[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 42 (Thursday, March 13, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E374]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         EVERY WORLD PROBLEM DOES NOT HAVE AN AMERICAN SOLUTION

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                        HON. JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR.

                              of tennessee

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, March 13, 2014

  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, President Kennedy, in a 1961 
speech at the University of Washington, said:

       . . . We must face the fact that the United States is 
     neither omnipotent or omniscient--that we are only six 
     percent of the world's population--that we cannot impose our 
     own will upon the other 94 percent of mankind--that we cannot 
     right every wrong or reverse each adversity--and that 
     therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world 
     problem.

  Today we are less than four percent of the world's population and we 
are over 17.5 trillion dollars in debt.
  Many people are trying to prove that they are great world statesmen 
and are supporting policies that will commit us to spend billions we do 
not have on Ukraine.
  I wish everyone would read a recent book called Ike's Bluff by Evan 
Thomas. This book is about the foreign policy of President Eisenhower 
and explains that he stayed out of many situations that were worse than 
what is going on in Ukraine, because he did not have to prove that he 
was a great military leader or world statesman.
  We should have trade and tourism, and cultural and educational 
exchanges with other countries, and help to a limited extent during 
humanitarian crisis.
  But we cannot be the policemen of the world. The Ukrainians are going 
to have to solve their own problems, and we need to start taking better 
care of our own Country and our own people.

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