Speech #990169087

On a weekly basis. the President should report to the American people. if necessary an additional radio speech. possibly in something as extraordinary as a television speech. Week after week we have to be as willing to speak about the Soviet empires aggression as the Soviet empire is willing to be aggressive. In addition. this administration should ask the Federal Emergency Management Administration to send a letter to every town and every county in this country. to outline the number of refugees we can expect if Central America goes Communist. and to ask that town and that county to hold a public meeting this summer to discuss how it is going to deal with the refugees. Based on the flow of refugees from Cuba. Cambodia. Laos. Vietnam. and Afghanistan. we can expect between 9 and 15 million refugees in the next 5 or 6 years. Towns should be told how many they will probably get. and they should be asked to plan now and think through. how are they going to put the children in school. how are they going to pay for the people. where are they going to find the housing. what are they going to do with the public health facilities. Now is the time for a prudent government to ask the Federal Emergency Management Administration to ask every town and every county to start thinking through the alternative. This is not a costfree vote. Those Members who stood in this House and said they did not want to spend $100 million should go to those town meetings and explain how much Cuban refugees have cost in south Florida. How much Laotian refugees have cost in Clayton County. GA. How much we have spent in southern California on Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees. Let us talk about the real cost of not sending $100 million to help fight freedom. for freedom in Central America. Let us lay it on the line and be honest with the people who are going to pay for it when the refugees start arriving. In addition. this administration needs to upgrade the quality of its strategy. its operations. and its tactics to deal with the transnational Soviet empire and its use of a Cuban colonial army. The simple fact is: We have every power to say to the Soviets diplomatically. we will not tolerate Czechoslovakian airplanes. we will not tolerate any more Hind helicopters. we will insist that you cut it out. and we have methods of stopping you.