[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 90 (Tuesday, June 18, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6486-H6487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             WE MUST REBUILD AMERICA, AND PUT AMERICA FIRST

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Wamp] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. WAMP. Mr. Speaker, I am probably a minority within this body, not 
just because I am a freshman, but because I did not come to Washington 
with wealth or money, to speak of. I had a good job. I have a nice 
home. I have a loving wife and two small children. I have a lot to be 
grateful for. But I came here not to represent Wall Street, but to work 
real hard for Main Street. I came here to look after the underdog, the 
little guy, the working folks in this country that right now I think 
are having a hard time.
  I am not talking about people on minimum wage. That is 3 percent of 
the work force. That is people at a starting level, just coming into 
the work force. I am talking specifically about the other 97 percent of 
the work force that are making more than minimum wage. They are also 
having a very difficult time today.
  The gentlewoman from Washington talked about the special interest 
groups, Mr. Speaker, the PAC money, the influence these lobbyists 
actually have in Washington now. I am one of the very few Members of 
this body who do not take any of their money. I listen to the folks 
back in Polk County and Meigs County and small counties in east 
Tennessee. They are the ones that sent me here. They are the ones I 
take my campaign contributions from. They are the ones I listen to.
  I listen to small business people real close to the ground, and I 
think they are having a difficult time. They are overtaxed, they are 
overlitigated, they are overregulated. I think of small business people 
like my father, who in the 1950's paid less than 10 percent of every 
dollar he made to the Government, total: Federal Government, State 
government, local government combined, less than 10 cents of every 
dollar. Today that obligation in this country is about half of every 
dollar a man or woman makes goes to the Government. It is climbing to 
where, when my children are my age, it is going to be more than 80 
cents of every dollar. How much can we pay as a free nation and a free 
people in taxes?
  We are overlitigated: too many lawsuits in America. We need lawyers 
in America, but we do not need this many lawsuits. We do not need so 
many lawsuits. We need tort reform, clean up the legal system, make it 
quicker and cleaner if you have a dispute. Frankly, we have too many 
lawyers in this body. We have 148 lawyers in Congress. No wonder the 
laws that are passed here help lawyers make money. We have too many 
lawyers in Congress.

  We are overregulated. Frankly, a lot of our businesses are moving 
overseas because our regulations are extreme. Because of the new 
Congress, EPA and OSHA are making some reforms and going in the right 
direction. There has been a lot of screaming and yelling since we got 
here, this new Congress, but the fact is those agencies that have been 
screaming and yelling are actually making the reforms that we have 
advocated.

[[Page H6487]]

  But the average person is losing ground. Economic insecurity I think 
is setting in. I think of single parents, single moms who are getting 
up in the morning and getting their kids ready, sending them off to day 
care, sending them off to school and going to work, humping it, working 
hard, trying to make ends meet, just to keep their head above water, 
not to get ahead, just to get by. I think of parents like myself with 
small children who are having a tough go of it, people in their 
thirties who are accumulating debt that frankly they do not know how 
they are going to pay. I think of people in their forties and fifties 
with strained family budgets right now, having a difficult time getting 
by.
  Our senior citizens are worried right now that politicians are not 
going to do the right thing to preserve and protect Medicare. They are 
worried up here that they are not going to keep it intact, and we are 
trying to do that, and I think they are beginning to see through the 
smoke and mirrors of the people who are opposing the necessary changes 
to Medicare.
  I look around the world, Mr. Speaker, and I see nationalism growing 
in other countries. We see Israel. In elections there, nationalism 
wins. We look at the Soviet Union, nationalism is on the rise. What 
about our country? Where is our nationalism? Where is our sense of 
country, our patriotism today? Mr. Speaker, I am for free trade, but by 
George, we need fair trade, not just free trade. We are losing our 
manufacturing base in the United States of America, and we are not 
willing to stop and say that we need to renegotiate NAFTA. We need to 
stop. It is not working. It is costing us farming jobs, it is costing 
us manufacturing jobs in appliance manufacturing. Our textile industry 
is moving overseas.
  The gentlewoman talks about China. Most-favored-nation status should 
not be given to China. They are actually taking our intellectual 
property. They are pirating our goods. We have got to look at our 
country and look after what is best for America. I come from the Teddy 
Roosevelt-Abraham Lincoln school of Republicanism, where we have to 
preserve American jobs first. If this country is going to be the world 
leader that it has to be as the only superpower in the entire world, we 
have to rebuild America and put America first.

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