Patrick Moynihan: “The Soviet Union, sir, what was that? Oh, yes, that was the place that was going to take over the world. I remember a…”

“The Soviet Union, sir, what was that? Oh, yes, that was the place that was going to take over the world. I remember a meeting in Bucharest of world trade advocates at the time. It was an international conference about the developing world. The Soviet delegate absolutely swept the conference with an announcement that, as of this moment, as a gesture of solidarity with our friends in Africa, in Latin America, in Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union is abolishing all tariffs of imports from those countries. The conference went wild, but no one stopped to think: But, wait a minute, the Soviet Union doesn't have tariffs. Everything is bought by the government and put through collective enterprises, all of which were in ruins and eventually collapsed. This was 20 years before the whole system imploded. We are talking for democracy, talking for vitality, talking for expansion, talking for a tradition. As Jerry Ford said yesterday in the Rotunda, he came to Congress as a social moderate, a fiscal conservative, and a determined internationalist. He was right. Can it be we have forgotten all that? I say, again, before I yield the floor, at a critical moment in our economic history--a critical moment--we are hours away from ruinous indecision.”