[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1997]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1100
                      PRESIDENTIAL CREDIBILITY GAP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Terry). Pursuant to the order of the 
House of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) 
is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, we all know that tonight the President will 
deliver his State of the Union Address, and that is often and is 
supposed to be an opportunity to reflect upon the state of the Nation, 
the economy, foreign policy, the potential war, and health care, which 
are just some of the issues that we expect the President to address 
this evening.
  My concern, and I have shared this concern with many of my Democratic 
colleagues, is that the President constantly comes forward and talks 
about what he is going to do to address the Nation's problems, to deal 
with the economy, for example, to deal with health care, for example, 
but many times those promises are not kept in terms of what action he 
actually follows up with to meet the commitments that he makes.
  I call it a credibility gap. Some of my colleagues on the Democratic 
side have taken notice of this credibility gap over the last 2 days; 
and I wanted to particularly mention that today because when I opened 
the New York Times this morning, I saw a column by Paul Krugman where 
he actually references a credibility problem with the President, and he 
talks about it in the context of not only tonight's State of the Union 
Address, but also in comparison to last year's State of the Union 
Address to basically draw out the conflict between what the President 
says he is going to do versus what he actually does.
  I would like to quote some sections of Paul Krugman's column and talk 
about it because I think this is very important in the context of 
tonight's State of the Union Address.
  The column says whether Mr. Bush is held accountable for the promises 
he made in his last State of the Union Address is a major issue. 
Krugman says that the President ``assured those who worried about red 
ink last year that `our budget will run a deficit that will be small 
and short-lived.' He offered comfort for those who remembered his 
father's `jobless recovery,' which felt like a continuing recession: 
`When America works, America prospers, so my economic security plan can 
be summed up in one word: Jobs.'
  ``Fast-forward a year. We now know that the `small' budget deficit 
will rise above $300 billion, and stay there. Even the administration's 
own, ever-optimistic budget officials now concede that we face deficits 
as far as the eye can see. Meanwhile, payrolls continue to decline; 
since the working-age population keeps rising, it's becoming ever 
harder for ordinary Americans to get jobs, or keep them.
  ``And there's a good chance things will get a lot worse; with markets 
sliding, consumers wilting, businesses fearful about the effects of war 
and oil prices rising, the pieces are in place for a full-blown double-
dip recession. And the second dip would take us much further down than 
the first.''
  I think this is of a major concern to me. The President identifies 
that we have an economic problem, that we have an economic downturn, 
and he says that he is going to do something about it, but what is he 
actually proposing? The heart of his economic proposal or package is 
eliminating the tax on corporate dividends, eliminating the tax on 
essentially the stock market dividends.
  Americans know that is not going to accomplish anything. It is not 
going to do anything to stimulate the economy. It is not going to put 
money in people's pockets or create jobs. So again, there is a 
credibility gap. There is recognition on the part of the President that 
there is a problem with the economy, but the actions that he seeks to 
take, unfortunately, will not correct the problem.
  The President talks about homeland security. He talks about the war 
on terrorism, both internationally and here at home, but as my 
colleague from California earlier this morning pointed out, money is 
not going back to the States and the localities for homeland security. 
Money is not going back for civil defense or to help the localities or 
the people that were affected in New Jersey, in my case, directly by 
the World Trade Center. Many of our towns are complaining that they are 
not getting the promised funding to deal with the homeland security 
problem.
  The President last year talked about how the deficit was going to be 
small, but we know that his economic plan will cause huge deficits. We 
are told if we implement his economic stimulus package and we make the 
tax cuts permanent that he proposed last year, and we have to fight a 
war in Iraq, we may end up with a deficit that is over $2 trillion.
  Think about what the President says about veterans. He promises to be 
a champion for our veterans, but he cuts funding for VA health clinics, 
forcing 164,000 veterans to be turned away.
  He promises that he is going to expand Medicare to include a drug 
benefit, but instead of actually doing something now to make a 
difference for seniors, he blocks generic drug legislation that will 
lower costs for seniors and for those who want to have access to lower-
priced drugs right now.
  Mr. Speaker, on every one of these issues, look at what the President 
says tonight. In many cases it is misleading and false promises. It is 
a credibility gap that we are facing in terms of what he says he is 
going to do as opposed to what he actually does in these very troubled 
times.

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