[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 68 (Wednesday, May 15, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H5136-H5138]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     COULD PRESIDENT CLINTON HAVE WON IN 1992 IF HE RAN ON WHAT HE 
                               DELIVERED?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Linder] is recognized for 25 
minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, on the Sunday after Bob Dole's famous 
``enough is enough'' speech on the floor of the Senate in December, a 
commentator said, ``At least there is one adult among them.''
  The media enjoyed portraying the conflict on the budget as adolescent 
behavior when even they must know that we are engaged in the most 
profound political debate since 1932. It can be defined in a few words: 
``Who decides--Washington or you?''
  Do we continue 64 years of increasing the role of the Federal 
Government in making decisions on your behalf, or do we return to 
freedom and opportunity which made this the wealthiest, most generous 
nation in the history of the planet? Do we trust the bureaucrats and 
politicians, or do we trust you?
  The Clinton victory in 1992 was the culmination of the liberal dream. 
It is true that he ran as a ``New Democrat''. It is also true that he 
moved sharply to the left even before he was sworn in. A promise of a 
middle-class tax cut became the largest tax increase in history. Ending 
welfare as we know it turned out to be a Government job if no other job 
could be found. And health care reform ended up being the largest 
attempted takeover of the private economy in the history of the nation. 
And, of course, he led off with gays in the military. It is easy to see 
why that was not mentioned in the campaign. Does anyone believe that 
Clinton would have won in 1992 if he had campaigned on what he 
delivered?
  The Clinton philosophy was outlined best in a 1958 book entitled, 
``The Affluent Society,'' by John Kenneth Galbraith. It essentially 
said that Americans do not make too little money, they make too much, 
but they make bad choices with their dollars. It is the obligation of 
an educated government to tax those dollars from them and make better 
choices on their behalf.
  If you look at the five major initiatives of the first two Clinton 
years--the budget, crime, welfare, education, and health care--all 
called for increasing taxes and increasing the numbers of decisions 
that would be made in Washington.
  It is important to point out here that the Clintons are sincere. They 
truly do want to shape a future for our children and grandchildren that 
is warm and safe and secure and fair. If you're curious about what that 
future would look like, read anything that has come out of the 
Children's Defense Fund over the last 20 years.
  Conservatives do not seek to shape the future because we do not know 
how. I could not satisfy 20 percent of the people in any given crowd. 
Each American looks to the future with different hopes and dreams and 
talents. I do know this, I could build a future that my daughter would 
love and my son would hate. So we want to leave your dollars in your 
pockets and you and 260 million other Americans, deciding on your own 
behalf hundreds of times a week, will shape the future. You will 
decide, not Washington. I do not have any idea what that future will 
look like but I will be right in there with you making my personal 
choices.
  Now you see how deep and fundamental are the differences. Who 
decides?
  This difference became crystal clear in the negotiations with the 
President over the budget. Frankly, we were not that far apart on the 
numbers. We want to increase spending 3 percent; the President wants to 
increase spending 4 percent. We want to assume a revenue increase of 5 
percent; the President wants to assume a revenue increase of 5\1/2\ 
percent. We want to increase Medicare 62 percent over 7 years. The 
President wants to increase it 64 percent. Those are the differences on 
which the President has built his case that Republicans are proposing 
``extreme'' cuts.
  That is not where the discussions broke down. They broke down because 
Senator Dole and Speaker Gingrich were not willing to compromise on our 
values. We believe that giving seniors more choices in Medicare will 
cause them to shop their health care for the  best deal and that 
competition will bring down costs.

  Let me give you one example. One of the many meetings on transforming 
Medicare included Healthcare benefits managers. The John Deere Co. has 
formed its own health care company to control its costs. I asked the 
president of John Deere health care what it would cost the Federal 
Government if John Deere kept its retirees in their own health care 
system. He said $4,000

