[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 18]
[House]
[Pages 24916-24918]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             DIFFERENCES BETWEEN REPUBLICANS AND DEMOCRATS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce) is 
recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. PEARCE. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to address the 
body. We are at a time right now where literally the stakes of America 
lie in

[[Page 24917]]

the balance. Our future is going to be determined by our actions today.
  Many people often ask me exactly what is the difference between the 
two approaches, and I will tell you that there are significant 
differences between the Republican and Democrat approach in Congress. 
Dennis Prager, a talk show host and author from California, has really 
summarized those very well; and I will quote from him, but these words 
express the beliefs of many.
  The differences between this side of the aisle and that side of the 
aisle are important and substantial.
  One party believes in American exceptionalism on a national stage, 
that the United States has better values than any other country. The 
other believes in the United Nations, the acceptance of all countries' 
values.
  One party believes in universal morality, that is the ultimate good 
and evil that exists in society and the necessity to choose between 
them, and that that decision between good and evil should determine the 
international authority. The other believes the UN-iversal law; that 
whatever the U.N. decides should be determining our international law.
  I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, that that is playing out right now in 
the United Nations, as we see the head of the United Nations, Kofi 
Annan, mired in corruption with his own son and with close allies of 
his in the bureaucracy indicted and involved, and yet we are not 
hearing one word about that corruption and that involvement from any of 
our friends on the other side of the aisle in this body.
  One party believes that race is irrelevant. One party believes that 
race is the defining of the human being. I will tell you that race has 
no characteristic. Character has characteristics. And when we begin to 
understand that we judge people by their character and not by their 
race, we are going to be a better country for that.
  One party believes in powerful government. One party believes in 
individual liberty.
  One party believes in individual responsibility. One believes society 
is responsible for individual actions.
  We often hear the words that poverty causes crime. If poverty causes 
crime, then affluence causes kindness. If you want to see that in play, 
you would look at the most heinous of the drug lords in central and 
South America, people who are rolling in billions of dollars and yet 
have an evil intent toward everyone around them and toward everyone in 
society.
  I will tell you that poverty does not cause crime; character causes 
crime. If you do not have a certain level of income, you are determined 
to be morally retarded by our friends on the other side of the aisle. 
And I will tell you that that is one of the biggest insults we can give 
to people of low income.
  One party believes that while compassion is important, standards are 
more important. One believes compassion is more important than 
standards. The only people held morally responsible today are white 
Christian males. In macro-life, society, standards must be more 
important than compassion. In your personal life, we allow compassion 
to rule. But when we begin to deal with compassion from the government, 
someone is always disadvantaged.

                              {time}  1415

  One party believes the Boy Scouts are the greatest blessing in 
America. One believes they are a curse and working daily to undermine 
the capability of the Boy Scouts to deliver their message and their 
program.
  One party standard bearer believes that the greatest threat to 
humanity is environmental degradation. One believes that the greatest 
threat is human evil.
  One party believes in secular government. One party believe in 
secular society. There is a huge difference between a secular 
government and a secular society. Government without religion or 
society without religion, if we are without religion as a society, 
where do we get the moral values that will compel us to follow laws and 
to act within the bounds of human behavior?
  One party believes that Judeo-Christian values and God are what makes 
society tick. One believes that all values in society are equal, and 
that is played out in the moral relativism that we see declaring that 
even in the United Nations we cannot get a definition of what a 
terrorist state is because all societies are deemed to be equal. They 
will not condemn any other society in the U.N., and I will tell the 
Members that that value plays out inside this country, also.
  One party believes in the value of Europe. One party believes in the 
values of Texas. One party regards the Lone Ranger as a moral model. 
One regards the Lone Ranger as an arrogant unilateralist.
  Mr. Speaker, we are faced in these times with extraordinary 
difficulties. I would remind this body that just as late as 1999 we 
began to experience tremendous economic difficulties in this country. 
They were brought on by the collapse of the dot com industry. That was 
an industry that had built up the prices of its stock so that stocks 
that had no product, they had no sales, they had no net income, those 
prices had escalated from zero and $1 all the way to $200 and $300 per 
share. That was a fictional amount, but our economy experienced a surge 
in the late 1990s.
  Then in 1999 and 2000, while President Clinton was still in office, 
we had the dot burst of the dot com bubble. That created a recession 
inside our economy that began to persist. We were just about to work 
our way out from underneath that economic burden when 9/11 came along. 
That shocked us again into deep recession.
  Once again, the Bush administration, having inherited the dot com 
collapse, which collapsed before they came to office, and then faced 
with the economic pressures of the 9/11 catastrophe, fought its way 
back. And still we were about to come out from underneath those two 
deep shocks to our economy when we had companies like Global Crossing, 
which defrauded the Nation out of millions and the chairman of the 
Democratic Party, on a small investment, made $18 million.
  That corporate culture of misleading and pulling money out of stocks 
and giving it to individuals, that Enron-Global-Crossing-WorldCom then 
created an even deeper shock into the economy because people began to 
pull their money out of the stock market and began to put their money 
into very safe investments but pulling it away from companies where 
they could grow and expand.
  So those three deep shocks were facing this administration almost 
from the day that they took office, and still we did things as 
Republicans which caused the economy to turn around. We passed the 
individual tax cuts. The Governor of New Mexico, a widely respected 
Hispanic Democrat Governor of New Mexico, stated most clearly when he 
was lobbying for tax cuts inside the State, he said, and his words are 
very true, that tax cuts create jobs.
  Now that is the question as we go in toward the end of this year, 
whether or not we are going to let ourselves understand the economic 
principles and try to achieve growth to where our kids continue to have 
jobs to go to or if we are going to listen to the other side and say 
that these tax cuts are just tax cuts for the wealthy. That is the 
discussion going on now. Do we want a vibrant, growing economy, or do 
we want to listen to our friends over here harangue about policies of 
which they appear to not have much understanding of? Who is going to 
win this economic struggle for the future of the country? That is the 
question that is involved right now.
  I will tell the Members that if we are not dedicated to the principle 
of building this economic strength back into the economy, we are going 
to find after January 1, all the tax cuts were temporarily extending 
until January 1, and they roll out and become noneffective on January 
1. If we do not do something about that, I will tell the Members that 
we are going to find the deep shocks into our economy that are going to 
penalize all of us.
  We are finding, also, that the policies of our friends from decades 
of obstructing industries in this country that we are harvesting the 
benefits of those

