Katie Porter: “Mr. Speaker, let me say that the chairman has done yeoman work on this bill. If a person could live one day in his…”

“Mr. Speaker, let me say that the chairman has done yeoman work on this bill. If a person could live one day in his shoes, they would understand how hard Members of this body work to carry out the responsibilities of their office. The chairman has done an absolutely marvelous job. Under the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies portion of the bill, we began with spending for fiscal year 1995 of $70 billion in discretionary funds. We cut $28 billion in the rescission package last year and we cut an additional $2.6 billion in this package, for a total overall reduction of about $5.4 billion. This reduction represents an 8-percent reduction from the previous year. That amount is less, Mr. Speaker, than the reduction in the original House passed version of H.R. 2127 which cut spending by 13 percent. This conference report, however, still represents one-quarter of all the savings in the nondefense discretionary accounts. My section of the bill terminates 110 programs from the fiscal 1995 appropriation, not the 170 programs that the House passed version of H.R. 2127 terminated. Yet this conference report represents a substantial down payment on the elimination of wasteful, unnecessary, and high overhead programs.”