[[Page H5137]]

 per year and he would make a profit off them. We are paying $5,200 
this year per person. His offer amounted to a 25 percent savings.
  Why can we not get President Clinton to agree? because the liberals 
will not let him loosen the Federal grip on your choices. They feel 
that you make selfish decisions and that bureaucrats make fair 
decisions. Again, who decides?
  We also insisted that after spending $5.5 trillion in the war on 
poverty over the last 30 years, we lost the war. We want to return 
those Medicaid and welfare dollars to the State and local communities 
to aid the less fortunate.
  Again, the liberals cannot let loose of the Federal grip on those 
decisions. If they return decisions to individuals and communities the 
glue that holds the coalitions that comprise the Democrat Party 
dissolves. That glue is the power to decide for you.
  The level of invective aimed at efforts to reform the welfare state 
is noting short of astonishing. Governor Engler was accused in the 
press of causing people to commit suicide. We have been accused of 
starving children. And you will hear much more.
  In Thomas Sowell's new book ``The vision of the Anointed,'' You know 
who the anointed are, the sensitive, the caring, the compassionate, the 
thoughtful, Sowell notes how the critics of the ``anointed'', from 
Malthus to Burke to Hayek, always spoke generously of the motives of 
the left even while questioning their policies.
  Milton Friedman criticized the Great Society, but he always says it 
was born of noble intentions.
  However, the responses from the ``Anointed'' to their critics were 
always personal. The critics's motives were questioned. They were 
called mean-spirited, hard-hearted, and cruel.
  When Thomas Malthus criticized the vision of Godwin and Condorcet he 
said, ``I do not question their candor or their integrity. I question 
their politics.''
  Godwin's response? A personal attack on Malthus, whom he called ``the 
malignant man''.
  John Lewis has equated Gingrich to Hitler and the Republicans in the 
House to Nazis. That was a new low for those who substitute name-
calling for debate.
  Noting has changed in over 200 years. While attacking us on personal 
grounds it is increasingly clear that liberals have less interest in 
program beneficiaries than in the power to decide. That is what the 
anger is about: losing power. And they will stop at nothing to regain 
that power, including lying.
  G.K. Chesterton said, ``I believe in Liberalism today as much as I 
ever did. But, oh, there was a happy time when I believed in 
liberals.''
  Oh, there was a happy time. It was the time between 1948 and 1968 
when poverty dropped from 32 percent to 13 percent and black poverty 
from 90 percent to 32 percent. We witnessed the largest migration of 
blacks into management in the history of the country. In 1960 black 
illiteracy was 16 percent, and the black family was the most 
conservative, spiritual and family oriented segment of our society.
  Then the poverty programs kicked in. $5.5 trillion later the poverty 
rate is 14 percent in general, and among blacks 33 percent. Illiteracy 
among blacks is rising rapidly. Nearly 70 percent of black babies are 
born out of wedlock, and the black family is under serious assault.
  This is not to say that blacks are the problem. They are not. But in 
1965, for the reasons we all know, a larger percentage of them were 
poor, and the Government helped them the most.
  I grew up in a small town in northern Minnesota near two Chippewa 
Indian reservations. The Indian children went to school with us. Every 
fifth-grade class had an Indian child at the top of the class. They did 
not graduate: teen age pregnancies, crime, alcohol, violence, no 
father, in the homes.
  For over a hundred years America rounded the Indians up onto 
reservations and bureaucrats told them where to go to school, which 
dentist and doctor to see, where to buy school clothes, and we paid the 
bill. The influence of the breadwinner was replaced by a bureaucrat 
with a Government check, and the breadwinner left.
  I am the only white man that ever played baseball with the Inger 
Indians. I was the catcher, and we had a pitcher on the team who had a 
curve ball that looked like it was coming at you from third base. He 
was offered a minor league contract that summer, but he didn't know if 
he should take it. I said, ``Look, you're 26 years old and you've never 
had a job. Take the contract.''
  Six weeks later he was back home. I asked him what happened. He said,

       I just couldn't make it. I didn't know how to get an 
     apartment so the owner had to help me. I kept forgetting 
     where to change buses. I didn't know if I should get a black 
     and white or color TV. I just couldn't make all those 
     decisions.

