[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 125 (Thursday, September 12, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1598-E1599]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     ``THANKS TO HOUSE DEMOCRATS''

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. ROSA L. DeLAURO

                             of connecticut

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 12, 1996

  Ms. DeLAURO. Mr. Speaker, I rise to submit for the Record an article 
by the respected nationally syndicated columnist Mark Shields, 
entitled, ``Thanks to House Democrats.'' I hope all of my colleagues 
take a moment to read his keen analysis.
  In his column, Mr. Shields notes that the Democrats' resurgence 
nationwide has resulted from the steadfast resolve with which House 
Democrats have fought the Gingrich-Dole plan to slash Medicare to pay 
for tax breaks for the rich. The column clearly illustrates the 
Republican leadership's motive for raiding Medicare to finance their 
lavish tax breaks for their political allies and contributors. As Mr. 
Shields notes, Speaker Newt Gingrich, Republican leader Dick Armey, 
Republican whip Tom DeLay and Ways and Means Committee chairman Bill 
Archer all hail from districts with virtually no seniors. In Mr. 
Shield's words, ``These poor Republicans just don't know that many 
voters on Medicare.''
  Mr. Speaker, Mark Shields is absolutely right that the Republican 
assault on Medicare--and House Democrats' determination to fight back--
has changed political history in this country. The American people have 
rejected the extreme agenda of the Republican revolution and are now 
looking to Democrats for commonsense answers to problems they confront 
in their daily lives. This remarkable turnabout is due, as the Shields 
column explains, ``Thanks to House Democrats.''

               [From the Washington Post, Sept. 9, 1996]

                       Thanks to House Democrats

                           (By Mark Shields)

       Dick Morris, a self-admitted political genius, is obviously 
     no fan of Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher-
     mathematician. It was Pascal who wrote more than three 
     centuries ago: ``The only shame is to have none.'' Dick 
     Morris is clearly without shame.
       Since resigning as President Clinton's most important 
     campaign strategist after photographic evidence established 
     his relationship with a $200-an-hour prostitute, Morris, in 
     uninterrupted exclusive interviews, has been publicly taking 
     bows for Clinton's political rehabilitation. Now comes the 
     book to tell how Morris single-handedly rescued Clinton from 
     the political dust bin. What's next? The miniseries? The 
     movie?
       Before this offensive myth goes any further, let the facts 
     be known. Bill Clinton owes his political comeback far more 
     to congressional Democrats--from whom the Democratic 
     president, at Morris's importuning, did his best to distance 
     himself--than he does to his now-departed evil genius.
       Let's look at the record. On May 3, 1995, Rep. George 
     Miller (D-Calif.) first presented the indictment on the House 
     floor that was eventually to frame the case against the 
     Republican House majority and Speaker Newt Gingrich. ``The 
     Republicans have come to face the fact that they cannot give 
     tax cuts to the wealthy, balance the budget and preserve 
     Medicare, so now they are devising a plan by which they can 
     make the cuts in Medicare to provide for the tax cuts for the 
     wealthy.''
       Reinforcing Miller in the Democrats' accusation that the 
     GOP's $245 billion tax cuts could only be financed by the 
     GOP-backed $270 billion cuts in future Medicare spending

[[Page E1599]]

     were Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and 
     Frank Pallone (D-N.J.). Day after day, with no encouragement 
     from their president and with the unconcealed contempt of the 
     president's minions, congressional Democrats repeated the 
     charge and, in the process, changed political history.
       Consider these numbers. In June of 1995, barely six months 
     into the Republican Revolution, according to a Wall Street 
     Journal-NBC News poll, the most Republican-identified age 
     group in the electorate were voters over the age of 65. 
     Not surprisingly, these same older voters were the 
     strongest generational supporters of the GOP agenda.
       Just 13 months later, in July of 1996, there had occurred 
     absolutely no change in party identification of all voters 
     between the ages of 18 and 49. But among voters over the age 
     of 65, there had taken place a 20 percent swing from the 
     Republicans to the Democrats. Among these older voters, 
     support for the GOP agenda had plummeted by 23 percent. At 
     the same time, for all voters under the age of 65, the 
     corresponding drop in support for the GOP agenda had been 
     within the poll's margin of error. Every analysis attributed 
     the huge shift among over-65 voters not to Clinton's 
     endorsement of school uniforms or teenage curfews but to his 
     opposition to the Republicans' using reductions in Medicare 
     to finance Republican tax cuts.
       All through 1995, Clinton, strongly urged by Dick Morris, 
     tried to reach a budget compromise with the Republican 
     majority on Capitol Hill. The president dearly wanted a deal 
     that could win the backing of 100 House Democrats. But by 
     then, because the Democratic leadership's case had been made 
     so effectively, both in the country and in Congress, there 
     was no way half the House Democrats could support a budget 
     compromise blessed by Gingrich and Majority Leader Dick Armey 
     (R-Tex.). The steel in Clinton's spine was put there by House 
     Democrats.
       Why were such successful politicians as Gingrich and Armey 
     so tone deaf to the popular Democratic chorus on Medicare and 
     tax cuts?
       One explanation for the apparent GOP obtuseness could be 
     found in the Census Bureau. According to the most recent 
     figures, when all of the 435 congressional districts are 
     ranked by percentage of their population aged 65 and over, 
     all but one of the nine districts with the fewest voters over 
     65 are held by Republicans. Ninth from the bottom is the 
     district of House GOP Whip Tom DeLay of Texas. Fifth lowest 
     is House Ways and Means Chairman Bill Archer, also of Texas. 
     Fourth lowest is Gingrich himself, and the House member 
     representing the second lowest number of senior voters in the 
     United States is Armey. These poor Republicans just don't 
     know that many voters on Medicare.
       So, if credit or blame is to be given for Clinton's 
     ``standing on principle'' on Medicare and taxes, and 
     consequently rising in the polls, then history requires that 
     it be given to those liberal House Democrats.

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