[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 77 (Wednesday, May 26, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H3681]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         WHY I AM A REPUBLICAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, many times when my colleague, the 
gentlewoman from Wyoming (Mrs. Cubin), and I are back in our districts, 
we have constituents who ask us, ``Why are you a Republican?'' Tonight 
the gentlewoman from Wyoming and I are going to address that question.
  For me as a hispanic woman who is a refugee from Communist Cuba, I 
know that our Republican party is the party which is most likely to 
stand up for individual liberty both abroad and here at home. But the 
fact is that our party's message of smaller government, of less 
bureaucratic regulation and lower taxes has got to get through to the 
individuals that it will help the most, small business owners, women 
and minorities.
  This vision, which is shared by the vast majority of Republicans, is 
simply one of practical, commonsense, limited government which has made 
our country the beacon of liberty to the world. It is based on simple 
principles, simple principles that say that government cannot solve all 
of our problems, that individuals need to be held accountable for their 
actions and for their choices in life, that Washington does not always 
know best, principles that say that the free market is the greatest 
engine of prosperity in the history of the world, that no Nation in 
history can be successful without strong families and strong values, a 
principle which says that peace is best preserved by a strong national 
defense, that America must stand up against Communist tyranny and 
refuse to accommodate evil regimes which extinguish the freedom and the 
hope of their people.
  Mr. Speaker, a great number of my constituents know about having 
their freedom extinguished, about having their hopes destroyed and 
their lives held in bondage based on their personal experiences with 
totalitarian regimes from Castro's Cuba, to Cedras' Haiti, to Hitler's 
Europe. The thousands of people, for example, who have fled Fidel 
Castro's Communist regime are in little doubt about the nature of his 
lies. Where I come from there is not much confusion about the false 
promise of socialism, the reality of a one-party State or the empty 
slogans mouthed by leaders who use words to hide their true agenda. We 
are under few allusions, and we have little tolerance for those who are 
apologists for corrupt and dictatorial Communist regimes.
  So for me the choice to become a Republican was easy. The Republican 
party prides itself in its realistic world view, a world view that is 
not given to pie in the sky schemes to manipulate human nature, to make 
everyone fit a cookie cutter mold or to blame others for our failures. 
No, our vision is simply one given to us in the Constitution and in our 
Bill of Rights.
  Taking the Constitution as our framework and trusting experience over 
the social experiments dreamed up by Washington bureaucrats, I stand 
today for the same principles that I have been standing for my entire 
adult life. I think that average Americans are overtaxed, that the 
middle class, hard-working Americans are not getting their tax dollar's 
worth. I think that small businesses are the backbone of America and 
that entrepreneurs should be encouraged, not penalized, and certainly 
not demonized for the so-called crime of creating jobs and for 
producing prosperity.
  The facts show that small business have always provided the best way 
for women, for minorities and for immigrants to achieve the American 
dream. I think that our public educational system is nearly broken, but 
I do not think that what ails schools today can be fixed in Washington, 
D.C. If it could, I think that we would have done it long ago and many 
billions of dollars and thousands of bureaucrats ago. I think that 
Social Security and Medicare are vital programs for millions of seniors 
who depend on them but that we will be shortchanging our current and 
future seniors if serious reforms are not enacted soon.
  I would also like to add that I supported our successful effort to 
balance the budget so that long-term solvency of these programs will be 
insured and that we will have a retirement system that will protect 
seniors into the next century.
  I think that Ronald Reagan was right, that military strength, not 
fine words or unwise arms control agreements with evil regimes, is the 
key to preserving the peace, and I think that we should not take our 
freedoms for granted, a freedom that is all too rare in the world, a 
freedom that does not exist in Cuba or China or in North Korea and so 
many other lands which are untouched by the democratic spirit.
  Mr. Speaker, that is what I stand for, and that is why I stand before 
my colleagues today as a proud Republican and a proud citizen of the 
greatest country on this earth, and that is why I know that the 
Republican party is going to grow and grow because it stands for the 
very principles that founded our great country.

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