Christopher Shays: “Mr. Speaker, I said earlier in part of a special order that former Prime Minister Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel…”

“Mr. Speaker, I said earlier in part of a special order that former Prime Minister Rabin, the Prime Minister of Israel, had said that politicians are elected by adults to represent the children. I am struck by the power of that statement, because really what our task is as Americans, certainly in government, is to leave this country better for the generation that will follow. That is what our forefathers did for us. They founded a country and left it better for us, and we have to leave it better for our children. Mr. Speaker, we have three main objectives in this Republican Congress: This is to seek to get our financial house in order and finally to balance our Federal budget, we are looking to save our trust funds, particularly Medicare, from insolvency, bankruptcy, and we are looking to transform our caretaking, social, corporate, even farming, welfare state into what I would refer to as a caring opportunity society. We are not looking to throw our hands into the air and say, ``Listen, this is not a problem with the government, you're on your own.'' We are looking to help people grow the seeds. We just do not want to keep handing them the food.”