[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 19, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H6628-H6629]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            DISTURBING TRENDS OF THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

  The SPEAKER pro-tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. Hayworth] is recognized for 
until midnight as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I thank the Speaker pro tempore for taking us through 
that process which is required because, after all, this House operates 
by rules, and we attempt to bring some rationality to this process that 
some would call highly irrational.
  But as I was saying a moment ago, what I find completely irrational 
are the flip-flops of this administration as stewards of our foreign 
policy for once again, remarkable to me upon my election to this 
institution was hearing the suggestion, far from modest and far from 
realistic, that this Nation provide the technology for nuclear reactors 
to be construed in the outlawed Nation of North Korea. I asked the 
Secretary of Defense at a brunch we held, and I thanked the Secretary 
for coming by, and essentially he told me:
  Congressman-elect, you need a better briefing on the subject.
  It was my good fortune to run into the Honorable Jean Kirkpatrick, 
our former ambassador to the United Nations, who was far more candid in 
her assessment when she said:
  Congressman-elect, you do not need a fuller briefing. You correctly 
identified the problem.
  And it is this disturbing trend of this administration that would put 
Americans in harm's way, that would deal with the most irrational 
policy around the world that should give all Americans grave concern, 
for this administration is typified not by what it can accomplish but 
how it can explain away its problems this time, what verbal contortions 
and rhetorical gymnastics can be brought to bear to explain away an 
unfortunate snafu this time? Woe to us if we fail to develop a 
rational, consistent foreign policy that has paramount interests of the 
United States of America as its clearly defined goal.
  No good people can disagree, but I maintain this administration, 
perhaps with the best of intentions, has made the worst of decisions.
  I yield to my friend from Georgia.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield, now on this subject of 
what is reality I have one that I want to share with you. It is a 
little bit off the military path, but is true.
  Last night I attended a Georgia Farm Bureau dinner in Washington, and 
the speaker was Clinton appointee Richard Rominger. Now he was speaking 
on accomplishments of the Clinton administration. Well, as did everyone 
else in the audience, I thought it was going to be a real short evening 
with that being the topic, but as it turns out he was claiming 
everything with the conviction of the rooster taking credit for the 
rising sun, and so it was rather lengthy.
  But one of the things that he said was the Clinton administration is 
claiming that the national debt has fallen $15,000 per family of four.
  Now our colleague, Mac Collins, a Ways and Means member and number 
cruncher, says how is that possible? The national debt has risen for 
the last 3 years the Clinton folks have had the White House; how could 
it be falling? And without blinking a shameless Clinton appointee said:
  Oh, it is easy. The annual deficit had been going up at a certain 
rate, and since it is no longer going up at that rate, then the savings 
that we calculate, the $15,000 per family, is in the anticipation.

[[Page H6629]]

  And I said, OK, wait a minute, let me follow this, let me put it in 
laymen's terms. I weight 170 pounds. Now I have never weighed 190 
pounds. But if I add up all the days that I passed up ice cream sundaes 
and other fattening desserts, I probably would weigh 190 pounds. But 
according to Clintonomics I have lost 20 pounds, and so I am going to 
pat myself on the back. And, Mr. Hayworth, I know that you are dieting. 
I just want you to feel better about yourself.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. You know, I really do appreciate this new insightful 
diet plan offered by the administration, and let me pause here to 
actually give the President some credit because in terms of his diet 
and exercise regimen in the real world he has done a pretty good job 
passing up the fast food on several occasions, and I have to give him 
credit there.
  Mr. DORNAN. Not Milwaukee.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Would that he only would help us put this Nation on a 
fiscal diet to help straighten out the priorities with tax reform for 
the middle class which he promised and then backed away from; with 
welfare reform, as the claim was to end welfare as we know it, but 
vetoing that meaningful welfare reform which we sent him and a myriad 
of other projects that he campaigned on and then backed away from. I 
can appreciate his exercise regimen, but I do wish that his exercises 
in his role as chief executive would have more followthrough and be 
more in tone with reality. But that new diet plan offered by an 
assistant secretary----
  Mr. KINGSTON. A Clinton appointee, yes----
  Mr. HAYWORTH. I guess this is something that will be printed up in 
the not too distant future and be available in Pueblo, CO, from the 
consumer folks there: The painless Clinton diet. Not ``I feel your 
pain,'' but ``I can miscompute your calories.'' Imagine what you would 
have weighed.
  Mr. DORNAN. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield, the best 
Director of the Office of Management and Budget in my 18 years here, 
20-year span, was Jim Miller, and Jim Miller in President Reagan's last 
3 years brought the budget deficit down to $150 billion, down about 
where we are trying to get it now. Those were the 3 best years of all 
the Reagan 8 years and the Bush 4 years, which means, using his logic, 
if Reagan had had a third term and then a fourth term, every family in 
America would have saved $50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $100,000 because of 
Jim Miller. He was not able to carry that message in his quest to win 
the primary in Virginia, but this is like one of the most stunning 
speeches I ever heard in this house:

