[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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