Clinton Claims Credit for Republican Congress' Achievements
By U.S. Representative Bob Livingston
1997
In his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention a few weeks ago, Candidate Clinton stood before a cheering crowd of liberal delegates and ticked off a laundry list of accomplishments. However, something just didn't add up.
Then I remembered the lessons of the Wizard of Oz. The Democratic convention was in Chicago, not Kansas; the man at the podium was no wizard; and despite Clinton's firm protestations to the contrary, we should have paid lots of attention to the man behind the curtain, Dick Morris. It was Morris, the secretive and deceptive consultant, who sold President Clinton on the idea of pretending to be a conservative.
Candidate Clinton's deception was clever because the accomplishments he cited were not his, but those of the Republican-led Congress - and President Clinton fought tooth and nail against some of the very achievements he was now claiming as his.
For instance, Clinton claimed credit for the Adoption Tax Credit. Sorry Mr. President, but it was the Republican-led Congress that passed that Contract with America item into law, giving a $5,000 tax credit to families who adopt children (more if the children have disabilities) and while also putting an end to racial discrimination in adoption.
Candidate Clinton claimed credit for passing a tax cut for small business that President Clinton had opposed. The Congressional Republican leadership had proposed it as another part of our Contract With America and then we followed through on our promise and passed it.
And how about the Congressional Accountability Act? Candidate Clinton spoke as if he championed that major reform when in reality it was the very first piece of legislation passed by the newly elected 104th Congress under Republican leadership. This act forces Congress to live under the same laws it imposes on the private sector. He must think we have all forgotten that no such reforms were even proposed during his first two years when the liberal Democrats controlled the Congress.
President Clinton said, "We passed...tougher registration laws for lobbyists." Now, I know he has been talking a lot like Republicans since the 1994 election, but this is a bit much. We, the Republican majority, passed the Lobbying Reform and Gift Ban. This was just one of many reforms we Republicans passed to lessen the influence of big money lobbyists.
Then there was the Line-Item Veto, which Republicans have been fighting for for years with almost no cooperation from the liberals. The liberal Democrats controlled Congress for forty years and refused to even seriously consider this legislation. We passed it with ease.
We also passed the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act which stopped requiring state and local governments to pay for federal programs. Again, Candidate Clinton wrongly listed it as one of his accomplishments.
In 1992, Candidate Clinton campaigned on a promise to "end welfare as we know it," and then pushed it to the "back burner" to avoid angering his core liberal constituency while at the same hoping the rest of us would forget about it. In 1996, he brazenly took credit for two Republican bills that actually delivered on a promise he otherwise refused to keep. In fact, he vetoed welfare reform twice. We passed the Personal Responsibility Act, the first major welfare reform bill since welfare's inception, as well as the Welfare to Work Tax Credit that gives business owners a tax credit for every person they hire off welfare.
The list of Candidate Clinton's "misrepresentations" goes on to include food and water safety legislation; a tax cut for families saving for long-term care, and environmental legislation to protect the Florida Everglades. Finally, we passed a bill guaranteeing continued health coverage for workers who change jobs - - a bill virtually identical to the bill President Clinton threatened to veto previously.
All of these were Republican initiatives passed by a Republican led Congress.
For their part, President Clinton and his liberal friends spent the two years they controlled the White House and the Congress doing nothing but arguing over how much they were going to raise your taxes. They both obviously won and passed and signed the largest tax bill in the history of the nation - - Candidate Clinton had promised a tax cut.
In 1994, Republicans campaigned on the Contract With America. Throughout the campaign, Bill Clinton and his liberal friends said we would never keep our promises.
We won the election and we kept our promises.
I'm glad that Bill Clinton is as proud of the many outstanding accomplishments of the Republican led 104th Congress as I am. It has been my great honor to be a part of the leadership of this historic group of dedicated Americans.
Now that Candidate Clinton no longer has Dick Morris to tell him what to say, perhaps he will stop taking credit for Republican accomplishments.
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