GOP Leader Sees Shift to Right as Clinton Details Food Program

The 105th Congress will continue moving U.S. society to the right by stepping up its overhaul of welfare, improving campaign finance rules and working to reduce juvenile crime and drug use, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) said Saturday.

Delivering the GOP’s weekly radio address, Armey also predicted that when Congress reconvenes in January, the two parties won’t discuss whether to implement conservative ideas, just how.

“In this Congress, there won’t be any debate over whether to balance the budget, only over how and when to do it,” Armey said. “And there will no longer be any debate over whether to replace socially harmful welfare programs with a new emphasis on work and responsibility, only debate over the best ways to end the cycle of dependency.”

Armey said Americans chose to elect a Democratic president and a Republican Congress that ran on conservative platforms of “smaller government, lower taxes, a balanced budget, saving Medicare, improving education and cleaning up our environment.”

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President Clinton focused his weekly radio address on Thanksgiving and his trip to Asia to join leaders of 17 nations in the Philippines for an economic conference designed to breathe new life into global free trade.

“America’s involvement and influence here helps to provide the stability, to promote the economic progress, to encourage the cooperation on many fronts, including preserving our natural environment, that benefits all Americans,” Clinton said in his address, which was taped as he left Australia for the Philippines.

The president also urged Americans to think of the poor as they sit down to Thanksgiving dinner this week.

“We must never forget the duty we owe to those in our American community who are less fortunate than we are,” Clinton said.

Too much food goes to waste in restaurants, cafeterias and grocery stores across the country, he said.

“Today we are taking two more steps to help fight hunger,” he said. “First, I am directing every department and agency in our administration to actively work to promote food recovery and distribution. From now on, all federal agencies will recover surplus food from their cafeterias, public events and other food-service facilities, and they’ll work with government contractors, state and local governments, and private businesses to encourage all citizens to do the same.”