[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 114 (Wednesday, September 3, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1630]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       GOP CONTRACT WITH AMERICA HAS BEEN A BLUEPRINT FOR ACTION

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                           HON. DOUG BEREUTER

                              of nebraska

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, September 3, 1997

  Mr. BEREUTER. Mr. Speaker, this Member highly commends to his 
colleagues this editorial which appeared in the Omaha World-Herald on 
August 4, 1997.

       GOP Contract With America Has Been a Blueprint for Action

       Democrats spent $2 million attacking the Republican 
     Contract With America in the congressional elections of 1994. 
     The contract helped deliver the first GOP majority in the 
     House in 40 years. Yet Democrats continued to malign it as a) 
     typical cynical campaign rhetoric that would be abandoned or 
     b) a mean-spirited contract ``on'' America that would go 
     nowhere.
       As the current budget agreement and the Taxpayer Relief Act 
     move toward enactment, it's worth noting how many major 
     policy changes can be traced back to the Contract With 
     America.
       The first provision of the contract was enactment of a 
     balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. That effort 
     failed. But the No. 1 issue on Capitol Hill these days is 
     balancing the federal budget. Democrats as well as 
     Republicans are congratulating themselves for approving a 
     budget designed to achieve balance in five years. The ground 
     rules of budget debate have shifted profoundly. The need for 
     fiscal balance is no longer the issue; the debate is over how 
     to accomplish it.
       A corollary to the balanced-budget amendment was a grant of 
     line-item veto power to the president, which Bill Clinton 
     gladly accepted.
       On taxes, the $500-per-child income tax credit destined to 
     become law was a major provision of the GOP contract. Other 
     contract provisions in the current tax bill are: expanded 
     individual retirement accounts for home ownership and 
     education; a reduction in estate and capital-gains taxes; 
     expansion of the home office deduction; and American Dream 
     Savings Accounts--IRA-style accounts to which families can 
     contribute up to $4,000 a year.
       Welfare reform was another priority in the contract. The 
     crux of the proposal was the elimination of welfare as an 
     open-ended entitlement and the establishment of a two-years-
     and-out rule. Clinton twice had vetoed welfare-reform bills. 
     But in 1996 his top campaign adviser, Dick Morris, told him 
     that as the 1992 candidate who had promised to ``end welfare 
     as we know it,'' Clinton might fatally wound his re-election 
     bid by rejecting welfare reform a third time. Clinton signed 
     into law the welfare policy derived from the Republican 
     contract.
       Roughly two dozen other proposals in the contract have 
     become law. Among them are tougher enforcement of the death 
     penalty, stricter review of government regulation of 
     business, raising the tax-free earnings limit for people on 
     Social Security, tax incentives for adoption and for care of 
     a dependent old person, spousal IRAs and tax relief for small 
     businesses.
       The contract was a device unprecedented in national 
     electoral politics: Here is a specific checkist of exactly 
     what we propose to do: elect us and hold us to it. Advocates 
     called it a straightforward masterstroke. Critics called it 
     an ill-advised piece of political hokum.
       Three years alter, there is no doubt that the GOP meant 
     what it said in the Contract With America. Even the White 
     House has embraced much of it. Much of what it contained is 
     now the policy of the United States, thanks to the 
     persistence and foresight of the Republican Congress.

     

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