[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 27 (Wednesday, March 5, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1937-S1939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          AN UNLIMITED AMERICA

  Mr. BROWNBACK. Mr. President, the era of big Government is over. May 
it rest in peace. In its place a new era is about to unfold. An 
unlimited America with a smaller Federal Government, economic 
opportunity for all, and a renewed culture.
  An unlimited America was the vision for the Nation set forth by our 
Founding Fathers. It is the vision enshrined in those two great 
charters of freedom: our Declaration of Independence and our 
Constitution. Many of America's most intractable problems stem from the 
fact that we've strayed from that vision--and lost direction. But I 
have no doubt that if we can recapture the Founders's vision of limited 
Government, personal responsibility, and economic opportunity that 
America's greatest days will be yet to come.
  The Founding Fathers of our Nation believed in the people. They 
created a new nation based on the radical notion that the people could 
be free and trusted--that the nation would be great if you trusted the 
people to be good. Before the birth of America, individual rights only 
existed so far as the grace of the dictator or monarch allowed. They 
were believed to have a divine right to rule, because it was thought 
that the people could not be trusted to rule themselves.
  Our Founders believed that the people had the right to govern 
themselves--and that government derives its power from the consent of 
the governed. But this right also imposed a requirement on ``We the 
People'': We must be a moral and just people. John Adams put it this 
way, ``Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. 
It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.''
  Yet, today, we have placed the Government in the role that was 
reserved for citizenship. We have gone from ``We the People'' to They 
the Bureaucracy.
  In our recent efforts to create a more perfect union we have relied 
too much on the Government and too little on ourselves. We have 
forgotten that self-government demands the habits and virtues required 
for such a government. ``Republican government,'' James Madison noted, 
``presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than 
any other form.'' Yet at some point we decided that goodness for the 
Nation simply came from the greatness of government. But the greatness 
of our Nation can never be measured by the size of our GDP or even the 
strength of our armies. National greatness rises from personal 
goodness.
  And that is the starting point for ending the era of big Government 
and beginning the era of an unlimited America. Our mission is to re-
limit the Federal Government; to release economic opportunity for all 
our citizens; and to renew our families and our culture. In my view 
these principles are not divisible--if any one is missing, the old era 
will not give way to the new and America will not return to the 
straight path--the only path which leads to national greatness.


                         Relimiting Government

  Fifteen years ago, President Reagan spoke before the British 
Parliament and made a prediction that shook the world. We were 
witnessing, he declared, ``a great revolutionary crisis--a crisis where 
the demands of the economic order are colliding with those of the 
political order.'' The Soviet Union, which seemed at the height of its 
power, was running ``against the tide of history by denying freedom and 
human dignity to its citizens.'' Despite all its tanks and missiles, 
the Soviet Union would soon be swept aside by the ``march of freedom 
and democracy''--leaving--``Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of 
history.''
  Many of Reagan's listeners thought he was dreaming. But Ronald Reagan 
had faith in freedom. He knew that communism, though militarily 
powerful, was ideologically dead. He knew what our founders knew: that 
in a truly legitimate government, power does not come out of the barrel 
of a gun, but only from the consent of the people. In a few years the 
Berlin Wall came tumbling down and the Evil Empire crumbled with a 
suddenness that astonished supporters of freedom and rocked the world's 
remaining tyrants.

  Today big Government is facing the same internal crisis as the Soviet 
empire was in 1982. Big Government is institutionally strong, but 
structurally weak. It is backed by armies of special interests that 
ferociously protect their budgets and intimidate anyone who challenges 
their subsidies, but it has been abandoned by the American people.
  Our mission is to implement big Government's replacement--to unite 
the principles of economic freedom and the cause of cultural renewal to 
forge a new governing consensus that will lead America into the 21st 
Century. Conservatives sometimes forget that limiting government is not 
an end in itself, but a means to a better society.
  We must remember that our Federal Government has helped America 
achieve many great things in this century. Along with our allies, we 
defeated two potentially mortal threats to freedom: fascism in World 
War II and communism in the cold war. Government built the Interstate 
Highway System that helped create our modern economy. It established 
Social Security and Medicare systems which have sharply reduced poverty 
in old age, and enabled senior citizens to live longer and in better 
health. Through student loans and the GI bill, it offered educational 
opportunity to those who might have otherwise been denied. And it 
enforced civil rights laws in the 1960's when it was clear that State 
governments could not protect the civil and political liberties of all 
Americans.
  But today, America's problems are different. And they require a 
different response by government.
  Unlike 50 years ago, our most difficult problems cannot be solved by 
the benevolent hand of a powerful, centralized bureaucracy. We can 
still have an effective Government, without a big Government that takes 
away our freedoms and degrades our values.