  The then Speaker, Jim Wright, stood at what was then the majority 
lectern and said ``Ronald Reagan has made a raid on the U.S. 
Treasury.'' I got him out in the Speakers Lobby, and I said, ``Jim, 
that is tax dollars not yet collected.'' This was the Reagan tax cuts 
of 1982. I said, ``It is money not yet collected. You mean money that 
has not even been taken out of the pockets on the withholding part of 
the check stub, that has not even be collected yet, is owed by the U.S. 
Treasury?'' And he says, ``Yes, that is exactly what I mean.''
  And I thought this is the difference between the two parties in 
modern America. They count tax dollars as theirs that have not even 
been earned yet.
  Mr. KINGSTON. If the gentleman would yield for a second, it is not a 
difference between the two parties, it is a difference between 
Washington, been in town too long, status quo liberals and the rest of 
the United States of America.
  Mr. DORNAN. And most of the Governors.
  Mr. KINGSTON. Because not one household in America would think of 
economics----
  Mr. DORNAN. Can I give you another example that one of the Interior 
Committee people asked me if I got to the floor before they did?
  Bruce Babbitt, Secretary of the Interior, in testifying recently 
before the Interior Committee, and everyone is choking on themselves 
trying to hold back the word ``lying.'' It is a tough word. We are not 
supposed to use it on this floor to one another, and we do not. Words 
can be taken down. But they are frustrated. They are trying to say to 
him, ``You are not telling the truth.''
  So they got him afterward, this is your former Governor in Arizona, 
and they said to him, ``Mr. Secretary, you were lying out there.'' They 
did use the word then off camera. And you know what his response was? 
And this ranking Republican majority member on Interior said please 
tell us on the floor. He said to them, smile ear to ear, you can 
picture him saying it: ``Well, you guys know how the game is played.''
  Unbelievable.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. Let me talk quite candidly about my fellow Arizonian 
who has a decidedly different interpretation of reality. In a western 
caucus meeting I brought forth a speech that Governor Babbitt made on 
two occasions, now as Secretary Babbitt, once at Tufts University, on 
the other occasion in Colorado Springs, where he essentially said that 
those of us who have honest disagreements on how best to balance the 
priorities of the economy and the environment were, quote, guilty of 
the greatest sneak attack on America since Pearl Harbor, end quote. 
When I asked him politely, ``Now, Governor, do you really believe 
that?'' he gave us the same aw shucks grin and said, ``Oh, come on now, 
J.D., you know how the game is played.''

  Mr. Speaker, let me make this point, let me make this point to all 
the American Nation, Mr. Speaker. This is not a game.
  Mr. DORNAN. Exactly.
  Mr. HAYWORTH. It is a competition in a free society of conflicting 
philosophies, and when the day comes when one side continues to 
deliberately distort the truth, then, as in the eloquent words of 
Robert J. Samuelson last summer in the Washington Post, quoting now:

       The purpose is not to debate, it is to destroy.
       That has no place in the free society. If we cannot 
     honestly debate factual material along philosophical lines 
     and have honest disagreements, then I fear for the very 
     foundations of our republic.
       When someone will go around the country saying here it is, 
     here is the secret list of parks the Republicans are closing, 
     when there are no secret lists and there are no plans to 
     close the crown jewels of this country, it is inexcusable, 
     and there should be an accounting to the----

  Mr. DORNAN. Let me add a bipartisan note to some friendships around 
here. We all have friendships on both sides of the aisle. A Democrat 
from Texas who I dearly respect, I am sorry to see him leaving, a 
Democrat from Michigan who I dearly respect, one of the pro-life 
leaders on their side, both discussed today with me that pretty soon 
Clinton is going to have to visit all his friends from jail.
  He was talking about indicted, not unindicted, coconspirator Bruce 
Lindsey, No. 2 man down at the White House staff down there, and this 
means that they could indict him, but they want to take care of the two 
bankers that are already indicted, Kenneth Starr special prosecutor, 
and by naming Bruce Lindsey an unindicted coconspirator they can go 
after what would otherwise be ruled hearsay evidence and get these two 
people, and they are going to win indictments against Herbie Branscom 
and the other banker.
  But there is a young handsome guy, about 35 years old, beautiful 
wife, two or three kids, who my wife looked at him on the cover of 
Washington Times a few months ago, Ainslie, Jim, or John Ainslie, and 
she said.
  Look at this young man, a young banker, rural banks, small town, 
Parish, Arkansas. She said his life is destroyed because he got too 
near Bill Clinton.
  I am going back to my original prediction in 1993 and 1994 when I sat 
in for Rush Limbaugh:
  An honorable man named Al Gore I believe is going to be the Democrat 
nominee and a new Vice President.
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