SPEECH

1992 Republican Convention

Recently two reporters writing for Newsweek, Debra Rosenberg and Rebecca Sinderbran, released a piece on the MSNBC Web site about potential favors owed by the Bush administration to Evangelical Christian supporters following the 2004 election. The lead paragraph carried the incredible assertion that, at the 1992 Republican Convention in Houston, Pat Robertson had "railed against abortion and homosexuals."

Since I had forgotten what I said in that speech, I obtained a copy from my files. The first two pages of my speech dealt with the United States victory in the Cold War and the need to unburden free enterprise from burdensome taxes and federal regulations. It ended with a touching story of Barbara Bush at a Sudanese refugee camp. Out of five pages, there was one line about homosexuals and four lines about parental consent for abortion - hardly "railing."

Since we can never rely on the liberal media to tell the truth, I am including my speech at Houston on my Web site for the record.

Seventy-five years ago a plague descended upon the world and covered the nations of Eastern Europe like a dark cloud. Slowly but surely this dreaded menace grew and spread until it threatened the freedom of the entire world. This menace was called Communism.

The Communists built a wall to prevent their people from escaping tyranny and an arsenal of nuclear weapons to terrorize the people everywhere.

Ladies and Gentlemen, it was Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Republican policies which brought communism to its knees.

It was a Republican president who stood before that blood-soaked wall of slavery dividing East from West Berlin and shouted, "Mr.Gorachev, tear down this wall." The wall did come down. And from Gdansk in the Baltic to Constanza on the Black Sea the Iron Curtain fell. Freedom won. Democracy triumphed. Communism collapsed.

Nuclear terror no longer threatens our children. Children can go to bed at night without suffering nightmares or fearing an attack from a foreign foe. The Cold War is over and we won.

And it all happened under the administration of the man who must get four more years in the White House -- George Bush.

Ladies and Gentlemen, a more benign but equally insidious plague has fastened itself upon the families of America. It is the belief that bureaucrats know more about managing people's affairs than the people do themselves. It is the belief that sweat and hard work and free enterprise are somehow suspect, a belief in higher taxes, crushing regulation and centralized government.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the carrier of this plague is the Democratic Party.

Lyndon Johnson called it the "Great Society." Bill Clinton calls it the "New Covenant." But, my friends, whatever name you give it, it is still the liberal welfare state and we want no part of it.

We are here tonight to discuss the crisis facing the American family. Nothing burdens the family more today than the high taxes and wasteful spending of the liberal welfare state. Consider the crushing burden of federal spending that the Democrats have placed on each family in America.

In 1940 the federal government presided over a nation of 130 million people with a budget of only $13 billion. Today the population of America is 250 millon people and increase of 92 percent. Yet the federal budget has grown to $1.5 trillion, an increase of 10,900 percent since 1940.

In 1950 the average family in America paid only two percent of its income to the federal government. Today the same family pays 25 percent of its income to the federal government. And what are the Democrats in Congress doing with the hard-earned dollars of American families?

I'll give you a couple of examples. They spent $450,000 of your money to study whether students who do homework learn more. They spent $350,000 to determine if people eat more food at a smorgasbord than from a menu. They do. And who knows how much we have spent learning of the sexual proclivities of the stall darter, the spotted owl, and the Mediterranean fruit fly.

With spending programs like this, I'm beginning to wonder if the Democrats are in their right minds. At least one of them swears that he doesn't inhale, but I think some of them are smoking funny cigarettes.

The only spending Bill Clinton and the Democrats want to cut is defense. He wants to slash $60 billion from defense below the cuts proposed by President Bush. That would reduce our nation's armed forces, leaving the nation weak and vulnerable.

Then you come to think of it, Slick Willy talks like John Wayne, but he acts like Gomer Pyle.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the Democrats have controlled the Congress for 36 years. The tax-and-spend, check-kiting Democrats in Congress have undermined the family, taxed the economy into recession and passed budget-busting bills that have ballooned the national debt.

