Cliff Stearns

my colleagues, for 15 years now, we have given MFN status to the Chinese. And rather than getting better, the situation is worsening: we now have a $30 billion trade imbalance, human rights abuses are on the rise, Chinese companies…

Teddy Roosevelt once said, ``The only safe rule is to promise little and faithfully to keep every promise; to speak softly and carry a big stick.'' That is where that great quotation came from. Well, America's new policy seems to be one of…

I wish to follow up on Speaker Gingrich's comment on health care. It is very simple to see what is going on here. Liberals lost the battle over nationalizing health care. Now they want to scuttle any health care plan that does not make the…

I also stand here in the well to remember our dear colleague, Bill Emerson from Missouri. I can still see him in the back row, all the way in the back in the last aisle, standing there talking. And many of us used to go back to talk to him…

In 1994, the then House majority leader, the gentleman from Missouri, Dick Gephardt, thought MSA's, medical savings accounts, were such a good idea that he included them in the Democrat leadership bill. In 1994, all but one Democrat on the…

sadly, I am not surprised by an article in last Friday's Washington Post regarding yet another environmental health risk. The article discusses a new scientific study showing major health risk posed by chemicals commonly found in our…

in 1980, China was first granted MFN status. Since then, very little has changed. In fact, it would be easy to argue that the situation has worsened. In the last 5 years, China has accumulated a $117 billion trade surplus with the United…

I had a town meeting Saturday in Hampton, FL, and Janice Sanford was there at the town meeting and she gave me hundreds of petitions dealing with the partial-birth abortion veto by the President. President Clinton has once again…

heaven is not reached by a single bound. But we build the ladder by which we rise. Mr. Chairman, the international space station has, and will continue, to provide Americans with substantial benefits in areas including medicine, the…

welfare reform is something that the American people want. Both parties have promised to reform our current broken-down system, but I believe Republicans have delivered. This Republican Congress sent a strong welfare package to President…

why does not the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] and many of the gentleman's other colleagues come on the House floor and say they do not support the Clinton budget?

I think we all know President Clinton said that. Who also said the rising tide lifts all boats? Many Democrat Presidents have said that. Let me give information from the Labor Department, February 20, 1996: It released its employment cost…

Let me give an analogy on this debate. Let us say you are overweight by 100 pounds. You are trying to lose weight over a 7-year period. Would you take a plan where in the first 2 years you gain 100 pounds and then in the next 2 years you…

last year, after a long and passionate debate, the United States joined the World Trade Organization. The WTO, as it is known, is an international body based in Geneva with 120 nation members. In simple terms, the WTO is the police force…

The employees of our subsidiary, in addition, endorse this bill as much better for the industry and for the consumer.

the question today is who drove up the price of gasoline. In May 1993 the Federal gasoline tax was raised 18.3 cents a gallon. That vote marked the third time in just over a decade that Congress increased the tax. Since December 1982, the…

Mr. Chairman, this is a tough call, and I want to say frankly I am one of the original cosponsors of the Roemer amendment, and I support what he was doing until I had a better understanding what the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. McIntosh] is…

I also want to participate in this commemoration to our good colleague, Sam Gibbons, and I want to thank the gentlewoman from Florida, Ms. Brown, my colleague, for setting aside this time to do this. Mr. Speaker, it came as a surprise when…

In 1943 Congress passed the withholding tax law. This painless collection method was described by one Senator as the best way to ``get the greatest amount of money with the least amount of squawks.'' Unfortunately for us all, he was right…

I will not yield. Let me just say that going back 220 years, our Founding Fathers had the foresight to mandate a two-thirds majority vote on certain priority issues. This is something not brand new we are bringing to the Congress here in…

I submit on this House floor that disrespect to democracy has been greatest with the $5 trillion debt, and what we need to do is bring that debt down. We have had so many taxes on this House floor with 40 years of Democrat rule that we…

I rise in support of the Archer/Bliley bill because I believe the issue of genetic privacy is of tremendous importance. I introduced H.R. 2690, the Genetic Privacy and Nondiscrimination Act of 1995. My bill would ban discrimination based…

should an insurance company be able to deny children medical coverage because their mother died of an inherited heart defect that her children may or may not carry? That is the dilemma facing a California father who cannot get family…

I had the honor to have the gentleman from Kentucky, Jim Bunning, in my congressional district. I represented Ted Williams. Ted Williams being a constituent of mine, he wanted to meet with Jim Bunning, so the two of them met in my…

Mexico better not be on that list. It is imperative that we take action against Mexico, that we finally denote the country for what it is. Simply put, Mexico has become a narco-state. Each year, nearly three-quarters of all the Colombian…