REPRESENTATIVE J.C. WATTS DELIVERS THE REPUBLICAN RESPONSE
TO THE PRESIDENT'S STATE OF THE UNION MESSAGE
FEBRUARY 4, 1997
SPEAKERS LIST: U.S. REPRESENTATIVE J.C. WATTS (R-OK)

WATTS: Good evening.

My name is J.C. Watts, Jr. I'm the Republican congressman from the fourth district of Oklahoma, and I've been asked to speak to the American people in response to the president's address this evening.

Before I get into my presentation, I want to send condolences to the Tejeda family on behalf of the 105th Congress. Frank was a friend. He was a wonderful spirit. And he will be surely missed.

I don't intend to take a lot of your time. It's late, and there's been a lot of talk already this evening.

But I want to tell you a little bit about where I'm from. I grew up in Oklahoma. My district includes the towns of Midwest City, Norman, Lawton, Walters, Waurika, and Duncan, just to name a few. We raise cattle back home. We grow some cotton and wheat, peanuts and we drill for oil.

We've got Tinker and Altus Air Force bases nearby and we have the Army post at Fort Sill. The University of Oklahoma is there. That's where I went to school. I played a little football and graduated with a degree in journalism.

I tell you all this because I want you to know that the district I'm blessed to represent is as diverse as America itself. It's the kind of place reporters usually call the heartland and they're right -- in so many ways, it is America's heart.

I'm going to try to use my words tonight and my time not to confuse issues but to clarify them, not to obscure my philosophy and my party's but to illuminate it -- because the way I see it, the purpose of politics is to lead, not to mislead.

Those of us who've been sent to Washington have a moral responsibility to offer more than poll-tested phrases and winning smiles. We must offer a serious vision. We must share our intentions. We must make our plans clear.

That's my job tonight -- to tell you what we believe, what the Republican Party believes, and what we will work for.

We believe, first of all, that the state of this union really isn't determined in Washington, D.C. It never has been and it never will be. But for a long time, the federal government has been grabbing too much power and too much authority over all of the people. And it is those people -- it is all of us -- who decide the real state of the union.

Doc Benson in Oklahoma City decides the state of the union. He runs a non-profit called The Education and Employment Ministry, where he believes that you restore men and women by restoring their dreams and finding them a job.

Freddy Garcia is the state of the union, also. Freddy was a drug addict in San Antonio, Texas. Now he has a ministry helping people get off drugs. His Victory Fellowship has success rates that the social scientists can only dream of.

I saw the state of the union last week in Marlow, Oklahoma. A bunch of us met at the elementary school, where we ate beef brisket and baked beans and the chamber of commerce recognized the Farm Family of the Year. The McCarleys won and their kids were oh so proud.

The strength of America is not in Washington. The strength of America is at home, in lives well lived in a land of faith and family. The strength of America is not on Wall Street, but on Main Street, not in big business, but in small business with local owners and workers. It's not in Congress. It's in the city hall.

And I pray Republicans and Democrats both understand this.

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