Democrats Chose Liberal Candidates for President and Vice President

DEMOCRATS CHOSE LIBERAL CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENT AND VICE PRESIDENT -- (House of Representatives - July 12, 2004)

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.

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Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
When I was listening to the gentleman a little while ago and he was mentioning about how Mr. Kerry tries to portray himself as one of the regular folk and he was talking about how he, frankly, is one of the very privileged folk, I think that kind of explains, though, some of his votes and some of the things that he says after some of his votes.

If the gentleman will recall that he voted against President Bush's tax relief plan in 2001 and also in 2003. By the way, that tax relief plan, i.e., in other words, government taking a little bit less of the people's money, it is not a gift that the government has given, just the government taking a little bit less of people's money, that is the reason why we are finally now in this economic upturn. And, again, they might try to scream and complain, but the bottom line is everybody has had to recognize that, because of that, the economy is doing much better.

But then since it is working and since more people are getting jobs and since over a million jobs have been created in the last year because of the President's leadership, and then they said, well, but the President's tax cuts were tax cuts on the rich. And, Mr. Speaker, again, I am in awe of what I hear up here sometimes. I am new here. This is my first term, and I am sometimes in awe of what I hear up here.

The tax cuts that the President proposed and this Congress passed, Senator Kerry, now, he would know what a tax cut on the rich is, obviously, because he is very wealthy, and nothing wrong with that, but I do not know about the State of Massachusetts. It is a different world. We know that the State of Massachusetts is a different world. It is the State that gave us John Kerry and Ted Kennedy.

But, in Florida, everybody dies. In Florida, eventually everybody dies, and one of the tax cuts that this President supported, proposed and Senator Kerry voted against is the death tax. Again, I do not know about Massachusetts, but in the State of Florida not only the wealthy die.

One of the tax cuts that Senator Kerry voted against, saying now that it is a tax cut on the rich, was the marriage penalty relief. Now, I do not know about other parts of the country, but in the State that I am privileged to represent here in Congress, which is Florida, not only the wealthy get married. Working people get married as well. And yet Senator Kerry voted against it, saying, oh, that is a tax cut on the rich.

He voted against the child tax credit, for example. Now, again, I do not know about the State that he represents, the State where maybe everybody has nine houses that are worth millions of dollars, but in Florida where people work awfully hard, and I am pretty sure that throughout the country they do, not only do the wealthy get married, not only do the wealthy have children, not only do the wealthy die.

A colleague of ours in Florida said that at least one would think that we could agree that there should be no taxation without respiration, at least, but, no, Senator Kerry believes that that is wrong, that we have to tax people when they get married, we have to tax people if they have children, we have to tax people if they have small businesses, and, yes, we even have to tax people after they are dead, after they are dead. And yet, Mr. Speaker, he keeps saying that those are tax cuts on the rich.

I think maybe the explanation is what the gentleman was saying a little while ago, that he lives in a different place. I do have to admit, though, because I have seen a lot of things and I have heard a lot of things that to my point of view just do not make sense, like these are tax cuts on the rich, these tax cuts that I just mentioned, but maybe it is just a different world. I have to admit, though, that I give Senator Kerry credit, and I have heard this time and time again. One has got to give him credit for something that I, this humble servant, believed was impossible. When Senator Kerry has made
Ted Kennedy the conservative senator of Massachusetts and when we look at the rankings, Senator Kerry is even more
liberal, even more of an extreme left-winger than Senator Ted Kennedy. I did not think that was possible. Only Senator Kerry has been able to do so.

And he has, by the way, picked a very charming, very eloquent man as his running mate, who is the fourth most liberal Member of the Senate. He could have gone and picked a number of people out there. No, he had to pick somebody that was almost as liberal as himself.

Mr. Speaker, in that sense, the ticket of McGovern and Shriver, not since McGovern has there been a more left-wing extreme point of view put forward by the

Democratic ticket as the ticket that is now in front of the American people. And, again, when they voted against repealing the death tax, when they voted to increase the child tax credit, in other words, when they voted against lowering taxes on families for their children, when they voted against the full marriage penalty relief, it goes to show us that, yes, it is absolutely true, hard to believe, that that ticket now is more left-wing and more liberal than even TED KENNEDY. It is hard to believe, but, yes, that ticket is more left-wing, more radical, more liberal, or at least equally to the ticket that McGovern headed in 1972, I believe, before my time, but it is hard to see a more left-wing extremist ticket, except for the one that the Democratic party has put forward.

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Mr. MARIO DIAZ-BALART of Florida. If the gentleman would yield, when one sees that, so he clearly likes raising taxes. He even supported a 50 percent gas tax, per gallon gas tax increase. Now I do not know about the gentleman, but in the State of Florida, gas is relatively expensive right now, and if the people out there think gas is too cheap, no problem, they have got a good person to vote for in November. That is Senator Kerry, who, again, has supported a 50 percent per gallon gas tax increase.