[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 147 (Thursday, October 15, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H10921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                ACHIEVEMENTS OF REPUBLICAN-LED CONGRESS

  (Mr. BALLENGER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BALLENGER. Mr. Speaker, for 40 years Washington was on autopilot 
and heading in one direction and one direction only, toward higher 
taxes and bigger government. Republicans were elected to a majority in 
1994 and things have been different ever since, despite the efforts of 
the President to raise taxes, to create new government programs and to 
expand old ones. Republicans passed middle-class tax cuts, welfare 
reform, IRS reform, and Medicare reform.
  Let us just consider for a moment if any of these achievements, even 
a single one, would have seen the light of day if the liberal Democrats 
had still been in the majority. Welfare reform? The liberals are still 
bitter about that. Tax cuts? They tried to raise taxes, not cut them. 
IRS reform? Now, why would a liberal ever want to take on his best 
friend? Medicare reform? This is perhaps the most unlikely proposition 
of them all. Any effort to reform Medicare was greeted with hysterical 
cries of extremism by liberal defenders of the status quo in this very 
body.
  No, Mr. Speaker, not a single one of these achievements could have 
been possible were it not for a Republican majority in Congress.

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