[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 172 (Wednesday, November 7, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14027-S14028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              NICOLAS SARKOZY'S VISIT TO THE UNITED STATES

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, nearly two centuries ago, the Congress 
welcomed back to America a great Frenchman whose bravery during the 
Revolutionary War still illuminates the pages of our Nation's early 
history.
  The Marquis de Lafayette wanted to come back to thank his 
Revolutionary companions and to see the effects of the freedom he and 
other veterans of 1776 had risked their lives to secure.
  His 1824 speech at the Capitol was the first ever by a foreign 
dignitary before a joint session of Congress, and he was introduced by 
a Kentuckian. Henry Clay happened to be the Speaker of the House at the 
time, and he said he could not have had a more gratifying duty than to 
congratulate the Marquis on his return and, as he put it: To assure him 
of the satisfaction which his presence afforded this early theatre of 
his glory and renown.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Henry Clay's remarks on 
that important occasion be reintroduced and printed in the Record, 183 
years after they were first recorded there.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

       Mr. SPEAKER then rose, and, in behalf of the House, 
     addressed the Nation's Guest, in the following eloquent 
     strain, adorned by those graces of oratory for which he is 
     distinguished:
       ``General: The House of Representatives of the United 
     States, impelled alike by its own feelings, and by those of 
     the whole American People, could not have assigned to me a 
     more gratifying duty than that of being its organ to present 
     to you cordial congratulations upon the occasion of your 
     recent arrival in the United States, in compliance with the 
     wishes of Congress, and to assure you of the very high 
     satification which your presence affords on this early 
     theatre of your glory and renown. Although but few of the 
     members who compose this body, shared with you in the war of 
     our Revolution, all have a knowledge, from impartial history, 
     or from faithful tradition, of the perils, the sufferings, 
     and the sacrifices, which you voluntarily encountered, and 
     the signal services in America and in Europe, which you 
     performed, for an infant, a distant, and an alien people; and 
     all feel and own the very great extent of the obligations 
     under which you have placed our country. But the relations in 
     which you have ever stood to the United States, interesting 
     and important as they have been, do not consititue the only 
     motive of the respect and admiration which this House 
     entertains for you. Your consistency of character, your 
     uniform devotion to regulated liberty, in all the 
     vicissitudes of a long and arduous life, also command its 
     highest admiration. During all the recent convulsions of 
     Europe, amidst, as after, the dispersion of every political 
     storm, the people of the United States have ever beheld you 
     true to your old principles, firm and erect, cheering and 
     animating with your well-known voice, the votaries of 
     Liberty, its faithful and fearless champion, ready to shed 
     the last drop of that blood which, here, you so freely and 
     nobly split in the same holy cause.
       ``The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that 
     Providence would allow the Patriot, after death, to return to 
     his country, and to contemplate the intermediate changes 
     which had taken place--to view the forests felled, the cities 
     built, the mountains levelled, the canals cut, the highways 
     constructed, the progress of the arts, the advancement of 
     learning, and the increase of population. General, your 
     present visit to the United States is the realization of the 
     consoling object of that wish. You are in the midst of 
     posterity! Every where you must have been struck with the 
     great changes, physical and moral, which have occurred since 
     you lift us. Even this very city, bearing a venerated name, 
     alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from the 
     forest which then covered its site. In one respect, you 
     behold us unaltered, and that is in the sentiment of 
     continued devotion to liberty, and of ardent affection and 
     profound gratitude to your departed friend, the Father of his 
     Country, and to your illustrious associates in the field and 
     in the Cabinet, for the multiplied blessings which surround 
     us, and for the very privilege of addressing you, which I now 
     exercise. This sentiment, now fondly cherished by-more than 
     ten millions of people, will be transmitted, with unabated 
     vigor, down the tide of time, through the countless millions 
     who are destined to inhabit this continent, to their latest 
     posterity.''

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, historians tell us Members of the 
Senate

[[Page S14028]]

almost missed the Marquis de Lafayette's speech. Clay and the other 
House Members did not tell them it was happening until the very last 
minute, and relations between the two Chambers have not been the same 
since.
  But America's friendship with France has endured. As French President 
Charles de Gaulle put it in his own 1960 address before a joint session 
of Congress:

       Our common past is filled with efforts and sacrifices. 
     [And] it is great because at all times we have served 
     together for freedom.