                Unleashing America's Economic Potential

  As I stated, our mission is to implement the replacement of big 
Government--to unite the principles of economic freedom and cultural 
renewal to forge a new governing consensus that will lead America into 
the 21st century.
  The principles of economic freedom are the very same principles that 
will bring forward a renewed culture and a society of limited 
government. Faith, family, and freedom: these are the values that make 
both our national economy and our national character strong. When 
government undermines these values, it hurts our families and our 
economy. Today, big Government is holding back our economy and 
preventing our people from reaching their full potential.
  Perhaps, the most obvious evidence is the fiscal bankruptcy of the 
Federal Government. Today, we are more than $5.3 trillion in debt--a 
crushing burden that amounts to over $20,000 for every man woman and 
child. We are broke. And the budget deficits of today are minor 
compared with the fiscal disaster that will confront us in the early 
21st century when Social Security and Medicare are unable to pay their 
bills.
  But huge deficits and skyrocketing debt are just one problem.
  Americans currently labor under a tax code so complicated that even 
tax lawyers and accountants can't understand it. We tax personal income 
two and three times before a citizen can see a return on his work or 
investment. Our people must work until May 8 just to pay their taxes to 
the Government before they can earn a penny to support their families.
  Our Tax Code is one of the greatest remnants of an over-intrusive big 
Government. It is perhaps the single greatest obstacle to greater 
individual freedom and prosperity. Ronald Reagan

[[Page S1938]]

made enormous progress during his presidency, scaling the top rate from 
70 percent down to 28 percent. But since then, taxes have gone up--
under both Republican and Democrat presidents
  The power to levy and collect taxes was meant to fund a 
constitutional Government, not to become a political device in and of 
itself. Today, our central Government discourages certain behavior and 
rewards others based purely on the whims of those who control the tax 
monster.
  And as long as the current tax system exists, we will have not met 
the challenge of replacing big Government and America's potential will 
never be fully reached.
  In other examples of big Government, we have over 340 Federal 
``economic development'' programs which redistribute capital from 
productive citizens to bureaucratically-favored entities. Our 
regulatory state imposes hidden taxes on our families, our businesses 
and our dreams without truly measuring the consequences and weighing 
the alternatives. And our political class has become satisfied with 
expanding our economy at a lethargical pace. Meanwhile, entrepreneurs 
are being denied capital for their innovative ideas, parents are 
spending more time at work and less at home, and the American dream is 
slipping away from more and more families.
  Many of these barriers are leftover from the great experiment with 
big Government that is entrenched in our system. Defenders of this 
system may be winning the battle, but they cannot win this war of 
ideas. The economic future of our country is inextricably tied to our 
people.
  This is why I am optimistic that we will break the bonds that are 
stifling the innovation and creativity of our people. As this new wave 
of information technology grows into each household and every new 
child's mind, the system that relied on Government experts to guide our 
economy will be washed away in a tide of entrepreneurial capitalism 
that will make the industrial revolution pale by comparison. Legions of 
entrepreneurs with innovative ideas, exciting energy and new talents 
will bring forth the inevitable implosion of today's redistributive and 
elitist economic policy. And our job as people who love freedom is to 
do everything we can to help advance this process.


                     Renewing the American Culture

  We must also not forget that a nation must be full of good people 
before it can be a great nation. George Washington, in his First 
Inaugural, said that there is ``no truth more thoroughly established 
than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an 
indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and 
advantage.'' As a result, he predicted that ``the foundation of our 
national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of 
private morality.''
  If this is true--and I believe it is--then certainly the best 
predictor of future greatness is current goodness.
  Where are we today on the goodness of the Nation? If we were to 
measure gross domestic piety in America we would ideally view the 
nature of each persons heart. Seeing as we cannot measure another's 
soul, we are left to measure actions and extrapolate from it goodness.
  The number of crimes committed does tell us something about the soul 
of the nation. So does the number of abandoned households, the divorce 
rate, the rate of teenage suicide and abortion. If these are 
extraordinarily high, can anyone disagree that the goodness of the 
Nation has declined and its long-term success is in jeopardy?
  But let me make a bold statement here. America is in ascent again. 
While I have just spoken about the many terrible and vexing problems of 
our Nation, this Nation has always shown an ability to deal with its 
problems once it focuses on what those problems are.
  I believe today we are focused on the problems of America. We are 
seeing the limits of Government and the needs of the hearts of our 
people. Many of our citizens are realizing that in their individual 
actions--each and every day touching, loving, encouraging, and caring 
for their fellow man and woman--that they have the power to continue 
America as a great Nation.


