Joel Hefley: “the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the House minority leader, was apparently caught off guard recently and said…”

“the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Gephardt), the House minority leader, was apparently caught off guard recently and said out loud what he really thinks about defense spending and about taxes. He said, and I quote, and I have it on this chart, ``You have got to have a combination of taking it out of the defense budget and raising revenue. We can argue about how to do that, closing loopholes or even raising taxes to do it.'' That is right. He proposed to raise taxes and cut defense. And then, even more amazing is that he was given a chance to clarify his remarks in a letter to the editor of the Washington Times. Did he say that he would oppose tax increases? Did he say he would retract his words? Did he repudiate the notion that what this country needs is to weaken our military and raise taxes? No. He wrote, ``I have no intention of proposing or supporting any tax increases.'' No intention? The last time we heard that was 1992, only 1 year before President Clinton gave us the greatest tax increase in our Nation's history.”