Ron Lewis: “With all due respect, why now are we hearing from the other side that we need to focus on the balanced budget, get a…”

“With all due respect, why now are we hearing from the other side that we need to focus on the balanced budget, get a continuing resolution, move away from the government shutdown, when we did not hear anything from the other side about a balanced budget until just recently this last year? What we heard from the very beginning of the 104th Congress was a lot of rhetoric, a lot of words like ``extremists,'' ``mean-spirited,'' that we were ``cutting,'' ``slashing,'' going to ``destroy Medicare,'' we were going to ``starve children to death.'' I did not hear any proposals from the other side about a balanced budget, about saving Medicare, about reforming welfare, about all the things that now we seem to want to focus on. Just this very evening, I sat up here in the House and listened to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] say that we disliked Federal workers and even the military. I heard a lot of individuals talking about how extreme and how terrible we really are because we want a balanced budget. The question I have tonight: How can we trust, how can we trust the President when he has told us so many times that he is going to do this, and he is going to do that, and he does not follow through? How can we trust individuals that want to use that type of rhetoric and not get to a real debate, and then talk about how that we should keep our words and our conduct within the parameters of civility?”