Text of HUD Secretary Jack Kemp Address to the Republican National Convention Tuesday, August 18, 1992 KEMP: Thank you, Roger Staubach. It's an honor to be introduced by a fellow quarterback and an NFL hall-of-famer, and hopefully soon we can call you Governor Staubach or Senator Staubach in the great state of Texas. Fellow Republicans, fellow Americans, tonight America stands at the doorway of breathtaking opportunity, on the eve of a new century and a new millennium. As Ronald Reagan reminded us last night, history is on the side of freedom. It's on the side of those liberal democratic ideals which gave birth to our nation and inspired the most revolutionary words the world has ever heard--listen: we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by our creator with inalienable rights, among which are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Tonight these ideas of liberal democracy and individual freedom, entrepreneurial capitalism are on the margin winning throughout the whole world. Just think: 1 year ago reactionary forces in Moscow tried to roll back this democratic revolution, and they failed. Since then, Boris Yeltsin has become Russia's first democratically elected president in over 1000 years. The statues of Marx and Lenin were toppled by the people in Red Square. The hammer and sickle came down from atop the Kremlin, providentially, on Christmas Day of last year. Today Mikhail Gorbachev is a syndicated columnist for the NY Times. And believe it or not, we find the mayors of St Petersburg and Moscow to the right of the mayors of New York City and Boston. Several months ago, I had lunch with the former mayor of Moscow. I asked him how he got elected. He said Mr Kemp, I told all the people in state-owned housing that they should have the right to own their own home. I told them they should have the right to sell them for a profit and leave their property to their children. And then the mayor of Moscow said I pledged to make downtown Moscow a free enterprise zone. I said Mr Mayor, where did you get these radical ideas? He said Mr Kemp, I got them from the 1980 Republican platform of Ronald Reagan and George Bush. Ladies and gentlemen, communism didn't fall. It was pushed. It was our ideas that did the pushing and our Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush that helped change the world. Now we must change America. Our goals for this nation must be nothing less than to double the size of our economy and bring prosperity and jobs, ownership and equality of opportunity to all Americans, especially those living in our nation's pockets of poverty. Think of what that growth would mean: more jobs, a higher living standard for the people, extraordinary opportunities for all Americans, and the resources to meet our most ambitious goals, public and private. But make no mistake. If we are to change America, we must change the US Congress. We must give President Bush-- (Cries of "Clean the House!") You bet. Clean it out. We need a Republican Congress. We need to give President Bush and Vice President Quayle a Republican Congress to help get America moving again and finally wage a winning war against poverty and despair. My friends, the purpose of a great party is not to defeat its opponents. The purpose of a great party is to provide superior leadership and greater cause. It's not to denounce the past. It's to inspire our nation to a better future. This great cause is the same today as it was when our party was founded. Listen to the words of our founder, Abraham Lincoln. He said the progress by which the poor, honest, industrious, and resolute man raises himself is that he may work on his own account and hire someone else. This, he said, is the great principle for which this government was really formed. You see, Lincoln believed that in this country capitalism must grow from the bottom up, not the top down. It must begin on Main Street and extend to Wall Street, not the other way around. This has a special meaning to me. As a young boy growing up in Los Angeles, this was my experience. You see, my father was a truck driver. He earned enough to buy the truck. Eventually he and his brother built a small business that put 6 children through college. This is the kind of capitalism we envision for America, the freedom not just to drive a truck, but the chance to own the truck, and one day to own a trucking company, own a home, and see your children go to college. This is America. This is the dream, and this is the cause our party just champion in the 1990s. My friends--my friends, we don't believe--we don't believe in an America that pursues equality by trying to make rich people poor, but in an equality that allows poor people, indeed all people, to become rich, not just rich in creature comforts, but rich in terms of opportunity to achieve your God-given potential. The party of Lincoln does not believe people are a drain on resources. We believe people are our resources. We don't believe that children--we don't believe that children are just mouths to feed. They are hearts and minds and souls for our future, and they deserve our protection after their birth, as they do before their birth. We don't believe that compassion should be measured by the size of the safety net. Compassion in America must be measured by the number of rungs on the ladder of opportunity upon which all people can climb. This is what distinguishes our party from the Democrats. The Democrats' new covenant is not new. It's not change. It doesn't put people first. It puts the government first. It doesn't empower people. It empowers bureaucracy. It doesn't encourage investment and growth. It just spends and spends and spends. Mario Cuomo gave away the Democrats' game plan. Now, wait a minute. He gave away the Democrats' game plan just before their convention when he told us that Governor Clinton has the courage to raise our taxes. The Democrats call that courage? I call it crazy. In this economy, can you imagine anything more depressing and more disruptive than raising