From the files
What files? The insane pack-rat files, of course. I have with me a hard copy of a collection of Republican quotes predicting doom and disaster in the wake of the 1993 Clinton economic stimulus plan, and much of the rhetoric is eerily similar to today’s. Of course, that should come as no surprise, since the point of the compilation was in fact to point out that the 1993 rhetoric — particularly on health care, which was still a live proposition at that time — was itself eerily similar to Republican doom and disaster rhetoric during the debate on the original Social Security and Medicare legislation.
I figure this is what I’ve been saving this crazy thing for, after all these years. So I’m just going to type them all up here for your enjoyment. And I sincerely hope that they retain their entertainment value forever, and in particular that we all get to laugh — not nervous tittering, but really have a carefree laugh — at this exercise very, very soon. Some of these quotes are better ammunition than others. I think the blunt predictions of utter disaster from the Republicans in 1993 are pretty damning for the most part…. [T]he quotes on Social Security, insisting that it would be the end of a free America. Except Reagan’s of course. He went there….
On the 1993 deficit reduction package:
Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL), Los Angeles Times, 5/28/93: They will rmember who let loose this deadly virus into our economic bloodstream.
Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), GOP Press Conference, House TV Gallery, 8/5/93: I believe this will lead to a recession next year. This is the Democrat machine’s recession, and each one of them will be held personally accountable.
Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), 8/5/93: Do you know what? This is your package. We will come back here next year and try to help you when this puts the economy in the gutter…
Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), CNN, 7/28/93: This plan will not work. If it was to work, then I’d have to become a Democrat…
Rep. Robert Dornan (R-CA), 8/5/93: The problem with our economy is that there is too little employment and too little growth. This plan will do nothing to improv that condition and will actually make it worse.
Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), 5/27/93: This is really the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy.
Rep. Thomas Ewing (R-IL), 8/5/93: …This bill is a disaster waiting to happen.
Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-MN), 3/17/93: …will stifle economic growth, destroy jobs, reduce revenues, and increase the deficit.
Rep. Phil Crane (R-IL), 3/18/93: …a recipe for economic and fiscal disaster.
Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), CNN, 7/28/93: …We have a stagnant economy and there is nothing down the road that makes it look like we’re going to have the kind of economic growth that puts people to work.
Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), CNN, 8/2/93: The impact on job creation is going to be devastating, and the American young people in particular will suffer a fairly substantial deferment of their lives because there simply won’t be jobs for the next two to three years to go around to our young graduates across the country.
Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), 5/27/93: …your economic program is a job killer.
Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), 8/5/93: The economy will sputter along. Dreams will be put off and all this for the hollow promise of deficit reduction and magical theories of lower interest rates. Like so many of the President’s past promises, deficit reduction will be another cruel hoax.
Rep. Wally Herger (R-CA), 8/4/93: The simple fact is that the Clinton plan will not lower interest rates. It will not lower inflation. It will not create jobs. And it will no lower the deficit. The Clinton tax plan will spur inflation, lose jobs, increase the deficit, and hurt our economic growth.
Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH), 5/27/93: The votes we will take today will not be soon forgotten by the American voter. [They] will lead to more taxes, higher inflation, and slower economic growth.
Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), GOP News Conference, Senate Gallery, 8/3/93: Come next year… we’re going to find out whether we have higher deficits, we’re going to find out whether we have a slower economy, we’re going to find out what’s going to happen to interest rates, and it’s our bet that this is a job killer.
Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), CNN, 8/2/93: Clearly this is a job killer in the short run. The revenues forecast for this budget will not materialize; the costs of this budget will be greater than what is forecast. The deficit will be worse, and it is not a good omen for the American economy.
Rep. Jim Bunning (R-KY), 8/5/93: It will not cut the deficit. It will not create jobs. And it will not cut spending.
Rep. Dick Armey, CNN, 2/18/93: I will tell you, this program will not give you deficit reduction. It will be a disaster for the performance of the economy.
Rep. Clifford Stearns (R-FL), 3/17/93: …It will be the kind of impact that this country can’t absorb. It will slow economic growth, contribute to the massive federal deficit….
Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO), 8/4/93: …It will raise your taxes, increase the deficit, and kill over one million jobs.
On Medicare:
Ronald Reagan: “One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism has been by way of medicine.” He urged his listeners to write to Congress opposing Medicare and warned, “If you don’t do this, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in American when men were free.”
On Social Security:
Rep. John Taber (R-NY), 4/19/35: Never in the history of the world has any measure been brought here so insidiously designed as to prevent business recovery, to enslave workers and to prevent any possibility of the employers providing work for the people.
Rep. Daniel Reed (R-NY), 1935: The lash of the dictator will be felt and 25 million free American citizens will for the first time submit themselves to a fingerprint test.
Rep. James W. Wadsworth (R-NY), 1935: This bill opens the door and invites the entrance into the political field of a power so vast, so powerful as to threaten the integrity of our institutions and to pull the pillars of the temple down upon the heads of our descendants.
