 
because, remember, he cast the deciding vote. It was tied 50-50 in the 
Senate and Al Gore, acting on the President's behalf, voted to pass the 
largest tax increase in the history of this country.
  In that tax increase was a 5-cent tax increase on gas prices. The 
President was not happy about it, mind you. He actually wanted to pass 
even more fuel taxes on to the American people in the form of a Btu tax 
but even the liberals said, ``No, that's taxing too much.''

  Today, after the President passed the largest tax increase in the 
history of

[[Page H4410]]

the country, after the President increased gas prices on all Americans, 
now the President is fighting our attempts to cut taxes, to repeal his 
tax increase. They are saying we are ridiculous for saying this will 
help working-class Americans, that this will help the poor.
  I take out a quote that President Clinton made in 1992 when he was 
running for President. Again, Mr. President, facts are stubborn things. 
You can change your position a million times but we have got them all 
down on paper.
  This is what the President said in 1992. During his presidential 
campaign Bill Clinton said:

       I oppose a Federal gas tax increase. It sticks to the lower 
     income and middle-income Americans and it sticks to retired 
     people in this country and that is wrong.

  Facts are stubborn things.
  The President said it was wrong to raise gas taxes in 1992. He got 
elected, and 6 months later he passed gas taxes on to senior citizens 
on fixed incomes, on to working-class Americans that could ill afford 
to pay more in taxes, and on to all Americans who would have to pay not 
only at the pump but at the grocery store because when you raise fuel 
taxes, Mr. Speaker, you raise taxes on every item you buy. There is a 
multiplier effect because people have to drive your bread and your milk 
to the market, and these other issues, and it causes a drain on the 
economy, a multibillion-dollar drain.
  But the President went ahead despite what he said in 1992. Again, 
facts are stubborn things. Let us remember what the President said then 
and what he said now. In 1992 he was running against Paul Tsongas who 
made fun of him and said, ``Governor Clinton, you will not cut middle-
class taxes,'' and the Governor was defiant. Bill Clinton in the New 
Hampshire debate raised his plan and said, ``I've got a plan. I'm going 
to cut middle-class taxes.''
  Facts are stubborn things. He said that in 1992. In 1993 he passed on 
the largest tax increase in the history of this country, and, Mr. 
Speaker, he passed it with the help of liberals in Congress and passed 
it without a single Republican vote.
  Yesterday I was on C-SPAN on the ``Morning Round Table,'' and I had a 
Democrat with me who had voted for that tax increase and was trying to 
justify the fact that he and the President voted for the largest tax 
increase in the history of this country.
  He said, ``Well, Republicans voted for it, too.'' I said, ``No, they 
did not.''
  And he said, ``I will guarantee you Republicans voted along with the 
Democrats and the President for the largest tax increase in the history 
of the country.''
  Then I pointed it out to him again to check the record, and not a 
single Republican voted for Bill Clinton's massive tax increase. But I 
will tell you what we did do, because I had a caller call me up and 
say, ``All you Republicans do is talk about what Bill Clinton's not 
doing. What have you done?''
  Let me tell my colleagues what we did. Again going back to the 
Contract With America, we promised tax cuts for senior citizens. We 
promised tax cuts for working-class Americans. We promised tax cuts for 
business men and women. We promised tax cuts for small businesses. Not 
irresponsible tax cuts, mind you, simply tax cuts that would repeal 
Bill Clinton's 1993 massive tax increase.
  We promised a $500 per child tax cut that Bill Clinton vetoed. We 
promised a tax cut for senior citizens because Bill Clinton in 1993 
raised taxes on senior citizens' Social Security checks to 85 percent. 
We promised to repeal that, and we did.
  Well, the President thought senior citizens needed to be taxed at 85 
percent, so he vetoed our attempt to cut taxes for senior citizens. 
Republicans believe that senior citizens ought to be able to work and 
make money without the Federal Government punishing them for doing it.