  Similar to Henry Clay, I consider it an honor today to welcome 
another great Frenchman to the American Capitol. When French President 
Nicolas Sarkozy addressed the Congress this morning, he stood beside a 
painting of the Marquis de Lafayette. Similar to that great Frenchman, 
President Sarkozy sees much to admire in America. He spoke eloquently 
about that admiration today. I think there is an important lesson in 
his words and in his election for the 110th Congress.
  President Sarkozy admires America's openness to new ideas and to new 
people. He admires our work ethic, and he has already begun to 
implement policies that will make hard work pay in France. In an effort 
to lure back the so-called fiscal exiles who have left Paris for London 
or Geneva, he has cut the top tax rate from 60 percent to 50 percent.
  He plans to replace two-thirds of retiring Government workers to 
shrink the size of Government, and to end the right of some Government 
workers to retire at age 50 with a pension. He is starting to take away 
the tools French labor unions routinely use to cripple France. To 
encourage work, he has significantly cut taxes on overtime work.
  A lot of people on this side of the Atlantic, and I am one of them, 
were skeptical about whether President Sarkozy could actually get some 
of these sensible ideas past his Parliament. We hoped he would. We want 
France to be strong. He told us today he is deeply committed to 
carrying his mission through. But the cultural forces opposed to change 
seemed even stronger.
  Yet it turned out his election signaled a deep sense of urgency among 
the French people, an urgency about their future. Sarkozy put it this 
way in his book, ``Testimony'':

       I am convinced that no country in the world can get by 
     without effort, and that France, notwithstanding its 
     undeniable merits and prestigious past, will become a thing 
     of the past if it doesn't take the steps necessary to adapt 
     to the changes taking place in the world.

  The French people surprised us by electing a free-market reformer. 
Then they surprised us again by electing a center-right Parliament that 
could get his ideas through. Some of those ideas, such as cutting the 
top tax rate, have gone through. The winds of change are clearly 
blowing through France.
  And not just France. Over the past few years, the ``Old Europe'' 
model of big government and bloated entitlements has shown signs of 
cracking. Germany elected a reformist chancellor from the Christian 
Democratic Party. Canadian conservatives rebounded under Stephen Harper 
after near extinction.
  Even the Socialists are admitting their mistakes. The Socialist 
former Prime Minister of France, Lionel Jospin, shocked his countrymen 
when he blasphemously declared that: The State cannot do everything.
  In Italy, center-left Italian Premier Romano Prodi announced in July 
he would raise Italy's retirement age from 57 to 61. Much of Europe, it 
seems, is trying to steer itself away from an economic model that has 
left it with double-digit unemployment and anemic growth. After 
scoffing at the Reagan Revolution two decades ago, many of them are now 
taking our 40th President's economic principles to heart.
  Meanwhile, in the United States, the new Democratic Congress has 
turned away from the ideas that righted our own economic ship after the 
crisis of the 1970s. They are proposing higher taxes on everything from 
the size of our houses to the gas we put in our cars. They are handing 
out favors to big labor by proposing to end the secret ballot union 
elections and by working to defund the Federal office that was created 
to shine a light on how unions spend members' dues.
  The Democratic Presidential candidates are practically tripping over 
each other to propose newer, bigger entitlements to anybody in Iowa or 
New Hampshire who will listen. In short, some Democrats in Congress and 
out on the campaign trial would like to turn America into France, when 
even the French themselves are obviously having second thoughts.
  The effects of the Socialist model in France and other Western 
European countries are perfectly clear. President Sarkozy recently 
assumed control of a government that consumes more than 50 percent of 
France's gross national product. In Germany and in Italy, the 
percentage of GDP spent by the Government is above 45 percent. Compare 
that to about 30 percent in the United States. As one economist 
recently put it:

       Europe's economy is so bad because government is so big.

  So we congratulate President Sarkozy on his recent victory and his 
courage in attempting to restore France's economic vitality. America 
welcomes him. We are hopeful he will help lead the people of France 
into a new era of prosperity and economic freedom and strengthen the 
noble tradition of our two countries serving together for freedom.
  I urge my Democratic colleagues to heed his message.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. HARKIN. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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