Gilbert Gutknecht: “First of all, to just highlight how far we have come. Since I came to Congress in 1994, in fact, next Tuesday we are…”

“First of all, to just highlight how far we have come. Since I came to Congress in 1994, in fact, next Tuesday we are going to celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the elections of 1994, November 8. We are going to have a class reunion. I am the class president now of that class. I am happy to report virtually all the members are coming back. It is going to be a great reunion. But, because of that, I have been thinking a lot about what it was like in 1993 and 1994 when Washington believed that Washington had all the answers, whether it was talking about health care reform, we were going to have a government-run, State-run, Federal bureaucratized health care delivery system. And it was interesting, too, I need to make the point about that, when that was first introduced, it was supported by an overwhelming majority of Americans. But then they started to get the facts and public opinion changed. We were talking then about larger and larger bureaucracies and more and more government spending, more and more government borrowing. Finally, the American people in November of 1994 said enough is enough, and they sent a whole new team of us, 73 Republican freshmen to Congress. They said, You know, we don't expect much from you, but at least balance the budget.”