[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 33 (Wednesday, March 3, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H920]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 LIBERALS THINK WASHINGTON KNOWS HOW TO SPEND AMERICANS' MONEY BETTER 
                              THAN THEY DO

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to compliment the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) on his plan. It is something 
that we have supported since 1995 and had the President and also 
Members of this Chamber on the left supported the same thing. Then when 
the President vetoed the nine appropriation bills in 1995 that shut 
down the government, that could have been avoided. I hope that we will 
be willing to do that in the future.
  I was very, very interested to hear our Democratic friends talk about 
fiscal responsibility and talking about how the saying went that the 
balanced budget has no constituency. Mr. Speaker, I can tell my 
colleagues one person that cared about it in 1993 while he was sitting 
on the couch watching C-Span in the summer in Pensacola, Florida, was 
myself.
  I remember in 1993 watching the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich) and 
a band of young Republican conservatives come to this floor and fight 
the President and the liberal left's plans to pass the largest tax 
increase in the history of this Republic. See, their vision of America 
then and now has been that if we want to balance the budget, the only 
way we can do it is by raiding the pockets of taxpayers.
  In fact, we had some insight on this about a month ago when the 
President went up to Buffalo, New York, and he told the people in the 
audience that we really have to avoid this idea that the Republicans 
have that we are going to cut taxes. The President said to that Buffalo 
audience:
  We could give you money back and hope that you spend it on the right 
things, but we cannot trust you, basically.
  As my colleagues know, what a vision for America. What a sad, tired, 
worn-out vision for America. It is a vision that is radically different 
from what the Republican party believes.
  GOP, as far as I believe, stands for government of the people. We 
believe people know how to spend their money better than bureaucrats in 
Washington, D.C. That is why I ran for office in 1994. I saw the 
President's budget and the Democrats' budget that passed without a 
single Republican vote, and I saw that the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. 
Kasich) and the rest of the Republicans laid out a blueprint, and we 
said:
  Let us balance the budget in 7 years, and if we balance the budget in 
7 years, then the economy will explode.
  Now the President said that we could not do this because this would 
destroy the economy, and how many liberals did I hear come to the floor 
and speak into this microphone and tell the American people if we tried 
to balance the budget in 7 years, the economy would be wrecked? Boy, 
talk about a rewriting of history. Now they talk about the Clinton 
recovery?
  I remember Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Fed, testifying before the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kasich's) committee, and he said:
  If you guys and ladies will only pass this balanced budget plan, you 
will see interest rates go down, you will see unemployment go down, and 
you will see one of the largest peace-time economic expansions in the 
history of our country.
  That is what Alan Greenspan said. And do my colleagues know what? It 
is a good thing we listened to the economic intelligence of Alan 
Greenspan instead of the demagoguery that came from the other end of 
Pennsylvania Avenue, because we stayed the course, we fought the good 
fight, and we took a deficit from $300 billion when we got here in 1995 
down to a point where it is almost balanced.
  Mr. Speaker, the news only gets better. We find out this past week 
that the CBO is now saying:
  If Congress and the President do nothing, then the $5.4 trillion debt 
that threatens my children's economic future and all of America's 
economic future will virtually be eradicated in 15 years.
  But the question is:
  Can the President and those on the left leave well enough alone?
  See, we have got these horrible little things called budget caps, a 
road map for fiscal responsibility, and they think this is a bad thing. 
In fact, the President sees his only way out is by doing what he did in 
1993 and what Democrats have done for 40 years. He says, let us take it 
from the American people; they do not know how to spend their money. 
Let us raise taxes by billions and billions of dollars. That is in the 
President's budget. That is the President's plan.
  My gosh, if we talk about cutting taxes, how about cutting taxes for 
Americans that make from 45 to $60,000? Raising the threshold? What if 
we talk about cutting capital gains taxes that actually helps so many 
Americans, helps grow the economy? They say that is a bad thing. I 
disagree.
  Unlike the liberals, I still believe Americans know how to spend 
their money better than Washington, D.C.

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