[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 132 (Monday, September 28, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H9091]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H9091]]
    DO NOT PROMISE TO BUILD A BRIDGE WHEN THERE IS NO RIVER TO CROSS

  (Mr. GIBBONS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GIBBONS. Mr. Speaker, the Democrats and President Clinton have 
repeatedly stated that every penny of the surplus should be saved for 
Social Security, every penny. What the Democrats are not saying is that 
President Clinton is already spending the surplus. That is right. He 
has already spent $2.9 billion on our mission in Bosnia, and this fall 
the Clinton administration is proposing to spend billions more from the 
surplus.
  Bosnia or America? Well, as important as Bosnia may be, the Democrats 
and the President cannot have it both ways. While the President and his 
Democratic leadership want to spend the surplus on the people of 
Bosnia, Republicans want it to be used for taxpayers of America.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge the Democratic leadership to come clean, to tell 
the American people why they do not want hard-working Americans to keep 
more of their hard-earned money, how they want higher taxes and how 
they want to spend the resources of hard-working men and women on more 
and more, bigger and wasteful, unnecessary bureaucracy and government.
  I do not doubt for a minute that Americans will see through the 
illusions of the Democratic rhetoric and demagoguery. Before the 
November 3 elections, Democrats and the President may want to remember 
this: Do not promise to build a bridge when there is no river to cross.

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