[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 1]
[House]
[Page 1328]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1920
                           REAGAN CENTENNIAL

  (Mr. ROYCE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in commemorating President 
Ronald Reagan's centennial.
  President Reagan served as an inspiration for an entire generation of 
us to get involved in politics. I first had the honor of meeting Ronald 
Reagan as a young student in California, and in fact, this meeting led 
to my getting active in Youth for Reagan. He had a powerful message of 
economic freedom and limited government. Yet it was his ability to 
translate powerful messages like this into real reforms that set him 
apart from past leaders.
  At the heart of all of Reagan's policies, from supply-side economics 
to promoting democracy overseas, was the importance of the individual, 
not the collective. It was the importance of freedom, not statism. This 
great legacy is what we celebrate today.
  I remember, following the Carter administration, our economy was in a 
state of economic malaise--high unemployment and high inflation. In 
fact, that legacy led to the creation of the concept of the misery 
index--inflation plus unemployment--and that reached an all-time high. 
But through the enactment of a pro-growth agenda, Reagan was able to 
cut that number in half in that era of stagflation and lead us into 
prosperity.

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