Jane Harman: “I rise in support of both fiscal restraint and a strong defense, but against the Kasich motion to instruct conferees on…”

“I rise in support of both fiscal restraint and a strong defense, but against the Kasich motion to instruct conferees on the budget resolution. My reason is simple: I cannot support 26 billion dollars' worth of uncertainty. I voted for the $90-billion package of cuts in the Penny-Kasich amendment to the reinventing Government bill last fall. I supported the historic 5-year budget plan initiated by the President that was predicted to cut the deficit by almost $500 billion and is now performing better than anyone expected. I also supported the House version of the fiscal year 1995 budget resolution which, by its terms, will take us $53 billion below the fiscal year 1994 deficit. I supported these measures because their spending cuts were enumerated. In contrast, the Exon-Grassley proposal adopted in the Senate is anything but; 26 billion dollars' worth of discretionary cuts could have been distributed among the various functions of the Senate budget resolution, but that is not what happened. I support that portion of the motion offered by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Kasich] which attempts to provide some order to the decisions regarding defense spending and its impact on our industrial base, which is critical to the economy of my district, but I cannot support the motion as a whole because its protections are nonbinding and it does nothing to add certainty to the Senate action it endorses.”