[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 34 (Thursday, March 4, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H1002-H1005]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE RADICAL LEFT, THE PRESIDENT'S COUNSEL AND THE DEMOCRATIC CAUCUS DO 
                       NOT LIKE THE CONSTITUTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 1999, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Scarborough) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
  Mr. SCARBOROUGH. Mr. Speaker, I certainly have been intrigued by the 
speech that we have been hearing about the census and about how we have 
heard words like ``partisan motives'' and ``tactics'' and basically the 
same things that we have been hearing for years, that Democrats have 
been attacking Republicans for back room maneuvers and saying all these 
horrible things because we do not want people to be represented 
according to them. Mr. Speaker, as my colleagues know, the one thing 
though that I find really intriguing about this debate is that while 
Republicans are being attacked for this, the one thing that we do not 
hear about when it comes to reapportionment and when it comes to using 
the census to count voters in 2000 is the fact that this decision has 
already been reached, not in a back room in Congress, not by mean-
spirited Republicans getting together and figuring out how they can 
harm human beings, but now it has been decided already across the 
street by the United States Supreme Court who ruled not long ago, just 
a month or two ago, that it is unconstitutional. It is unconstitutional 
to run a census the way the administration and the way that the radical 
left wants to run the census in 2000.

  Mr. Speaker, I say ``radical left.'' Why do I say ``radical''? I say 
``radical,'' and my definition of ``radical'' is somebody or a group of 
legislators who want to radically break with the past, and that is what 
this is all about. As my colleagues know, they can talk about 
scientific means of measurement, they can talk about fairness, they can 
talk about whatever they want to talk about, but when they turn and 
point and blame the Republicans for the census in 2000, they are 
avoiding some very basic facts.
  Mr. Speaker, the main fact they are avoiding is, and there are two 
facts actually; first fact is the United States Supreme Court says it 
is unconstitutional to guess how many Americans should be able to vote 
in an election. It is unconstitutional. The second fact that they 
conveniently avoid so they can come down here and make mean-spirited, 
radical assertions that just are not based on fact is that the United 
States Constitution itself, the framework for this great constitutional 
republic, says itself that you have got to count each person when we 
decide about reapportionment.
  Now what did we hear? As my colleagues know, I do not know why we did 
not hear that other than it does not really play into their strong 
point as well as criticizing Republicans, attacking us as mean-
spirited. Listen. The Republicans on this issue are irrelevant. If they 
have a problem, they need to take it up with the United States Supreme 
Court. They need to take it up with Madison and Hamilton and those 
people that drafted the United States Constitution over 200 years ago.
  Now maybe they do not like the Constitution, maybe they think that 
this part of the Constitution is not suited well for the 21st century, 
maybe they want a radical departure from our history, maybe they want 
to take an extremist approach because they think they can pick up four 
or five seats. But I can tell my colleagues the Supreme Court, the 
United States Constitution and 222 years of American history does not 
support their argument.
  Facts are stubborn things. Facts, not name calling, not mean-spirited 
attacks; facts are stubborn things.
  It reminds me during the impeachment hearings and even before the 
impeachment hearings, as we led up to the impeachment hearings. Mr. 
Speaker, I remember Ken Starr being castigated time and time again. He 
is a renegade. Ken Starr is dangerous. He is trying to do things that 
he should not be able to do. That is what we heard from the radical 
left. But facts are stubborn things.
  The President's attorneys, the radical left, the Democratic Caucus, 
all would attack Ken Starr and say he was doing things that would 
destroy the Presidency and the Constitution, and yet every time the 
legal question was taken to the United States Supreme Court, the United 
States Supreme Court, the highest court in the land, would come back 
and defend Ken Starr's right to conduct his legal investigation.
  Now whether colleagues agreed with Mr. Starr's investigation or not, 
do not say that he is an out-of-control prosecutor that is trying to 
violate the law because the highest court in the land, the court 
sanctioned by the United States Constitution 222 years ago, said that 
what Mr. Starr was asking for was constitutionally correct.

