Christopher Shays: “Mr. Chairman, it is amazing how all we can talk about is the budget in 1981. This is 1999, and I just remind some of my…”

“Mr. Chairman, it is amazing how all we can talk about is the budget in 1981. This is 1999, and I just remind some of my colleagues that the budget since 1981 was controlled by a Democrat House and a Democrat Senate that refused to cut spending. The difference, as I answer my colleagues, is this is a Republican Congress that has brought fiscal discipline to the process. In fact, the Democrats are running as fast as they can away from the President's budget that he submitted this year. The Senate voted down yesterday by a vote of 97 to 2 the President's own budget. Why can they not even support the President's own budget? And by a vote of 99 to nothing, 99 to 0, could not even get one person to vote, the Senate rejected the President's proposal for the government to invest Social Security funds into the stock market. Over the past 4 years, Mr. Chairman, the Republican Congress has worked very hard to balance the budget; the President took credit for it. Cap federal spending; the President took credit for it. Provide much needed tax relief to American families; the President took credit for it. The Republican budget plan for the year 2000 continues this shift to restore a solid American common sense to American government. Now American families know how to balance their checkbooks, and they know how to stay within a budget.”