income tax rates and imposing a surtax on the American people? The Democrats' plan won't soak the rich; it'll just soak the poor, the middle class, and it'll drown our economy. We all know what the problem is in America--the economy is starved for capital. When capital is taxed heavily, as it is now, it becomes scarce, available only to the privileged few. The spirit of enterprise and the engine of growth and new jobs is being smothered. George Bush and our party understood this back in 1988 when we ran on a pledge to cut the capital gains tax, index it to stop taxing gains that are due only to inflation, and eliminate the capital gains tax in our inner city pockets of poverty. In 1989 President Bush asked the Congress to carry out his mandate, and the Democratic Congress said no. In 1990 and '91, as the economy moved into recession, he asked repeatedly for action. Congress said no. This year in the president's State of the Union Address, once again he pleaded with Congress. Again, Congress said no. Then just last week, in a strict party line vote, the US Senate said no again. And tragically, even after, even after the problems of Los Angeles, when we begged and asked the Democratic leadership to pass enterprise zone legislation that our party has championed for 12 years, Congress adjourned. Ladies and gentlemen, isn't it time we said no to the Democratic Congress? What nerve they have. These Democrats, the unemployment lines lengthened to 11 million and they stonewalled the president's pleas for action. And then they blame the president, blame our party for the economic decline. What nerve they have to now step forward and offer more taxation, more government, more welfare dependency. And then they proclaim--get this--a new Democratic covenant. Well, let me tell you. As President Bush's HUD secretary, I've traveled throughout this country. I've found capital and credit are virtually nonexistent in our nation's inner cities, and I've seen the results and they're devastating. For 50 years, the Democratic Party has dictated most of the policies that govern our cities: higher taxes, redistribution of wealth and a welfare system that penalizes people for working, discourages marriage, punishes the family, and literally, believe it or not, prohibits poor people to save. Ladies and gentlemen, it's not the values of the poor that are flawed. It's the values of the welfare system that are bankrupt. These policies have robbed our cities of vibrancy, shattered the link between effort and reward, and now--and now--the Democrats want to impose the same failed policies on the rest of America. What nerve! Our party offers a better way. Last year, I had the opportunity to tour the home of a wonderful black woman named Evelyn Lindsay (phonetic). After years in public housing and on welfare, thanks to this administration's public/private partnerships, she finally became a home owner. After the tour was over, 1 skeptical reporter asked her, Evelyn Lindsay, how can you guarantee that this house will look as good 10 years from today as it does this day? Evelyn Lindsay looked that reporter in the eye and said to him, it'll look better, because for the first time in my life, I own something of value that I can pass on to my children. Well, ladies and gentlemen, she spoke not only for her family, but for all families. Tonight let us speak for her and for all those Americans who aspire to ownership and entrepreneurship, to jobs and upward mobility, to safety and security, and to the right to send their children to the school of their choice, be it public or private. President Bush--President Bush was speaking for her when he told the public housing residents at Cochran Gardens in St Louis last year that some day they, too, could own their own homes. He was speaking for them when he told a cheering crowd that the capital gains tax is not a tax on the rich, it's a tax on the American dream. He pledged if the system's not helping to build a better life, then we must change the system, and we will, and we must. I loved--I loved hearing Ronald Reagan last night. I really did. I loved hearing President Reagan remind us last night that it's not enough to be equal in the eyes of God. We want an America in which we are equal in the eyes of each other. Our party offers a more powerful vision of America, an America committed to prosperity and equality of opportunity, to jobs for all our people. We must be the party that unleashes the talents of every single American boy and girl, and every child of God. That's why I'm so proud of our president's platform. It puts our party on the side of lower tax rates on working families, lower tax rates on the formation of capital, lower tax rates on the first time home buyer, and lower tax rates on poor Americans who want their shot at the American dream. We must give it to them. My fellow Americans, the liberal Democrats just don't get it. They don't understand that you can't create more employees without first creating more employers, that you can't have capitalism without capital, and we can't expect people to defend property rights when they're denied access to property. But when people have a stake in the system, they'll not only defend their own property, they'll help their neighbor defend his property as well. You see, you see, this is the message of Los Angeles. This is the message of every other pocket of poverty in America. We must be the party that gives all people a stake in the system, and a stake in each other. That's what the re-election of George Bush means to America. We have the ideas, we're on the side of history, and we must bring alive the promise of the Declaration of Independence to all people, everywhere. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a great cause. We've got a great team. And let me say as an old football player who played in this very stadium: we've got a great quarterback in George Bush. And, Mr President-- (Chants of "4 More Years!") And, Mr President, give them hell Thursday night. God bless you. God bless America.