                              {time}  1500

  Now, again, maybe the radical left, the President's counsel, and the 
entire Democratic Caucus does not like the Constitution. Maybe they are 
offended by 222 years of history. But do not attack the person that is 
living by the law and the Constitution, because facts are stubborn 
things.
  This is something I have seen now for 4 years. Mr. Speaker, it was 
about 4\1/2\, 5 years ago that I was an American that sat on my couch 
and watched the news, watched C-Span, had never been

[[Page H1003]]

involved in politics. I decided that I should get off the couch, come 
to Washington, and try to make a change.
  I did that. I have to tell the Members, I was shocked, absolutely 
shocked by some of the mean-spirited things that were said from the 
left to the right. Any time they disagreed on principle, they would 
attack personally.
  I just do not know how many times I have heard somebody from the 
radical left call an opponent a Nazi because they disagreed with them 
politically; a Nazi, a member of an organization that killed 6 million 
Jews.
  Just because you disagree with the way somebody votes on a school 
lunch program, whether someone wants it administered by the State, the 
local school agency or the Federal Government, does not mean that we 
should resort to this mean-spirited radical approach.
  It is just like social security. I do not know how many times I have 
heard people on the left talk about Social Security and talk about how 
Republicans want to destroy Social Security. We have heard it from the 
administration time and time again. It is almost like they a one-trick 
pony. That is all they know how to do is to scare people.
  Once again, facts are stubborn things. It was just this week that CBO 
Director Crippen criticized the President and the administration, and 
for doing what? For planning to raid the Social Security trust fund by 
$270 billion, steal $270 billion from Social Security. Even in 
Washington, D.C., even among the radical left, $270 billion is a lot of 
money.
  The idea was let us go ahead and raid Social Security for $270 
billion, take it from Social Security, put it in the general account, 
and then, after we steal $270 billion from this Federal program that 
was set up on a promise, then we spend that $270 billion on new Federal 
programs, new bureaucracies, making new promises that this government 
will not keep.
  We have to say, once and for all, to this administration and to those 
on the left that want to raid the Social Security trust fund to create 
new bureaucracies and new jobs and new power in Washington, D.C., keep 
your hands off Social Security. Keep your hands off Social Security.
  There is a Republican plan by the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Wally Herger) that would allow us to, finally, after all of these 
years, keep politicians' hands off of Social Security. This plan would 
set aside the Social Security trust fund and stop politicians from 
raiding that trust fund.
  The President would not be able to steal $270 billion from the Social 
Security trust fund. Members of the radical left would not be able to 
create new Federal jobs, create new Federal bureaucracies, and create 
new Federal regulations with their ill-gotten dollars. Instead, we 
would set aside Social Security. We would keep it solvent, not only for 
my parents but for all of Americans. We have got to do that. We have 
got to stop looting the Social Security trust fund.
  Ironically, this is something that, back in 1995, when I came here 
with a group of 73 other freshmen Republicans, we actually put out a 
bill that Mark Neumann helped draft that would set aside the Social 
Security trust fund and protect Social Security's funds for our 
seniors. We were told at the time it was radical, that nobody would do 
it; that, listen, we have to go ahead and count the Social Security 
trust fund and raid it or there is no way we can balance the budget. 
The administration's budgets looted Social Security.
  Right now, though, I think we are getting to a point where most 
conservative and moderate Members of Congress agree that we have got to 
keep Social Security safe and keep it off-budget, so our grandparents 
and our parents will be able to get back the money that they put in.
  Is it a plan that will work? I do not know, but I would like the 
administration, I would like members of the radical left, I would like 
everybody to come to the table and at least talk about it, instead of 
saying let us raid Social Security by $270 billion, and then turning 
around and saying, we are the ones that are protecting Social Security.
  They cannot have it both ways. Either they are for protecting Social 
Security and keeping their hands off the Social Security trust fund, or 
they want to raid Social Security to the tune of $270 billion, like the 
administration, to create bigger Federal bureaucracies. They cannot 
have it both ways. Facts are stubborn things.
  Why are we in a position now that we can set aside the Social 
Security trust fund? It is because when we came here in 1995 we were 
not only concerned about senior citizens, we were concerned about our 
children, we were concerned about teenagers, we were concerned about 
people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and people who would be on Social 
Security down the road.
  The only way we could take care of our future leaders, the only way 
we could allow them to enjoy the American dream that so many Americans 
have enjoyed in this great American century, was to stop raiding Social 
Security and stop stealing from our next generation.
  When we got here, the deficit was $300 billion, $300 billion. The 
debt was $5 trillion. What does that mean? It is hard to figure out 
exactly how much money that is. All I can say is this. Senator Bob 
Kerrey headed up a bipartisan task force on Social Security, and his 
Social Security task force back in 1994 concluded that if Social 
Security spending and if spending on our Federal budget continued at 
current rates, then people in their teens and twenties would be paying 
89 percent of their paychecks, 89 percent of their paychecks just to 
pay off their Federal taxes.
  I think what Senator Kerrey did was a courageous thing. Senator 
Simpson, now retired, was also on that commission. It is a commission 
that came up with good conclusions regarding the solvency of Social 
Security.
  What does that mean? I guess we have to boil this down basically as 
much as we can so people in their teens and twenties can understand.
  Let us say you have a job at Wendy's and you make $200; a part-time 
job, and you make $200 every 2 weeks. If you have to pay 90 percent of 
your salary in Federal taxes, that means you will get $20 at the end of 
the day and the Federal Government will get $180. That simply is not 
the right thing to do, but that is what our children and our 
grandchildren face and what they faced if we did not dare to stand up 
to say no to more and more spending.
  What do we hear now, 4 years later, just 4 years later? We have 
gotten to a point where we could not only erase the deficit but also 
erase the $5.4 trillion debt, just in 10 or 15 years. How did this 
come about? We hear an awful lot about the recovery. A lot of people 
want to take credit.

