[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 39 (Thursday, March 11, 1999)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E410-E411]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TRIBUTE TO BILL BENTON

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. BOB SCHAFFER

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 11, 1999

  Mr. SCHAFFER. Mr. Speaker, among the most thoughtful constituents in 
the Colorado district I represent in Congress is Mr. Bill Benton of 
Fort Collins.
  He recently composed a letter to me regarding the agenda of the House 
of Representatives. I'm grateful, Mr. Speaker, the Republican budget 
proposal moves the country dramatically in the direction proposed by 
Mr. Benton.
  Moreover, Mr. Benton's sentiments are representative of a great many 
Americans concerned about the country's future. As such, I hereby 
commend the remarks of Mr. Benton to the House and urge my colleagues 
to consider these observations as we proceed in accomplishing the 
nation's business in Congress.

                                     William (Bill) M. Benton,

                              Fort Collins, CO, February 24, 1999.
     Hon. Bob Schaffer,
     Fourth Congressional District of Colorado,
       Dear Bob: This problem of Republican leadership in both the 
     house and the senate has been weighing heavily on my mind 
     since we lost so much ground in the last national election.
       After a lot of thought, and praying about it too, reading 
     Cal Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Tony Snow and listening to Rush 
     Limbaugh (as well as other ``conservative'' talking heads), 
     studying what conservative leading magazines and newspapers 
     (damn few, but available) have to say on this subject, I 
     think I've boiled this very complicated knot down to--we've 
     lost our soul in the party and we are running scared because 
     of it.
       Despite almost sixty years of a mass media trying to 
     convince the general populace that we ought to be ``a kinder, 
     gentler'' nation as a whole and feeding them huge amounts of 
     liberal philosophy, we still, by and large, are a culture 
     deeply rooted in conservative principles. I.E, less 
     government, minimum governmental intrusion in our private 
     affairs, minimum government ``hand-outs'' (let the churches 
     handle the welfare needs), low taxing policies, States rights 
     rather than Federal control, etc. etc. In other words, the 
     backbone of what made The United States of America a unique 
     entity among all the governments of the world past and 
     present.
       In eight short years, Ronald Reagan's administration 
     started to get the Republican party, with its ``rock ribbed'' 
     conservative tack, back on the path that the majority of our 
     peoples felt ``worked'' and were comfortable with. My feeling 
     is the voters didn't give him a Republican majority to work 
     with is because the Republican leadership in both houses 
     simply failed to lead! Robert Dole and his cohorts were on 
     that appeasement road even then.
       But he had a Judas Goat within the folds of the 
     administration by the name of George ``read my lips'' Bush. 
     Most of us didn't recognize this at the time and probably a 
     lot of the leadership of our party will, even now, deny this 
     fact. But former president Bush's capitulation to appeasement 
     with the Democratic Majority was the beginning of the end of 
     the conservative movement in the country as it should be 
     practiced! (Gospel according to Benton?)
       The rhetoric that came out of the February 23rd meeting 
     between the senate leadership and President Clinton turned my 
     stomach! These guys are from the Neville Chamberlain school! 
     We know well that ``sleeping with the enemy'' only gets you 
     beat up and bloodied.
       After forty plus years of ever-increasing Democratic 
     liberalism, Republicans don't know how to win! The House is 
     better than the Senate and because of the House's ``Contract 
     With America,'' that the Senate promptly botched, it showed 
     Republicans can win if the conservative message is packaged 
     correctly. The loss we suffered in November can be laid 
     directly at the Republican Senator's doorstep. Unfortunately, 
     because we blew it, the Coach got fired (or plain tired) and 
     our fire left the field of fight. Put that House loss in the 
     Senate's column too.
       If we are to salvage the Republican majority in both 
     legislative bodies, we need a group of firebrands to step up 
     and be counted--and we need it now! Our history and our soul 
     is conservative principles. Being ``nice guys'' is stupid and 
     dangerous. I don't mean we shouldn't have compassion for any 
     who need a helping hand. But there are a multitude of ways to 
     help people than through government intervention and the 
     sooner the ``moderates'' realize this fact, the better off 
     all of our citizens will be.
       Both parties have been corrupted by foregoing their ideals. 
     The Democrats have been taken over by the liberal faction of 
     their party. My parents were rock ribbed anti-Roosevelt (both 
     Franklin and Eleanor). They were Democrats who recognized the 
     dangerous path that was starting to be followed by the New 
     Deal Democrats. Government run pension a.k.a. Social Security 
     that only made our oldsters dependent on the Federal octopus 
     and our young workers drawn into one of the biggest Ponzi 
     schemes of all time. And I remember my father saying that was 
     only the tip of the governmental interference iceberg. In the 
     twenties, my Dad was elected by the Trainmen's Union to be 
     one of the board members of the Railroad Retirement Fund. I 
     remember full well how he mustered the members of that board 
     to resist the take over of their pension plan by the Social 
     Security board. His faction won and that fund is one of the 
     strongest pension plans in the world today. It is 
     independently run on a solid actuarial basis and it hasn't 
     loaned one damn dime to the Federal Government to hide 
     deficit spending!
       Springboarding from that background, I switched from being 
     a Democrat to a Republican at about age twenty-five because I 
     was very uncomfortable with the direction of the Democratic 
     Party. Just about as uncomfortable as I am today, at age 
     sixty-seven, with the Republican Party's inclination to 
     forego conservatism in favor of ``getting along.''
       Now that I'm getting close to the end of my life, I guess I 
     shouldn't be so passionate about these things. However, I 
     have children and grandchildren who deserve better from the 
     Republican leadership than simply rolling over and playing 
     footsie with the Liberals.
       Now, Bob, I'm not about to go down shouting at the wind 
     without offering a plan of action. This is something I 
     proposed in 1965, on the editorial pages of the now-defunct 
     Colorado Springs Free Press newspaper, and I think it is 
     viable today as a conservative cause. Permanently ``fix'' the 
     Old Age Retirement System by taking it out of the hands of 
     the Feds per se. Much like the Railroad Retirement plan, I 
     fashioned and envision a system that sets up a government 
     sponsored board to make annual recommendations as to what 
     financial institutions would be approved for investments. 
     Coupled with this would be the requirement by each wage 
     earner that they choose one of these financial houses and 
     their payroll deductions go to one of the approved money 
     warehouses. In addition, they would be required to furnish a 
     certificate of deposit to be reported annually with their IRS 
     filing. This way they controlled, to a certain extent, their 
     own retirement fund but monitored by this governing board's 
     staff. There would have to be provisions for disablement 
     problems, but this could be tied down very stringently 
     through the proper legislation. This way such a fund would be 
     actuarially sound, private enterprise would be fostered, and 
     the sorry savings rate of our citizens would be greatly 
     improved. Plus, there would be all manners of funds available 
     to help businesses grow, mortgages funded, etc. If done 
     right, the Federal Government couldn't lay their grimy mitts 
     on a single dime--not even in the form of taxation!

[[Page E411]]

       I do not wish to brag, and I'm not even sure this can be 
     proven, but an acquaintance of long ago, who was a professor 
     at Colorado College in the sixties and still a citizen of a 
     South American country (I do not recall his name nor what 
     land he came from), told me about five or six years ago when 
     we re-met that he'd sent my editorial to one of the ministers 
     in his country and it was barely possible this ``model'' fed 
     into their social security system. He claimed it was a very 
     solid program and had helped make his country financially 
     strong.
       You have tons of reading material and I hope this three 
     page treatise isn't so long it will get just a cursory 
     glance. Maybe you can read it on the plane?
           Your friend and supporter,
                                                             Bill.

     

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