[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 19]
[House]
[Pages 27671-27672]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE REPUBLICAN MAJORITY

  Mr. WELLER. Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to represent one of our 
Nation's most diverse congressional districts. I represent the South 
Side of Chicago, the south suburbs in Cook and Will Counties, a lot of 
bedroom communities and a lot of cornfields and farm towns, too. When 
you represent such a diverse district, city, suburbs, and country, you 
have to learn to listen.
  I find there is one very common message that I hear back home. I 
heard it back in 1994 when I was elected and they sent me here to 
change how Washington works. I continue to hear it. They want us to 
work together to meet the challenges that we face here in Washington, 
as well as at home.
  I am pretty proud that over the last 4\1/2\ years this Republican 
majority has worked to keep our commitments to change how Washington 
works. When we think about it, when we came to Washington the Congress, 
which was controlled by the Democrats at that time, passed the biggest 
tax increase in the history of our country. It was considering having a 
government takeover of our health care system. We had massive deficits 
of $200 to $300 billion a year.
  When we think about it, there have been fundamental changes that have 
occurred since then. In fact, in the last 4\1/2\ years, this Republican 
Congress has done some things we were told we could not do.
  We have balanced the budget for the first time in 28 years. That is 
now producing an estimated $3 trillion surplus of estimated money.
  We cut taxes for the middle class for the first time in 16 years. Now 
3 million children in my State of Illinois now qualify for that $500 
per child tax credit.
  We have reformed welfare for the first time in a generation. The 
welfare rolls in Illinois have dropped by one-half.
  We tamed the tax collector, reforming the IRS, shifting the burden of 
proof off the backs of the taxpayer and onto the IRS. That is pretty 
good.
  Of course, in this Republican majority we are now committed to moving 
forward with a better agenda, an agenda to help our local schools, keep 
the budget balanced, pay down our national debt, strengthen social 
security and Medicare, and of course, lower the tax burden for working 
families.
  That is our commitment, because we are responding to questions that I 
hear back at home at the union hall and the VFW, the local Chamber of 
Commerce. People often ask me, when are you folks going to make another 
change in Washington? Now that you have balanced the budget, when are 
you going to stop the raid on social security?
  Ever since LBJ needed to finance the Vietnam War effort and grow 
government with the Great Society, Washington has dipped into the 
social security trust fund to spend on other things. In our Republican 
balanced budget, we want to set aside 100 percent of social security 
for social security.
  I am disappointed to note that in the President's budget, he only 
wants to set aside 62 percent, meaning that he wants to spend 38 
percent of social security on other things. If we add that all up, over 
10 years, that raid on social security totals $340 billion.
  I am also asked back home, when are folks going to start talking 
about paying down the national debt? I am pretty proud that last year 
we paid down $50 billion of the national debt, above and beyond what 
was expected. This year we are going to pay down $100 billion of the 
national debt, above and beyond what is expected.
  Under the Republican balanced budget, we pay down over $2.2 trillion 
of the national debt, over two-thirds of the national debt, over the 
next 10 years. That is progress, paying down the national debt.
  I am also often asked, what about taxes? Taxes are too high. Forty 
percent of the average family's income goes to government today. 
Twenty-one percent of our economy is consumed by the Federal 
Government. That tax burden is too high, too unfair, too complicated.
  Unfortunately, the President vetoed our effort to eliminate the 
marriage tax penalty on married working couples, to eliminate the death 
tax on family farmers, family businesses, because he wanted to spend 
the money. Now he says he wants to raise taxes by $238 billion so he 
can spend more. That is really what we are getting down to in the last 
few days of this session of Congress. We are getting down to some real 
fundamental issues.
  If we look at the President's budget and the Democratic budget, as 
well as the Republican budget, there is a big difference. We had a key 
vote last week. We chose between government waste and social security. 
We made a commitment that we are willing to cut waste, fraud, and abuse 
in government by 1 percent, reducing the Federal budget 1 cent on the 
dollar in order to stop the raid on social security.
  That is a fundamental, key vote, because when we think about it, do 
we want to waste our dollars, or protect social security? We voted in 
the Republican majority to save social security.
  What I was very concerned about is recently the leader of the 
Democrats,

[[Page 27672]]

the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt) said, and I will quote, ``I 
understand that there is a feeling now that since we have a surplus and 
since we have to get ready for the baby boomers, that we really ought 
to try to spend as little bit as possible.'' What is interesting is he 
is saying he is willing to spend social security on other things.
  Our commitment is to stop the raid on social security. That is an 
important commitment, because when folks pay into their retirement 
security plan, called social security, they expect when it is their 
turn it is going to be there. Washington has been raiding the social 
security trust fund for far too long.
  I was very pleased to note that the Chief of Staff to the President 
understands what we want to do. The Republicans' key goal is not spend 
the social security surplus.
  Let us work together. We can work in a bipartisan way. Let us stop 
the raid on social security, let us balance the budget and stop the 
raid on social security.

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