Political Quotes

“I too rise in support of the rule. It is not all that I would like in the sense that it does waive the Budget Act in regard to section 401(b)(1). But as has been indicated, that is a technical objection. Yes, but it is a real problem, waiving pay-go for an entitlement program, because part of the deep problems of the Black Lung Benefits Act is indeed the fact that the trust fund, which represents all of those owners who cannot be found and who have to react to a workman's compensation claim from the miners of America who are suffering from black lung disease, that black lung fund is $4 billion in debt and has been bailed out by the taxpayers once before by waiving all interest for several years. That is a deep, deep problem which we will be discussing later. So I would have hoped that we would have faced that before bringing this to the floor, and at least be able to take the roughly $200 million of added expense on the black lung fund and at least cut in other areas under the domain of Committee on Education and Labor, so that there will be no threat upon the various allocations which the committee has already set forth for the fiscal year 1995.”