President Bush has vetoed their anti-family, pork-barrel bills 31 times. And 31 times he has made his veto stick. That's why the liberals on Capitol Hill want Bill Clinton in the White House to rubber stamp their big spending ways. But the President has learned beyond a shadow of a doubt that he can't trust Slick Teddy from Hyannisport. He can't trust Slick Rosty from Chicago. He can't trust Slick Joey from Delaware. And the American people will soon learn that they can't trust Slick Willie from Arkansas.

Under the tax-and-spend Democrats, two-thirds of the federal budget is now spent on Great Society entitlement programs. Our families now spend more to support wasteful government than the serfs paid in Europe in the middle ages.

The economy has slowed. Many families are hurting. It is time to stop fleecing the families of America to fatten the potentates of pork on Capitol Hill - and to perpetuate the failed policies of the Great Society. It's time to tighten the federal budget, not the family budget.

The people of Eastern Europe got rid of their left wingers, isn't it time we in America got rid of our left wingers.

We don't need a "New Covenant." We need a new Congress.

The average prison term for a convicted murderer in America is 6.5 years. The average tenure for a member of Congress is 13 years. We've got it backwards. We are giving early release to the wrong criminal class. We need term limits for Congress, and we need them now.

Tonight we say to the American people, a Republican White House gave you victory over communism and liberated Kuwait. Now give George Bush a Republican Congress and he will win the war with the budget deficit as skillfully as he won the war in the Persian Gulf.

George Bush's vision for American, ladies and gentlemen, is one of faith in God, strong families, freedom, individual initiative, and free enterprise. He believes that government should be the people's servant and not their master.

The vision of Bill Clinton is a liberal welfare state that dominates every facet of our lives, burdens free enterprise, redistributes wealth, raises taxes, and weakens the family.

Here is what Bill Clinton wants for America:

He told People Magazine that he wouldn't let his 13-year-old daughter get her ears pierced. But he wants to give your 13-year-old daughter the choice without your consent to destroy the life of her unborn baby. Yet he is opposed to giving 30-year-old mothers a real choice in where to send their 13-year-old daughters to school.

He has said that he wants a litmus test for all Supreme Court judges. They must agree to surrender their intellectual judgment and vote in favor of abortion on demand or he will not appoint them. And he said that Mario Cuomo would, and I quote, "be an excellent choice" for the Supreme Court.

He wants to repeal the ban on homosexuals in the military and appoint homosexuals to his administration.

He is running on a platform that calls for saving the Spotted Owl, but never once mentions the name of God.

Since I have come to Houston, I have been asked repeatedly to define traditional values. I say very simply, to me and to most Republicans, traditional values start with faith in Almighty God.

And that is why we do not take God out of the Republican Party platform.

When Bill Clinton talks about family values, I don't believe he's talking about either families or values. He is talking about a radical plan to destroy the traditional family and transfer many of its functions to the federal government.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a First Lady, Barbara Bush. She's a gracious lady, a devoted wife, a dedicated mother, and a caring grandmother.

In 1985 I traveled with then Vice President George Bush and Barbara Bush to a desert refugee camp in northern Sudan. Emaciated people near death were walking through the burning desert to flee famine and Communist tyranny in Ethiopia. I will never forget the haunting eyes of one emaciated little 6-month-old boy who only weighed 5-1/2 pounds. And I will never forget Barbara Bush in the midst of the dust, the flies and the disease, taking a little boy like that in her arms and loving it as only a mother could.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I don't care what the polls say. Nobody can convince me that the American people are so blind that they would want to replace Barbara Bush as first lady.

The campaign before us is not just a campaign for an office, but for the destiny of America. We will not rest until there is a new birth of freedom in America, until our families are strong, until parents can have the choice - true choice in the education of their children, until parents with children receive the tax relief they richly deserve, until we honor the elderly and protect the unborn child in his mother's womb, until the crushing burden of federal debt is lifted from every family in America, until we restore the greatness of America through moral strength.

Ladies and Gentlemen, George Bush stands for these values. He will continue to stand for these values. And that is why in November we must work hard to see that George Bush is re-elected President of the United States of America.

Then one day, we can say to our children, "We kept the faith. We fought for freedom and we won. Now we proudly give to you the United States of America, free, proud, strong, and one nation under God."

God bless you, and thank you very much.