  But I remember back in 1995 when we got here. We said, we are going 
to balance the budget and we are going to do it in 7 years or less. I 
actually voted on a plan that would balance the budget in 5 years. They 
called us radical and extreme because their views were radical and 
extreme.
  I guess, to a political faction that had spent 40 years borrowing 
from their children and their grandchildren and stealing from their 
grandparents' Social Security trust fund, I guess our concept was 
radical.
  This was our concept: If you spend $1, then you had better bring in 
$1. Stop borrowing from the next generation and from the generation 
that survived the Depression and won World War II. Instead, let us be 
fiscally responsible. So we brought out a plan to balance the budget. 
It was the plan of the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. John Kasich). It was a 
courageous plan.
  I got up here in my first couple of months in Washington and 
everybody in Washington told me, we cannot do it. This will never 
happen. We cannot balance the budget. In fact, I remember the President 
coming out and saying, if we tried to balance the budget in 7 years we 
would destroy the American economy. The President of the United States 
just 4 years ago said if we tried to balance the budget in 7 years we 
would destroy the United States economy.
  We had some other people that knew a thing or two about economics 
come and testify before Congress. The gentleman from Ohio (Chairman 
Kasich) had Fed chairman Alan Greenspan come to Congress.
  The chairman of the Fed said, if you people will only do what you say 
you want to do and pass a budget that will balance in 7 years, you will 
see unprecedented economic growth. You will see

[[Page H1004]]

interest rates rocket down. You will see unemployment go down. You will 
see the stock market explode. You will see America explode economically 
in a way that it had not exploded since the end of World War II.
  Do Members know what? He was right. His prediction before the 
Committee on the Budget in early 1995 was deadly accurate. It is a good 
thing that we listened to our hearts, that we listened to the chairman 
of the Fed and ignored the naysayers on the radical left and ignored 
the President, who said, do not balance the budget; it is a very bad 
thing.
  Facts are stubborn things. It was only 1 year later when he was 
running for president that he said his first priority would be to keep 
up the fight for balancing the budget. It is very interesting, because 
he vetoed nine appropriation bills, he shut down the government, all 
because he did not want to balance the budget in 7 years. He said it 
would destroy the economy.
  What has our work accomplished? What has the work of the gentleman 
from Ohio (Chairman Kasich) accomplished? What has Speaker Gingrich, 
when he was still here as a Speaker, accomplished? What has the courage 
of Republicans and conservative Democrats alike accomplished?
  Well, let us look at it. When we first got here 4 years ago the 
deficit was approaching $300 billion. Now we are told that the budget 
will balance in the next year. When we first got here the Dow Jones was 
at 3,900. Today it is at 9,500, and middle class Americans have gotten 
involved in the market, in their 401(k) plans, and America is enjoying 
unprecedented economic growth.
  Unemployment is down. Inflation has remained down. America has not 
enjoyed better times. Why? All because we ignored the naysayers and the 
people who said we cannot balance our checkbooks, we cannot run 
Washington the way middle-class Americans have to run their homes. We 
cannot do it.
  We said, we can do it, Mr. President; and we will do it, Mr. 
President. And because we did, America enjoys unprecedented economic 
growth. It is time for us to step back, not to assess credit, not to 
assess blame, but just to say, let us remember the facts and let us 
remember what got us here. The gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Kasich) 
was for it. The Speaker was for it. Every Republican was for it. A few 
Democrats were for it. The President was against it, and the radical 
left was against it.