                              {time}  1145

  So we had an earnings limit of $34,000. The President and many of the 
Democrats here did not like that. I guess they do not think it is a 
good thing for senior citizens to remain productive in the work force, 
so they lowered that limit from $34,000 to $11,000. When you make 
$11,000, the Democrats punish you, the President punishes you, because 
I guess he does not think senior citizens should be in the work force.
  We repealed that and pushed it back to $34,000, but the President 
vetoed that also. Yet today the President can stand in front of the 
camera, and I still have not figured out how he does it, but he can 
stand in front of the camera with a straight face and tell you that he 
supports tax cuts.
  It is the most unbelievable thing I have seen in my life. I have no 
idea how he does it, but he has gotten very good at changing his story 
every week and acting shocked if anybody calls him on it.
  I talk to reporters around here. I talk to people behind the scenes, 
even staffers for the Democrats. I talk to everybody. Everybody is 
shocked how the President and the Democrats can just move in so many 
different directions at the same time.
  It seems to me either you believe that Washington taxes too much, 
spends too much, regulates too much, wastes too much of America's money 
and gets in our way too much, or you do not. Say what you will about 
Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale, but at least those men believed in 
something. They would tell you where they stood, and, if you did not 
like it, you could vote against them, and Americans voted against them.
  Well, Bill Clinton cannot afford that to happen and the Democrats 
cannot afford that to happen. So they attack this thing called the 
Contract With America, when in fact they are attacking a balanced 
budget, they are attacking tax cuts, they are attacking regulatory 
reform, they are attacking term limits.
  Let us talk about term limits. Ninety percent of Republicans voted 
for term limits, 90 percent of Democrats voted against term limits. Is 
that radical? I do not think that is radical. I think we need to limit 
the terms of people who serve in Congress.
  I think that is how we keep it fresh. I see a lot of young people in 
the audience today. They should not have to wait until they are 65 or 
70 for their Member to step aside. I think there are visitors up in the 
audience today, in the gallery today, that will be Members of this 
Congress, that need to be Members of this Congress, because the 
challenges facing us in the 21st century are going to be monumental.
  If the future leaders of this country do not step forward today, 
tomorrow, next week, next year and the next 5 years, we will lose the 
momentum we have gained through the 21st century. The next century will 
not be the American century, the next century will be the Asian or 
Chinese century if we do not act now.
  So I support term limits. I support younger people coming and 
infusing this Chamber with new ideas on how we save not only future 
generations, but how we save senior citizens.
  I have got to say, I have talked about how the President has waffled 
and changed his mind on taxes and on the balanced budget and on term 
limits and on all these other issues. I have got to admit something to 
you: I think the most frustrated I ever was, was during the Medicare 
debate. Just mentioning Medicare on the floor, it is like the 
electrified third rail of American politics. Touch it and you die, 
supposedly.
  Well, we dared to touch that rail last year, and, if it was not 
death, it was a near-death experience. You heard the President every 
day coming out shaking his fist, and he bit his lip, he is real good at 
biting his lip, kind of quivering, makes him look really sincere. And 
then he says, ``I will not let the Republicans destroy Medicare. I am 
going to protect senior citizens.''

  Well, Mr. President, facts are stubborn things. In 1993, the 
President and Fist Lady of the United States, Bill and Hillary Clinton, 
were lobbying to save Medicare. And the First Lady in her testimony 
said before Congress, said before a Democratic Congress, mind you, ``We 
have got to lower the rate of increase in Medicare to twice that of 
inflation.'' The First Lady wanted to lower the rate of increase from 
about 10 percent in Medicare spending to approximately 6.9 percent in 
Medicare spending.
  In our plan to save Medicare, we decided to take it a step further. 
In taking it a step further, we said ``Okay, we will save Medicare, but 
what we will do is cut the increase from 10 percent to

[[Page H4411]]

7.2 percent. So we will give Medicare recipients even more than the 
First Lady suggested in 1993.''
  After we made that recommendation, my goodness, you would have 
thought that this was a radical new idea that nobody had ever thought 
of before, and that we had gone into a cave one weekend, came out of 
the cave with clubs, and said ``How can we stick it to senior 
citizens?''
  But, Mr. President and members of the Democratic Party, facts are 
stubborn things. This proposal is more generous for senior citizens 
than even the President's proposal in 1993.
  And what did the press say about it? Well, there was a silence. There 
was a conspiracy of silence for some time. In an article in Roll Call 
this morning, Morton Kondracke talks about how a new study shows that 
89 percent of journalists in Washington voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 
and only 6 percent voted for George Bush.
  I really do not care who they voted for. I care about how they report 
the news. Unfortunately, during the Medicare debate, the way they 
reported the news for a good portion of the time was one-sided and 
shameful.
  There are notable exceptions, and I have got to say one of the most 
notable exceptions has been the Washington Post, long considered to be 
an enemy of conservatives, the Washington Post told it straight when 
they talked about the President's demagoguery and shameful behavior on 
Medicare.
  The Post started with an editorial talking about medagoguery, talking 
about how the Democrats and the President were more interested in 
scaring senior citizens and allowing Medicare to go bankrupt than they 
were in helping senior citizens.
  Later they wrote an editorial talking about what they called the real 
default when this Government was close to defaulting. They said the 
real default was the President and the Democrats' refusal to help 
senior citizens. In fact, the terminology was they said, ``The 
President and the Democrats,'' quoting the Washington Post, ``have 
shamelessly demagogued on the Medicare issue to scare senior citizens, 
because that is where they think the votes are.''
  Another editorialist, Robert Samuelson, for the Washington Post, 
wrote later in straightforward terms that ``The President,'' and I am 
quoting Robert Samuelson, I would not say this on the floor myself, but 
Robert Samuelson said, ``The President lied on Medicare to win votes 
from senior citizens when the President knew that Social Security was 
going bankrupt.''
  Matthew Miller, a former employee of President Clinton, wrote a front 
page article for the very liberal New Republic, and the headline was 
``Why the Democrats' Demagoguery on Medicare Is Worse Than You 
Thought.''
  And Miller's quote was, ``The President has taken the low road on 
Medicare in ways that only the media could call standing tall.''

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