[[Page 24918]]

policies of obstructing. For instance, drilling. Are have constantly 
hearing from our friends that you will not drill here, you will not 
drill there, you will not drill anywhere. So today we have $70 and we 
have got $14 gas.
  Now what does that mean? The $14 gas is compared with normally $2. 
One does not have to really understand gas much. Just think about the 
relationship between 2 and 14, and one will begin to understand the 
economics that face us. This winter, because of past policies, we are 
going to reap the benefits of those obstructions to drilling that our 
friends on the other side of the aisle have thrown up.
  We have made decisions not to drill in ANWR, we have made decisions 
not to drill on the Outer Continental Shelf, and we have made decisions 
to not drill in the Rocky Mountain regions of the country where 
tremendous trillions of cubic feet of gas are available. And the losers 
are going to be the American public and the consumer.
  But, long term, we are going to continue losing because our jobs are 
moving overseas. When we are paying $14 for natural gas in this country 
and because gas is not easily transported, the pricing tends to be 
national in scale rather than international. We are paying $14 in this 
country, and yet many of our friends around the world are paying under 
$4. Some places pay as little as $1.
  One can imagine that if one is a plastics manufacturer here in this 
country or a chemical manufacturer or a fertilizer manufacturer that 
they are paying $14 and they could locate a plant where they are paying 
$1. Common sense and business sense will tell us that there is great 
incentive for people to go where the $1 gas is, but, when they do that, 
they are going to take the jobs and the manufacturing facilities and 
they will never come back to this country because we will never be able 
to get our price down to where the foreign nations have it. They have 
such a low relative wage that we are never going to compete dollar for 
dollar. So once we allow those plants to move overseas, then we will 
have lost that segment of our economy.
  I will tell the Members that that is where the real threat for 
America lies, in the loss of that economic structure, that economic 
base for this country.
  The future of our children is at stake. Those of us who are baby 
boomers like myself, I think during the next 10 years we can see that 
slow deterioration of our economic base. But it is when it is 
dissipated that our children and grandchildren are going to reap the 
very sad rewards of policies that our friends on the other side of the 
aisle, with good intentions and good hearts, have foisted on the 
American public.
  Today, the debate in this country is about the future of this 
country. President Bush and his administration have steadfastly moved 
us into pro-competitive, pro-business environments, and our friends 
here in Congress have constantly criticized that, have constantly 
thrown up roadblocks to that and have constantly had no suggestions of 
their own.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to just close today by saying that this is 
a very important time in our Nation's history. We are fighting 
basically three deep struggles right now. We are fighting an economic 
struggle that is worldwide. The worldwide economy has taken traction. 
Jobs can be here or jobs can be in other countries with equal facility. 
Investment capital can move up and move to wherever those capitals 
would want to go. There are absolutely no restrictions. The Internet 
makes it possible to move one's money literally overnight. So we have 
an economic struggle where we are competing with low-price, high-
quality competition in our labor market.
  So the economic challenge is one, but we are also facing a challenge 
of military circumstances. The war on terror is absolute. It will be 
fought. It is just a question of whether it will be fought in this 
country or in the homeland of the terrorists. For myself, I always vote 
to take the battle to the terrorists there.
  We did not invite 9/11 into this country. It came without provocation 
and with no warning. We are either going to continue seeing that 
escalation of terrorist attacks inside this country or we are going to 
find that we will encounter the terrorists and defeat them on their own 
ground. And I will tell the Members that as long as people are willing 
to cut off the heads of individuals who are private, nonmilitary 
citizens, without provocation, that there is no negotiating with that 
kind of a person. It is a fight to the death, and the more terrorists 
that we kill and capture and put into prison, the more safe that our 
streets will be for the kids who are walking on the streets just 
intending to go to school on certain days.
  So we have got the economic struggle going on. We have then the war 
on terror. But we also have a tremendous social struggle going on where 
we are trying to determine the values of this country.
  Again, my introduction differentiated between the two parties and the 
approaches to the values. I am not saying that everyone in America 
agrees with our friends on the other side of the aisle, even if they 
are in the Democrat Party, but I will say that the leadership here in 
this Nation is willing to talk fiction and talk nonanswers and throw 
obstructions into the way of good, hard-nosed policies which guarantee 
our future, and for that they will be eternally accountable.
  They talk about corruption, and yet they fail to mention that the 
only person in prison today is actually one of their members who came 
in in my class last year. Only one person. And yet they are sending 
phone messages and they are sending radio commercials, bank phone calls 
into many Republican districts saying you should give back that money. 
Theirs is the side with answers to give, and yet I never hear those 
questions about their own people. Their agenda is a political one. It 
is designed to gain back political power at the expense of the Nation. 
It is a day that they should not be proud of.

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