                              {time}  1515

  It is a good thing, a good thing that we stuck to our plan.
  But yet, to hear the administration talk, one would think, my gosh, 
this was our plan all along. It was not. It just was not. And I suppose 
they can say it as much as they want to say it. They can take the 
credit as much as they want to take the credit. But facts are stubborn 
things.
  So what we have to do in 1999 is remember the lessons of 1995, Mr. 
Speaker. Just because it is unpopular does not mean it is not the right 
thing to do. Just because less government may not be popular in 
Washington, D.C., does not mean it is not the right thing to do. Just 
because destroying the death tax, cutting capital gains tax, ending the 
marriage penalty and allowing people that make from $45,000 to $60,000 
to pay less taxes, just because it may be tough does not mean it is not 
the right thing to do. It is the right thing to do.
  It may seem radical to people whose entire life, their entire 
existence is based in Washington, D.C.; who believe that all roads lead 
to Washington; who believe that Washington knows how to spend out money 
better than we know how to spend our money; that believe Washington 
knows how to educate our children more than we know how to educate our 
children; that believe that Washington knows how to clean up crime 
better than communities know how to clean up crime. It may seem radical 
to them, but it does not seem radical to me. It did not seem radical to 
Ronald Reagan, and it certainly did not seem radical to Thomas 
Jefferson.
  Mr. Speaker, we have to stop turning our backs on what made America 
so great. That is the individual. It is people.
  ``GOP'' in the past has stood for Grand Old Party. I think that is a 
lousy name. I think that is a stupid, lousy name. What we ought to say 
is GOP stands for Government of the People.
  Now, why do I say that? Because think about it. Who is the one, who 
is the party that is saying parents and teachers know more about 
educating children than the Federal Department of Education? Certainly 
not Democrats. They believe that the Federal bureaucracy in education 
should continue to grow, and the President has budgets to prove it.
  Who believes Americans should keep more of their money and Washington 
should take less? It is not the Democrats of the radical left. In fact, 
the President of the United States went up to Buffalo a few weeks ago 
and made a statement that I am sure he wishes he could retract now. 
This is a statement that, unfortunately, reveals his heart when it 
comes to Washington, D.C. He said to this group about cutting taxes, he 
criticized Republicans because they actually wanted Americans to keep 
more of their money, and he said: You know, we in Washington could let 
you keep more of your money and hope you know how to spend it right. 
Oh, we cannot do that.
  Hope? What is there to hope about? I mean, it is so painfully obvious 
that Americans know how to spend their money better than Washington, 
D.C. I will guarantee, Mr. Speaker, that if I went to the President of 
the United States today and I said, ``Mr. President, I have got $50 
million for you, and you can either have a bureaucrat in Washington, 
D.C., invest that money or you can invest that money yourself,'' I will 
guarantee that he will say, ``I will invest it myself.''
  Let us say that someone won a $50 million lottery across America and 
they said they want to give all of their money away to charity, they 
want to help people. If I gave them the option, would they rather give 
that $50 million to Federal bureaucracies or would they rather give 
that $50 million to private charities, I will guarantee that they would 
give it to private charities in a second because Washington, D.C., does 
not have all the answers. Washington, D.C., cannot do it as well as 
communities. All roads do not lead to Washington, D.C.
  Mr. Speaker, I still believe in the genius of America. I still 
believe in the genius of communities. And as the father of two boys in 
public schools, I still believe parents know how to raise their 
children and teach their children better than bureaucrats in the 
Federal Department of Education.
  Maybe that is not in vogue in 1999. Maybe it is not in vogue to say 
that Americans are paying too much in taxes in 1999. Maybe the economy 
is doing so well that Americans want to give the Federal Government 
more money. Well, I hope not, because I do not think that is good for 
America and I do not think it is good for the Federal Government. 
Because if we give the Federal Government one dollar, they will figure 
out a way to need two dollars next year. If we give them two, they will 
need four. If we hire one employee this year, they will figure out a 
way that they will need to hire two next year.
  We have got to get back to basics, not only in this Congress, not 
only in this country, but in this party. The party of Lincoln, the 
party of Madison and Jefferson, the party that believes that the genius 
of America lies in the heart of America and not in Washington, D.C.
  So, hopefully, when we talk about Social Security, we can keep our 
word with the American people. We can stop stealing from Social 
Security. We can stop the President's plan dead in its track to loot 
the Social Security trust fund of $270 billion. $270 billion. We can 
stop the President's plan to spend more and more money. And, yes, we 
can stop the President's plan to raise taxes by almost $100 billion 
this year.
  We have tried that before. That is the past. That is the history. I 
know his poll ratings are high and every time they are high he comes to 
Congress and he wants to spend more money and raise more taxes. It 
happened in 1993. We had the largest tax increase in the history of the 
world. That is why I think I got elected in 1994, because of his tax 
increase in 1993. I was against it then; I am against it now. I think 
it is immoral for the Federal Government to take half of what Americans 
earn.
  When we look at it, look at it and see. A great example is the death 
tax.

