Ron Lewis: “Well many of the same things that you have been hearing. My constituents are saying, ``We are not concerned that you're…”

“Well many of the same things that you have been hearing. My constituents are saying, ``We are not concerned that you're going too far. We just don't want you to not go far enough.'' And they want a balanced budget. They want to see a future for their children and their grandchildren, and I have told them that I believe with all my heart that the 104th Congress is totally committed to balancing the budget. One thing that they said that they would like to see come out of the Senate would be the balanced budget amendment that will insure that future Congresses will be committed just as much as the 104th to a balanced budget, that they would have to be. I think that is an extremely important thing because, if we go to the trouble of balancing the budget and doing those things that we have to do in order to do that, I would hate to see a future Congress come along and start running up a tremendous debt again. But across-the-board I saw a lot of positive responses to what Congress has done already; as you mentioned, the Contract With America, that we kept our promises now that we are moving forward with doing exactly what we said we would do in balancing the budget. I talked to my constituents about the problem with Medicare, that it would go broke in 7 years unless we do something about it, and they understood that.…”