Date: 1996-04-15
Speaker: PETE GEREN (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: Texas

I thank my friend for yielding me the time. Mr. Speaker. I have listened to this debate tonight. One thing I have heard over and over is that this process has been hasty. that we have had few hearings rather than several. Mr. Speaker. I contend that this system has worked as it should. as the founders intended. Our States have been a laboratory to test this initiative. With all due respect to the committee process. a realworld test that has been underway for several years involving 70 million Americans in 10 States gives a better understanding of the impact of this initiative than all the hearings that could ever be held. What has the test shown? It has proven that this initiative works as advertised. more jobs. more economic growth. less government and lower taxes. Critics say that the supporters of this measure do not trust the American people because of the supermajority. Surveys of the American people show that an overwhelming majority of Americans support this initiative. over 75 percent do. and nearly 68 percent of Democrats support it. It is an initiative that is spreading from State to State with broad and bipartisan support. It has received overwhelming support at the ballot box. But if the critics are right. the ratification process will prove the undoing of this initiative. for this is just the first step. The Senate would be next. Then it would go to the people. requiring threequarters of the States to say yes before it became part of the Constitution. I say that those who vote no do not trust the American people with this matter. Those who vote yes trust the American people to make this decision. Mr. Speaker. critics contend that this initiative empowers the minority at the expense of the majority. My colleagues. the current system has empowered a minority at the expense. literally and figuratively. of the majority. The Federal Government. representing 20 percent of our GNP. has become the most powerful political force in America. The full force of the government is used in the political process to block efforts to cut or reduce the growth of government. That majority has become the tail that wags the dog in this great experiment in democracy. In the real world of politics today. it is easier to raise taxes than reform Medicare. even though we must do it. Politically it is easier to raise taxes than reform Social Security. Politically it is easier to raise taxes than reform the VA health care system. and on and on and on. Rather than do what we know we must do. we raise taxes because it is easier. Perhaps If the bar were raised. if it were a little harder to raise taxes. we might tackle Medicare. we might tackle the other issues that are considered political untouchable in this political climate. As far as the intent of the founders. the founders would never recognize what has become of our government. Telling cities and States how to run local government. telling school boards how to run their schools. and involving itself in the most minute details of American daily life. It is a government that controls so much of American life that it has become the biggest force in American politics. It has learned to manipulate the system so that it feeds itself and grows in good times and in bad times. It grows in the antigovernment Reagan years. just as it does in the progovernment years. During the socalled antitax. antigovernment decade of the 1980s. the size of our government grew by over 25 percent. It did not shrink even then. No matter who controls the Congress. who controls the White House. government grows. The record is clear. This amendment. if passed tonight. approved by the Senate. and only after being passed by threefourths of the states. that would slow that growth. will make the growth of government more judicious. It will give the force of government. the political juggernaut that it has become. a higher hurdle to clear before it indulges its ambitions. is a higher hurdle to clear before it takes resources from the people. Over the 200 years of this experiment in democracy. those institutions that get their funds from the political process have figured out the political process. Those who pay the bills are no match for those whose livelihood depends on growing government. This initiative will put the political process back where it was when our Constitution was ratified. It will level the playing field for those who pay the bills. This initiative is not elegant. It will . never thrill the academics. It is a blunt instrument to check the brute political power of a government with an insatiable appetite to grow. to control more of American life. It is a blunt instrument whose time has come.