Dan Burton: “I came down here tonight to talk about the Whitewater-Vince Foster-Arkansas Development Financial Authority debacle and…”

“I came down here tonight to talk about the Whitewater-Vince Foster-Arkansas Development Financial Authority debacle and how it pertains to the Clinton administration and in particular, to Bill and Hillary Clinton, the President and the First Lady. But before I do that, I feel compelled to respond a little bit to my Democratic colleagues who have been down here maligning the new Republican leadership about our economic policies and how we are going to deal with the financial problems of this country over the next 5 to 10 years. First of all, let me say that we have been in power about a week to 10 days. You cannot expect everything to be accomplished in the first 10 days. After all, the Contract With America which we promised the American people before the election we will deal with is going to take a hundred days, and for us to do everything the Democrats are talking about today on the floor is virtually impossible. It is going to take a little bit of time to illuminate the American people as to where the cuts are going to take place and how extensive they will be. Now, it is true that we are going to have to reduce over the next 5 to 6 to 7 years the cost of Government by about $1 trillion to $1 rac{1}{2} rillion. That is doable, although my Democratic colleagues would lead us to believe it cannot be done without a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth. We have a lot of Government agencies that can be done away with.…”