  At age 17 I was struck that Government paternalism steals from people 
the ability to make decisions about their own lives. They are all dead 
now. Richie Robinson, Esica Ogema, Tom Bowstring, Frank Rabbit, Johnny 
Wakanabo, Tom Goggleye. Dead too young. Not because Government did too 
little. Because Government did too much.
  Having done so well with the American Indian, we have replicated the 
reservation in every major city in America with the very same results: 
Teenage pregnancies, crime, drugs, violence, no fathers in those homes. 
Not because Government did too little. Because Government did too much.
  In spite of the total collapse of communism and socialism round the 
world, Liberals continue to believe that they are smarter than the 
people and that governments make better decisions.
  They do not know, as we know, that the human being dreams, not for 
one more Government program but for freedom. The Soviets learned that 
in just 73 years.
  Ilya Ehrenberg, a Russian poet, wrote, ``If all the world were 
covered with asphalt, one day in that asphalt, a crack would appear, 
and in that crack grass would grow.'' That is the dream of the human 
spirit. That is the dream of freedom.
  All of this is to say the following: Liberal efforts to replace your 
decisions with their decisions have been a colossal failure. It has 
been a failure for the taxpayer, but much more so for the generations 
of children destroyed in the process. Why is it so difficult in 
American politics to commit a truth?
  We want to end the suffering of the poor in the care and feeding of 
the Federal Government. We want to rekindle the dream, to free the 
spirit, to let it soar.
  This election is going to be the meanest election in your lifetimes. 
Because there is so much at stake. The Liberals know that another loss 
could send their party the way of the Whig Party. Like the current 
Democrat Party, the Whig Party was a disparate collection of groups who 
had only one thing in common. They hated Andy Jackson. When his 
presence disappeared, so did they.
  The four building blocks of the Democratic Party are labor, blacks, 
feminists, and gays. What in the world do labor and gays have in 
common? They all have a thirst for the power to make your decisions for 
you. All four groups want power because they believe that they can gain 
economic advantage in Washington that they cannot gain in the 
neighborhood. Again the question: ``Who decides? Washington or you?''
  The commitment by labor unions to spend $35 million in negative 
television commercials is their last gasp. In addition to that, they 
will spend another $300 million paying the salaries of full-time 
campaigners in Democrat campaigns. None of that will be reported to the 
public the way that candidates report the money they raise and spend to 
the Federal Election Commission. Remember that the next time some 
``reformer'' tells you that candidates spend too much money 
campaigning.
  But, there is hope. Do you remember Ronald Reagan?
  It is important to remember how dark the nightfall was when he began 
running for President. On the eve of his first run for the Presidency 
in 1975 he spoke at the 20th anniversary of National Review. In a 
somber moment he quoted something written two decades earlier by 
Whittaker Chambers.
  Chambers wrote:

       It is idle to speak of saving Western civilization, because 
     Western civilization is already a wreck from within. That is 
     why we can hope to little more than snatch a fingernail off a 
     saint on the rack or a handful of ashes from the faggots and 
     bury them secretly in a flour pot until that day ages hence 
     when a few men would dare to believe that there once was 
     something else. That

[[Page H5138]]

     something else is thinkable and there were those at the great 
     nightfall who took loving care to preserve the tokens of hope 
     and truth.

  Five years later Reagan was President promising to rekindle the 
American dream.
  It has been said that the American dream was to own your own home. 
That is not the American dream. The American dream is to get your kids 
out of your home. And when Ronald Reagan took office, many Americans 
wondered if they ever could.
  We had interest rates at 21 percent, inflation at 14 percent, and 11 
percent unemployment.
  We were also losing the cold war. Between 1970 and 1980 the Soviet 
Union had increased its influence in Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, 
Nicaragua, Grenada, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, South 
Yemen, Libya, Iraq, and Syria.
  On top of that one-third of our planes unable to fly for lack of 
spare parts, one-third of our ships in dry dock, soldiers practicing 
with pretend bullets, and much of our enlisted corps on food stamps.
  In his first inaugural address Reagan addressed our difficulties at 
home and abroad. Then he appealed to the best in us. He said, ``We can 
do this, because, after all, we are Americans.'' The decade of the 
eighties was the American decade in the American century. I know that 
the Clinton's, during the 1992 campaign, called it the decade of greed. 
Maybe they thought every American was trading in cattle futures. Most 
Americans were not. They were starting businesses, going to church, 
coaching little league, teaching school, paying taxes, and giving to 
charity.
  In less than a decade, Americans, not government, created 4 million 
businesses and 20 million new jobs. They doubled the size of the 
economy and doubled revenues to the treasury. They doubled the money 
they gave to charities--to strangers--because they were generous.
  And if we get the burdens of high taxes and too much regulation off 
their backs, they will do it again.
  America is great, not because of Government policies or wise 
politicians. America is great because ordinary people do extraordinary 
things. When we return decisions to the American people and 
responsibilities to the communities I believe that they, not the 
Federal Government but they, will once again recapture the greatness we 
have known. If we fail, America will be the next century's Soviet 
Union. Not because government did too little. Because government did 
too much.

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