Pete Sessions: “not long ago his excellency, President Eduardo Frei of Chile, spoke to a joint session of the Congress. He gave us some…”

“not long ago his excellency, President Eduardo Frei of Chile, spoke to a joint session of the Congress. He gave us some advice. He began by saying, I want to share with you why we Chileans are ever more satisfied with the dividends of freedom, why we do not want to look back, why we wish to have a part in the new history, the history mankind is now beginning to write. I did not find his remarks presumptuous, as some did, because I believe we have a lot that we can learn from Chile. Chile was in a period of stagnation and suffered many of the budgetary perils that exist today in the United States. But Chile rose above it. Chile today has sustained 14 years of growth averaging 7 percent annually. Real annual wages have risen over 4 percent. Per capita income has doubled in Chile in just the last decade. Chile's savings rate is close to 25 percent. All of this has been achieved not in spite of but as a direct result of 5 consecutive years of balanced budgets and fiscal surpluses.”