9454 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS May 22, 1997 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS SPEAKER GINGRICH'S REMARKS Yet I want to suggest to you the greatest And in the 19th century when you had a OUTLINING THE REPUBLICAN example of the balanced budget is not eco­ much lower tax system, much higher take AGENDA nomic. It is the fact that four years ago, home pay as a percent of income, you had leaders set out to work with the American one volunteer for every two poor people. The people on something that the American peo­ volunteers knew who was the alcoholic, who HON. JOHN UNDER ple believe in. And if the American people was the drug addict, who beat their children, OF GEORGIA have leaders who are disciplined and per­ who was worthless and needed to be re­ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES sistent and are willing to take a beating trained. And you had a much higher level of from opponents, work together the constitu­ human to human contact and that is the Thursday, May 22, 1997 tional system works. spirit that I believe you have to reestablish. Mr. LINDER. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my Yes, it takes time, but that's the way the Let me suggest to you that this is the core colleagues the following comments of the founding fathers designed it. The founding challenge and intellectually mentally about Speaker of the House NEWT GINGRICH deliv­ fathers were afraid of a dictatorship. They where we are going. wanted to design a machine so inefficient ered to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation Can we stop drugs? Yes. Can we stop drugs that no dictator could force it to work. The with a liberal bureaucracy and a social pol­ this week. corollary is that sometimes it is very hard icy and an intellectual theory that is wrong. ExCERPTS FROM HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GING­ for us as volunteers to get it to work volun­ No. RICH'S REMARKS OUTLINING THE REPUBLICAN tarily. That's fine. The fact is, it worked. Can we have every child learn? Yes. Can we AGENDA I believe we have three great challenges for have every child learn in a failed bureauc­ What we have done is pretty remarkable. the future. I want to analyze what we have racy dominated by tenure and unionized Four years ago a very small group of leaders, to do over the next four years. Imagine a work rules with an education theory that 38 years in a minority at a time when the January, 2001. The first morning of the 21st doesn't work? No. century, the first morning of the new millen­ news media told us that we were going to Can we save teenage girls from getting nium, it just happens to be a Monday morn­ have the largest tax increase in peacetime pregnant? Yes. Can we save them in a liberal ing. bureaucracy with the wrong signal policy history, and we were going to nationalize Imagine that on that morning you wake up health care so the government controlled ev­ and the wrong theory about how society in an America that was for all practical pur­ works? No. erything, and we were going to have left poses drug-free, an America in which every wing social policies-one of which led to a So this is essentially an intellectual argu­ child was learning at their best rate, an ment, what is the nature of reality. I think dramatic increase in drug use in this country America in which children were born into because it lacks in teaching our children. Be­ there are signs frankly that people are begin­ families capable of taking care of them be­ ning to get it. Joseph Califano was one of the cause the American people then stook up in cause we had ended the long process of teen­ 1994 and said " No," we clearly don't want to designers of the Great Society under Lyndon age pregnancy outside of marriage. Now how Johnson. In a recent magazine article he re­ go in that direction. They repudiated it, and much healthier would that America be? things began to change. Now let me repeat those three clear, defin­ ports that on a tour of drug treatment cen­ We had the largest voter increase in off­ able achievements. An America that is for ters every single ex-drug addict that he year election history. We had nine million all practical purposes drug-free, an America talked with said that religious belief was the more people voting Republican and one mil­ in which every child is learning at their opti­ key to their recovery. He said "I don't see lion fewer voting Democrat and for the first mum rate, and an America where girls don't anything wrong with public funding for a time in 40 years there was a majority on the get pregnant outside of marriage as teen­ drug treatment program that provides for conservative side of the House. Then, we agers and there is an expectation of children spiritual needs," says Califano. worked for two years at keeping our word. being born into families capable of raising This is a man who would have been a Great And we accomplished a great deal. In fact, them. Society liberal, but he's at least willing to we did pass a bill to apply to Congress every How much healthier and how much better recognize that the reason Alcoholics Anony­ law that applies to the rest of America; we would that be? mous works is that it starts with the notion did pass a bill to reform the telecommuni­ I know that the first time you hear that that you have to recognize that you have a cations system which will create about three said, it sounds like one more politician offer­ problem inside you and that it takes a high­ million new jobs; we did pass a bill which ing some big goal that sounds good and noth­ er being to help solve that problem. I've had ended the agricultural entitlement in the ing will happen. But I carne here today to a number of recovering alcoholics report to Midwest; and we did pass a welfare reform say something very different. me that they have been approached by fed­ legislation tha ended 61 years of federal enti­ We have proven over the last four years eral officials who say " Could we do an 11 step tlement for welfare and dramatically im­ that if you take something seriously and you program, and skip that part about God." I proved the opportunity for poor people to stay focused on it and you work at it every don't think they get what makes this work. move from welfare to work and from poverty day, you can achieve it. It's not just a cam­ And again there's a simple test, if we rein­ to prosperity. paign slogan, it's not just an idea, it is a fact force drug rehabilitation that works and cut Then last week we put the capstone on that this summer we are going to pass the off drug rehabilitation that fails what we are what we promised four years ago. We reached implementing legislation for a balanced going to find ourselves doing is helping insti­ an agreement on a balanced budget by 2002 budget. It is a fact that you will have tax tutions that are faith based and eliminating with lower spending and lower taxes. cuts in your next tax report. It will be the secular institutions that are simply bureauc­ Let me tell you what's in this agreement first tax cut in 16 years by the federal gov­ racies that don't save anybody. We will save so you understand why I can say with au­ ernment. more people per million dollars the faster we thority we won. First of all, spending over And so I'm talking today about dedicating move the resources to a faith based center the next 10 years compared to current law the country in exactly the tradition that de but this is going to be an intellectual argu­ will be one trillion, 100 billion dollars lower Touqueville talked about in Democracy in ment. It is going to be a big power struggle. than it otherwise would have been. Taxes America in 1840. A lot of folks who are not doing any good but will be a net of $250 billion lower over the He said it wasn't the Constitution, it are doing very well not doing any good are next ten years that they otherwise would wasn't the government, it wasn't the politi­ not going to like it. have been. cians. It was the spirit of individual Ameri­ Some of you have wondered why I would You have the president's agreement that cans working on an individual basis at a make one of the three major challenges of he will sign a capital gains tax cut, that he community level across the country that the next few years end pregnancy outside of will sign a cut in the death tax and that he made America so remarkably different from marriage for young teenagers. I have to say will sign a $500 per child tax credit and all Europe, a spirit that Marvin Olasky caught first of all that Kay Granger, the former those will be passed into law before he gets in his great work, The Tragedy of American Mayor of Ft. Worth, who is a freshman mem­ a penny of additional discretionary spending.