                       A New Governing Consensus

  Men and women all across this Nation like Pastor Reid are mending 
America's social fabric by reviving the families, civic organizations, 
and faith-based institutions that teach character and nurture the soul. 
They may not all think of themselves as conservatives, but they embody 
the conservative way of thinking. And they are rediscovering the 
principles of limited self-government, personal responsibility, and 
entrepreneurial capitalism that the founders envisioned for America.
  The restoration of America's civil society has replaced the fight 
against communism as our central need and our central focus. This need 
unites libertarians with their emphasis on a free society with cultural 
conservatives with their emphasis on faith, family, and responsibility 
with pro-growth Americans who want to free up the genius of the 
American people through entrepreneurial capitalism. This vision, a 
vision of freedom, responsibility, and growth can form the core of a 
new conservative governing consensus.
  Our cause should be unified, not fractured. Americans of all sorts 
should work together to restore this common vision of a limited 
government so we can open markets, free up individual creativity, and 
above all else, renew the American culture. Indeed, the sum of these 
goals is essential to the whole of our destiny as a nation.
  This isn't a utopian fantasy or wishful thinking. Americans and our 
Government have practiced these principles before, and we will do so 
again. When Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in the 1830's, he 
discovered the most democratic, most egalitarian, most religious, most 
prosperous, and most charitable country on Earth. It was a country of 
limited national Government, and active citizen participation in local 
government. Every community had newspapers describing how citizens 
formed voluntary associations to solve problems instead of expecting 
them to be solved by politicians.
  The industrial revolution of the late 19th century and the early 20th 
century was a time of rapidly growing entrepreneurial capitalism and 
great personal achievement. It was no coincidence that this period also 
saw the creation of the Red Cross, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, 
YMCA's and YWCA's, hundreds of private colleges and universities, and 
countless other organizations that strengthened character and addressed 
the problems of their communities.
  This explosion of community organizations and faith-based 
institutions coincided with an economic, cultural and moral reawakening 
that touched America in many ways. As the great scholar James Q. Wilson 
has written, crime went down in the second half of the 19th century 
even though this was a period of rapid industrialization and 
urbanization. The rate of abortions fell in half during this period. 
Again, government did not create this development, people did.
  Today there are signs that America is entering another great revival 
of civic, voluntary activity. In the tradition of Jews, Mormons, and 
other religious groups with strong charitable traditions, conservative 
Evangelicals and Catholics run schools for low-income children. They 
operate maternity homes that give unwed mothers the love and support 
they need to choose life. They go into our cities' meanest streets and 
prisons to rescue gang members, drug dealers, and prostitutes from 
lives of violence, addiction, and desperation. Name a social ill 
afflicting our cities--poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, 
illegitimacy--and you will find a self-selected, religiously affiliated 
program attacking the problem with prayer and sweat and a small army of 
volunteers.
  Some scholars say that America is entering a fourth great awakening, 
a revival of religious faith and fervor. In the American political 
tradition, freedom and religious revival have always gone together. The 
first great awakening helped inspire the American Revolution, and 
religious faith was at the center of the anti-slavery and civil rights 
movements. And as the call for freedom grows with this revival, we will 
have the chance to restore an unlimited America where Government will 
focus on self-limitation, people will focus on self-governing, and our 
society will grow and prosper both economically and culturally creating 
an era of an unlimited America.

[[Page S1939]]

  I have no illusions about the problems we face. Ours is the work of 
generations. But today the American people have a choice to make. We 
can either continue along the path of administrative, bureaucratic 
Government and follow the tired mediocrity of big Government, or we can 
begin the long and difficult task of rebuilding an America that knows 
no limits.
  To follow this path we must do two things:
  First: The creed of America is to be found in the Declaration of 
Independence, which Jefferson called ``an expression of the American 
mind.'' We must renew our commitment to these principles, return to our 
Constitution and reassert ourselves as a free, self-governing people.
  Second: America has always had within itself a deep source of 
regeneration. It gains nourishment from its many, varied roots; its 
history, its religious faith, its free market and its immigrant 
heritage. And what holds us all together is America's love of liberty, 
deep in the hearts and minds of the American people. We must renew what 
Washington called ``the sacred fire of liberty'' and set it ablaze 
across the land.
  These are not easy tasks. Yet I remain an optimist for these are 
powerful forces on the move in our society. I don't know about you, but 
I have every confidence that Americans will choose the right path for 
themselves, and for future generations that have yet to enjoy the 
blessings of freedom. And as we do, we will establish the era of an 
unlimited America.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I may proceed 
for not to exceed 12 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair.

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