[[Page H1005]]

Now, the radical left will tell us that the death tax is about nothing 
more than helping the rich. Say that to the farmer that has spent his 
entire life with his hands in the soil building a farm, praying to God 
every year that his crops will come in, praying that he will have 
something to pass on to his sons and his daughter, only to pass away 
and have his children have to pay 55 percent to the Federal Government 
just because he had the bad fortune of dying. Fifty-five percent on 
money that he has already paid taxes on eight or nine times.
  Mr. Speaker, that is obscene. With the new collection of wealth in 
America, with middle-class Americans that are actually getting to earn 
a little bit of money and investing in small businesses and using their 
hands and using their minds and sweating day and night to build a small 
business in the hope of passing the American dream on to their 
children, they find out that when they die, they are going to have to 
pay 55 percent to the Federal Government. And what is going to happen 
to their small business? What is going to happen to their small farm? 
They are going to have to sell it. They are going to have to have a 
sale on the courtroom steps, because their children are not going to 
have the money to pay death taxes and keep that family business or that 
family farm running.

  Mr. Speaker, it makes no sense. It makes no sense that Americans, 
while they are alive, spend half of the year paying for taxes, fees and 
regulations put on them by the government.
  Now, what does that mean? That means that when Americans wake up to 
work on Monday, they are working for the government, and all day they 
are working for the government. When they wake up and go to work on 
Tuesday, they are still working to pay taxes, fees and regulations to 
the government. It is not until they come back from lunch on Wednesday 
afternoon that they are able to put aside a few dollars for themselves 
and a few dollars aside for their family and a few dollars aside for a 
mortgage. God help us all to be able to save a little bit of money for 
our children's education.
  See, this is not the agenda that the President or the radical left 
want to talk about, because what does this do? Why is this offensive to 
people on the left? Because it makes sense? It makes sense I think to 
most Americans. But why is it offensive to people on the left? It is 
because it takes money out of Washington, D.C., and returns it to 
Americans.
  I think, in the end, the difference between the right and the left is 
that the left just does not trust Americans with their own money. Like 
the President of the United States said in Buffalo a few weeks ago: 
Yeah, we could give you your money and hope that you spend it the right 
way, but we just cannot do that.
  Mr. Speaker, I am hoping that we will be coming to a time in the 
coming months that we can debate the real issues and debate the real 
facts. If we are talking about spending, we will keep spending down, we 
will adhere to the spending caps that we passed in 1997.
  We have had Speaker Hastert and several others come out this week and 
talk about their desire to stay in the spending caps. We have had the 
President of the United States talk about more taxes, more spending, 
more government, two very separate visions of America.
  Mr. Speaker, Republicans are fighting hard to cut taxes. Hopefully, 
we can cut the death tax. Hopefully, we can help Americans that make 
$45,000 to $60,000 get out of the 28 percent tax bracket and go to the 
15 percent tax bracket. Why is an American making $45,000 paying 28 
percent in Federal taxes? That is insane and wrong. The Federal 
Government has enough money. It does not need money that badly.
  Hopefully, when we talk about Social Security we can say no to 
raiding the Social Security trust fund and say yes to keeping Social 
Security off budget. Say no to the President's plan of looting Social 
Security by $270 billion, according to CBO, and say yes to the Herger 
plan, the Republican plan, to keep Social Security off budget.
  Mr. Speaker, if we do that and if we go back to what we were talking 
about doing in 1995, which was balancing the budget, cutting taxes, 
cutting spending, saving Social Security and being responsible with 
taxpayers' money, then I think we will really be on to something and we 
will go into the next century and the new millennium a stronger, freer, 
prouder country than we have in many, many years.
  That is my hope, that is my prayer, and that is what I will be 
fighting for.

                          ____________________