Timothy Roemer: “I yield myself 4 minutes to just reply to some of the questions and comments that have been made. Mr. Chairman…”

“I yield myself 4 minutes to just reply to some of the questions and comments that have been made. Mr. Chairman, certainly this vote is a tough one. It is a tough one to eliminate the space station because people think that they do not want to make any votes in this body to move toward a balanced budget. There are some Democrats here in the House of Representatives that do not want to vote to cut anything. There are some Republicans in this body that will vote to cut everything but defense and the space station. We here, a bipartisan group, have come together and tried to put together an amendment based upon science and merit and the taxpayers' interests. Now, this question is asked over and over and over, why do we keep doing this? Why do we keep making us go through this ritual every year of voting on the space station? It is because groups like the National Taxpayers Union support this amendment; Citizens Against Government Waste support this amendment; Citizens for a Sound Economy support this amendment; Taxpayers for Common Sense; the Concord Coalition. A bipartisan group of people dedicated to balancing the budget support this amendment. This is not a bunch of Members of Congress running around trying to devise some way of balancing the budget on their own and taking away a vital project to the United States' research interests. These are grass roots organizations that feel that we should not be building this.”