C. W. Bill Young: “Mr. Speaker, motions to instruct are usually a very strong tool of the minority party, and the reason I know that is…”

“Mr. Speaker, motions to instruct are usually a very strong tool of the minority party, and the reason I know that is because we were in the minority for a lot of years. As a matter of fact, one party controlled the House of Representatives for 40 years without a break. During that time, the minority party, our party, used a lot of motions to instruct. Most of these never passed, because the majority party has to manage and has to function and pass bills. So motions to instruct, although they are not binding, still seem to carry weight in the conference meeting. We need to move this conference quickly. After lengthy debate in the House on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of last week, and for nearly 2 weeks in the Senate, a lot of debate on amendments took place. Some amendments were agreed to; some amendments were adopted, and some were defeated. Two of the amendments we dealt with seriously through most of the debate had to do with loans to Iraq. As we all know, the House spoke rather emphatically that loans are not the way we were going to proceed. One problem is there is no government in Iraq to whom we would make a loan. Our own laws require that there be a government established before we can make a loan to a country. But what we are dealing with primarily, is to finish the job that was started in Iraq; and, when we finish the job, that means bringing our troops home.”